WUT?!? "The Sturdy Act"

[smorgasbord]

"In the United States, there is the STURDY act that mandates dressers must not tip over if a toddler opens all drawers and climbs up the front."

I'm wondering if this is affecting small, custom furniture shops.

Here in California, anchoring to the wall is a thing. Earthquakes, you know.

 

[Michael Kellough]

Not quite illegal to sell.

It is illegal to make things that can tip over without providing a means to secure them to the wall.

It is legal to sell old stock that does not have the anti-tip provisions.

 

[smorgasbord]

It is illegal to make things that can tip over without providing a means to secure them to the wall.

Wait, so all a "manufacturer" needs to do is include a wall anchor strap and instructions? That's not what I'm reading/seeing.

Another video from a manufacturer:

 

[Mini Me]

This is fairly old news, maybe four or five years old.

 

[Michael Kellough]

What I thought I knew about this is too old or simplistic. IKEA for example used to supply anchor kits to secure the top of their dressers to the wall, but using it was up to the customer. Now it sounds like if the kit (must be more than it used to be) is not used you won’t be able to open a drawer.

Here is what] IKEA says about their current units.

“Our safety feature Anchor and unlock enhances the safety of your chest of drawers by significantly reducing, but not completely eliminating, the tip-over risk.

The safety feature means that the chest of drawers must be anchored to the wall in order to open more than one drawer at a time, which creates a safer environment at home.

By anchoring the chest of drawer to the wall, you unlock the safety feature and can open all the drawers simultaneously when needed.”

 

[Packard]

At an office where I used to work, we had one office worker who would pull out multiple drawers from our tall filing cabinets and they would tumble over and nearly crush her.  We had our tool and die shop rig brackets to prevent them from toppling.

They did this by ganging all the cabinets together.  There was always the risk that she would topple all the cabinets at once (there were about 12 lined against a wall).

When we added new tall cabinets, she was frustrated as the mechanism required that an open drawer be closed before another drawer was opened.  (They were all 4 drawers high.)

The only way to correct her habit was to either replace all the cabinets or (as it turned out) during the Pandemic, she was let go. 

I have not heard any news of her being crushed to death under a heap of filing cabinets, so maybe someone cured her of that habit (but more likely, they have the newer design that prohibits the practice of opening more than one drawer at a time. 

I thought that the law just required that cabinets be tied to the wall to prevent tipping. 

Addendum:  This is no laughing matter…
https://www.nationwidechildrens.org...njury-topics/home-safety/furniture-tip-overs#

Furniture Tip-over Facts

In 2019, 11,521 children visited the emergency department for injuries from furniture or TV tip-overs. That’s one child every 46 minutes.

Furniture and TV tip-overs cause the most injuries for children younger than 6 years of age, with a peak at 2 years old. Young children are most likely to suffer concussion and closed head injuries.

Desks, cabinets and bookshelves tipping over lead to the greatest number of injuries to children ages 10-17 years. These older children usually suffer lower body injuries.

 

[ChuckM]

https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/newsroom...-new-tip-over-safety-innovation-pub52afe280/#:~:text=The%20Anchor%20and%20Unlock%20feature,be%20used%20at%20a%20time.

Doing what Volvo once did. IKEA deserves a shout-out here.
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[Packard]

https://www.ikea.com/ca/en/newsroom...-new-tip-over-safety-innovation-pub52afe280/#:~:text=The%20Anchor%20and%20Unlock%20feature,be%20used%20at%20a%20time.

Doing what Volvo once did. IKEA deserves a shout-out here.

I’ll bet that many IKEA customers will do a workaround and figure a way to pull the wall cable without attaching it to the wall.  This bypassing any safety efforts.

(I have not seen the mechanism, but it is likely a cable that is attached to the wall.  It would be a simple matter to pull out the cable and attach it to the rear of the cabinet, thus bypassing IKEA’s clever an noble efforts.)

 

[smorgasbord]

This is fairly old news, maybe four or five years old.

Signed into law 2 years ago, effective from Sept last year.

How has this affected small furniture makers, especially those doing custom one-offs?

Have they pulled Norm’s and other videos on building tall chests with wooden drawer runners, etc.? 
EDIT: Apparently not pulled:

 

[smorgasbord]

Addendum:  This is no laughing matter…

The Act's wording claims there are about 34 deaths per year in the US. Sad, but hardly numbers sufficient to justify the cost and downsides to this law, IMO (especially considering the population of children is in the multiple millions).

This isn't some hidden danger, like pesticides in food we buy or chemicals in clothing (ironically, chemicals are mandated in baby clothing made from natural materials like cotton). It's something that should be obvious to any parent.

Where I live there's a story from about a 100 years ago of some kids playing in a young tree in a school yard. They found they could climb it and then overload a branch with multiple kids to get it to bend down to the ground, where they'd all jump off at the same time. Except one day one kid didn't jump off and he got swung up and over into the air and died a few days later from head injuries. Are they going to ban young trees from playgrounds, and if so, how are we going to get older trees in there, or do we not have trees where kids can play?

The proper thing is education on the dangers and correct supervision of children - not putting children into bubble wrap so that they develop a sense of immortality that will eventually hurt them later in life. We can't ban assault weapons, but we can ban simple dressers?

Sorry for the soapbox.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

Regardless of anyone's position on this, either way, they cannot make it retroactive. At least in the US, it could only ever apply to items made after the date of implementation and likely only to the manufacturer. It would need to be made with the ability, built right into the item, but it would be up to the consumer to actually implement it. That kind of thing is far more difficult to regulate.
The choice to heed the information/warnings is based on everyone's risk tolerance.

