Edit ArticleHow to Fix a Squeaky Desk Chair Two Methods:Oiling Metal PartsFixing Wooden ChairsCommunity Q&A Have you ever been annoyed by the squeak of a chair? Squeaky chairs can be a nuisance to both the person sitting and others in the room. Fortunately, those annoying noises do not mean it is time for a new chair. When a squeaky chair is properly diagnosed, it can be quite simple to fix the problem. Check the nuts, bolts, and screws.Apply a lubricating oil on all of the nuts, screws and bolts to help loosen the joints. Simply spray oil directly on the the chair mechanisms, and pat them dry. You can also spray oil on a soft cotton cloth, and rub the oil onto your problem areas to have more control over where the oil goes. Moisture in the air and air conditioners cause rust. Regularly applying oil prevents rust from occurring and building up. Remove the bolts and screws completely before adding any lubricant. Have a friend sit in the chair as you apply oil.
Fix the springs in the back of the chair. A chair may only squeak when you lean back, which is usually caused by too much tension where the spring's ends rub on the housing ends. To fix this, apply oil to the seat tension spring located inside the turn-knob housing. Simply loosen the seat tension turn-knob and remove the turn-knob to spray oil inside the housing. Roll the chair back and forth to check out the wheels. Inspect the wooden chair for loose legs, screw, or nails. Check how loose the chair legs are, as well as the back of the chair, by pushing and pulling them back and forth to see how much movement they have. There should be virtually no movement. Position the chair you are working on upside down. You can either flip the chair upside down on a table or on another chair so that you can more easily access the problem area. This will also prevent any unwanted pressure on the legs or back of the chair when you are working. Apply glue to loose joints. There are many types of strong wood glue products you can purchase to stabilize loose leg joints.
When you locate a loose joint, push wood glue into the joint and let it dry completely before flipping the chair back over. Wipe away any access glue that comes out of the joint with a wet rag. To create a thicker wood glue consistency, try adding wood filler to the glue. A thicker mixture can better help stabilize wobbly chair legs. Expand the dowels with wood-swelling liquids. For very loose legs that seem to need more than glue, remove the chair leg completely, and use a wood-swelling liquid. Sometimes, dowels can shrink, causing chair parts to become loose. When you apply a wood-swelling liquid to the dowel, it will allow the dowel to once again become secure in the chair. Replace the nails or wooden joint plugs. If the hardware in the chair seem to be loose or no good anymore, you can replace them with new ones. Even if you don't want to remove the existing hardware, you can add reinforcement with more nails or bracket hinges to make the chair sturdy. When putting in more screws, make sure they are long enough to secure the wood, but not long enough to come through the other side of the wood.
You can purchase wood glue, spray lubricant, and silicone spray at most home good and hardware stores. Oiling the chair excessively may be detrimental to its mechanism. It may cause the chair to roll too easily or make the chair unable to retain height adjustments. Be sure to pat dry the areas you apply oil to. This posting has been deleted by its author.One of the things everyone really likes about Costco is their very generous return policy: basically, we’ll take back anything from partially eaten food to a year old DVD that you aren’t satisfied with for any reason. And while they are less generous now on electronics items, just 90 days, that’s still far better (like probably 3x as long) than most retailers. In any case, I’m sure we’ve all taken advantage of their return policy by taking back things we tried and didn’t like or didn’t actually want when we got home, and there’s nothing wrong with that. However, I don’t think you should abuse the very nice Costco policies by taking back things in a totally ridiculous and unintended way.
I have a story that will probably make you go ‘what? that can’t be right!’ because I know both my husband and I did that and we were standing right there witnessing it. We were taking advantage of the nice return policy at Costco this weekend to return the SDHC cards that I had purchased that were so overpriced, as well as a DVD that we had bought and never opened quite some time ago. I felt bad about returning the DVD because even though it had never been opened and still had the Costco price tag on it, I think it was probably purchased 6 – 10 months ago. But you know, the Costco guy just took it back like it was no big deal. So, I felt a little less shame. However, the customer standing next to me returning his items should never get over the shame that I hope he felt; though honestly, it didn’t seem like he had an ounce of shame or guilt about him. (I know that is where I got mine) because they don’t usually have them in the stores. So far, so good.
But then he said he had purchased it sometime in spring 2008; he didn’t have his receipt. That’s a long, long time ago, I was thinking, but maybe it had a problem or maybe he had never used it. But then the story got even more horrible. He wasn’t returning it because the violin was defective, had a serious issue, the case wasn’t even damaged, or even because his daughter (the violin recipient) had never played it. Nope, he was returning this year and some months old violin because his daughter was no longer interested in playing the violin in school and wouldn’t be needing this one anymore. Seriously, I know you’re saying ‘What?’ right now because I am and I was there! So, let me just spell this out very plainly: the girl had been playing this violin for over a year, had decided she no longer wanted to play the violin, so this guy wanted Costco to take it back and give him a full refund on it. And he actually stood there acting like this was the most normal return in the world.
To Costco’s credit, the service representative that was processing his return only asked him once if there was anything wrong with it and didn’t say anything snarky or even get too pushy about his reason for making the return after all this time. I was thinking, doesn’t he know that you can rent musical instruments. But hey, why rent and have to actually pay, when you can essentially put a deposit on an instrument with Costco and get a full refund back when your kid doesn’t want to play it anymore; full use for over a year for free! So, in the end the guy got his full refund on the violin and one would assume, walked away a happy Costco customer. But isn’t this a really dreadful abuse of the Costco return policy? I just have to feel that this was never, ever the Costco intent when coming up with their total satisfaction guarantee. I mean, he was satisfied, or should have been since there was nothing wrong with the violin, the only problem was typical childhood apathy to being in band after a year.
Should Costco have to pay for that? Personally, I would never take something back in that situation. I’d sell it, wouldn’t you? Or more likely, it would sit around my house gathering dust. But the last thing I would consider, is that Costco should take it back and give me a refund. I still feel all wound up about this and I’m not even Costco and it happened 3 days ago. But I can’t let it go. Luckily, I have this blog where I can rant about this kind of Costco stuff. I just find this so appalling and I think it is because I worry that ridiculousness like this guy and his old violin, will ruin it for all of us. I’m sure we all feel that repeated things like this explain what happened with the electronics return policy, since it previously had no time period stipulation either. I don’t want everyone to get stuck with things that they aren’t satisfied with or bought two of by mistake (yes, I do it all the time with books and movies) because of someone totally taking advantage of the system;