Do you really take the battery out of your drill to change bits?  I bet the handbook tells us too.

 

[smorgasbord]

It would need to be made with the ability, built right into the item, but it would be up to the consumer to actually implement it.

The law is quite explicit that the item needs to pass the tip-over tests without anything special done by the consumer. So, attaching to walls is great, but the test is done with them not attached to walls.

It seems the following are done, sometimes alone, sometimes in combination to make items pass:

1) Drawer interlocks so only one drawer can open at a time.
2) Drawers aren't the full depth to make room for heavy weights in the back
3) Drawers don't open all the way since that increase leverage with the weight
4) Front feet are not only not recessed (no toe kicks!), they sometimes stick forward a bit

You could also restrict the height of the dresser.

I note that Thos Moser Cabinetmakers still advertises metal-free slides, so perhaps they don't have the interlocks?https://www.thosmoser.com/product/crescent-six-drawer-bureau/

I also wonder what Mira Nakashima is doing with her tall dressers these days.

I suspect they're doing the not full-depth drawers with weights since they don't want metal hardware in their $10K and up items.

 

[peter halle]

I have had numerous IKEA products that were affected.  Did I implement the retroactive safety measures?  Nope.  I also played renegade when I didn't install the similar anchor brackets now necessary for slide in ranges to prevent tipping if a child were to open the door and then stand on that to try and get to the countertop.  If I sell my house the required bracket and disclaimer will be there for the buyer.

As a kid I never even thought about climbing on a dresser or a range door.  I wonder if I was missing out on something?

But more on topic, I wonder how many of the woodworkers and furniture designers we see videos about on YouTube even have explored the specific insurance policies required for furniture to protect themselves, let alone purchased it.

Peter

 

[Packard]

As a kid, we had a dog that somehow understood risky behavior.

I shared a bedroom with my younger brother.  We had low dressers and bookshelves resting on the dressers.  There was small wood brackets to the rear of the bookshelves that kept the shelving unit aligned with the low dresser. 

My brother was 6 or 7 and he wanted to get something down from the bookshelves.  He climbed up on low dresser and that was when Taffy started barking like crazy.  It was not her regular bark—it was something-is-very-wrong bark.  My mother and I ran to the bedroom and my mom pulled my brother off the dresser. 

If there were a safety rule, we probably could have gotten the Taffy Safety Exemption.[big grin]

Taffy was also the reason why Mom never felt a need for open-architecture-so-she-could-see-the-kids.  We (kids) had 24/7 supervised play.

(For the life of me, I have no idea how that dog knew what was unacceptable behavior.  She always intervened.)

 

[Vondawg]

[member=77266]smorgasbord[/member] no problem with the soapbox rant we just live in the nannystate(s) nowadays
million$ are spent on telling people things that they should know….common scents

 

[Packard]

When seatbelt wearing became the law of the land, my uncle steadfastly refused to buckle up.

He knew is was safer.

He said that they were not uncomfortable to use—he wore them in air travel.

He made it a principle; It was his life, and he made his own decisions on safety and risk.

Not too many people making seatbelts their last stand anymore. 

I think that the Sturdy Act will find that furniture designed and built before it was enacted, will be exempted, much like older cars do not have to comply with exhaust regulations that were enacted after they were produced.

 

[smorgasbord]

I think that the Sturdy Act will find that furniture designed and built before it was enacted, will be exempted, much like older cars do not have to comply with exhaust regulations that were enacted after they were produced.

Yes, the enforcement is from date of manufacture, so factories that stamp that date on their furniture can even sell it today if was built before Sept 2023.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I think that the Sturdy Act will find that furniture designed and built before it was enacted, will be exempted, much like older cars do not have to comply with exhaust regulations that were enacted after they were produced.

Seatbelts fall into that same "exception".  Cars built before 1968 were not required to have them, though many did, because the writing was already on the wall. Though the law to actually use them was years down the road too. The funny thing is that those original units were "lap belts", which would be considered dangerous today, especially since that was many years before air bags.

The annoying part is the many police departments make exceptions for officers.....despite the fact that car crashes (on duty) are the leading cause of death for them. By far
Once again, implementation

 

[Packard]

I had a Chevy station wagon the year they put the seatbelt interlock law into effect.  The manufacturers had to put a weight activated electrical switch in all the car seats.

If someone was sitting on a seat, then the seatbelt retractor had to be extended in order to start the car.

My seatbelt got twisted and would not retract.  And when it would not retract all the way, it could not extend.

I had to have my car towed to a Chevy dealer, who bypassed the seat switch.  A month later they rescinded that law.

 

[Crazyraceguy]

I had a Chevy station wagon the year they put the seatbelt interlock law into effect.  The manufacturers had to put a weight activated electrical switch in all the car seats.

If someone was sitting on a seat, then the seatbelt retractor had to be extended in order to start the car.

My seatbelt got twisted and would not retract.  And when it would not retract all the way, it could not extend.

I had to have my car towed to a Chevy dealer, who bypassed the seat switch.  A month later they rescinded that law.

Those "occupancy switches" are still around, they just don't function quite so harshly. Most of them are just connected to the seat belt warning light/buzzer. My truck does it when I put enough Systainers on the passenger seat. I end up having to belt them in to shut it up.
Some of them might also activate/de-activate passenger air-bags?