Assembly—and patience—required

It probably won't surprise you, but when they assemble Ikea bookshelves, cabinets, bedroom furniture, and the like, men tend to plunge headlong into the project and end up having more problems putting together the Swedish retailer's products than women do, according to a company official.

"Men never look at the directions and have the most problems with construction because they always think they can do that," said Petra Hesser, the head of Ikea's German unit, in a December 8 report from news agency DPA. Hesser added that women are also more likely to carefully sort the parts and read the directions.

Our past reviews of ready-to-assemble (RTA) home furnishings have found
them generally to be easy to assemble and durable. Ease of assembly, instructions and fit and finish are key to our evaluations of RTA furniture and similar products like kitchen-cabinet and closet and garage organizers.

I spent most of the evening this past Sunday assembling an Ikea table and two chairs. Perhaps because my wife and our 4-year-old-daughter were involved, I read all the instructions—pictorial diagrams intended to be universally decipherable—but the process was still not as easy as it looked. After you read my story, post a comment below detailing your experiences, good or bad, putting together RTA products.

I've had mixed results with RTA from different companies. One time, a cabinet included shelf fasteners with burrs of metal sticking out from the edges. I had to file them smooth before reinserting them into their slots. (Note that my recent Ikea experience does not reflect Consumer Reports' testing or analysis.)

• The instructions (shown above) indicated that we needed two screwdrivers and an adjustable wrench.  My adjustable wrench could not fit in the table's tight corners, so I had to get my box-end wrench set. While I was gone, my daughter was able to tighten the nuts nearly all the way since her fingers are so small. Tools like box-end wrenches or deep sockets can make the assembly process easier in some cases.

• The front and rear legs of the chair had to be fastened with a hex-head bolt. The directions didn't indicate if the crosspieces had to be installed facing in any particular direction (shown right), and the predrilled holes on them didn't line up with the holes in the chair seat. I lost a few minutes taking apart the chair legs and reinstalling them so the holes lined up.

I'll admit that male stubbornness could "en-gender" mistakes or delays, but unclear instructions can also make the simplest jobs a challenge for anyone.

My daughter loves her new table and chairs, and they cost less than assembled furniture. Still, RTA-furniture makers should try to simplify assembly wherever possible.—Gian Trotta

Essential information: Read "Tools: 10 Essentials for Every Household" so you've got all the gear you need to assemble holiday gifts. Also check out our coverage of household glues and cordless drills, tool kits, and screwdrivers.

CPSC announces entertainment center recall

Following the death of a 19-month-old child who was killed when an entertainment center collapsed on her, the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on December 5 announced the recall of about 138,000 entertainment centers sold by Ameriwood Industries under the Ridgewood/Charleswood brand.

The $200 unit (shown), which carries model number 93956, was sold at mass merchandisers nationwide, including Kmart, from June 2000 through May 2005.

Read the details of this recall in our Safety blog and find out what to do if you own one of the recalled units.

As this video from our March 2006 safety alert shows, unstable furniture can pose a real risk, and tip-overs often occur because consumers are not taking necessary safety precautions at home. Here's what you can do to prevent a dangerous, even fatal, accident:
• Ensure that the furniture on or in which you place your TVs is stable. Do not place TVs on dressers, chests, or other types of furniture with drawers that young children can pull out and use to climb.
• Place your TV as far back as possible on or in the furniture--tip-over is more likely if the set is too far forward.
• Do not store items on top of the TV that will grab a child's attention--a small kid might try to climb on a piece of furniture in an effort to get the remote. "The predictable thing about kids is that they are unpredictable," says Julie Vallese, director of public affairs for the CPSC. She adds that parents should never assume that their children who tend not to be "climbers" won't use the drawers in a dresser as a stepladder, for example.
• Keep all cables and wires behind the TV or furniture. This way, no one will trip over them and potentially pull over the TV or furniture.
• Anchor any potentially unstable furniture more than 30 inches tall to the wall or floor with straps or other restraints. And keep heavy objects off of dressers.
• Look for TV carts and stands that meet Underwriters Laboratories (UL) standards.

Prevent television tip-overs

The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission on July 25, 2007, announced the recall of about 414,000 Sauder Woodworking television stands (shown). Read more on the recall in the Consumer Reports On Safety Blog.

While this recall was based on the collapsing hazard of the Sauder stands and not on the risk of a furniture tip-over, it highlights the potential danger many television stands pose.

As the video from our March 2006 safety alert shows, unstable furniture can pose a real risk, and tip-overs often occur because consumers are not taking necessary safety precautions at home. Here's what you can do to prevent a dangerous, even fatal, accident:
• Ensure that the furniture on or in which you place your TVs is stable. Do not place TVs on dressers, chests, or other types of furniture with drawers that young children can pull out and use to climb.
• Place your TV as far back as possible on or in the furniture--tip-over is more likely if the set is too far forward.
• Do not store items on top of the TV that will grab a child's attention--a small kid might try to climb on a piece of furniture in an effort to get the remote. "The predictable thing about kids is that they are unpredictable," says Julie Vallese, director of public affairs for the CPSC. She adds that parents should never assume that their children who tend not to be "climbers" won't use the drawers in a dresser as a stepladder, for example.
• Keep all cables and wires behind the TV or furniture. This way, no one will trip over them and potentially pull over the TV or furniture.
• Anchor any potentially unstable furniture more than 30 inches tall to the wall or floor with straps or other restraints. And keep heavy objects off of dressers.
• Look for TV carts and stands that meet Underwriters Laboratories (UL) standards.—Steven H. Saltzman

Essential information: To learn how to stay on top of the latest recalls, see “CPSC steps out with million-consumer march,” and subscribe to the Consumer Reports On Safety blog for in-depth news on important product-safety issues.

Furniture-warranty company Stainsafe has plenty of blemishes on its record

Extended warranties can be big moneymakers for retailers. While such warranties are more closely associated with electronics and appliances, they are also a mainstay of the furniture industry. Extended warranties--essentially service contracts that are supposed to cover fabrics and manufacturing defects--are often seen as a sucker's bet because their cost can approach or even outstrip the actual cost of repairs.

One of the major names in furniture extended warranties is Stainsafe, based in Palm Beach Gardens, Florida. Its warranties and fabric-, leather-, and wood-protection products are sold at hundreds of furniture stores nationwide. "We deal with millions of customers," says Anita Mitchell, a Stainsafe spokeswoman. But the company's reputation doesn't match the promises in its warranties. Just ask Carrie Colarusso.

When Colarusso, a 31-year-old x-ray technician from Rocky Hill, Connecticut, bought a sofa and ottoman from a Seaman's Furniture store in February 2004, selling her a $110 five-year extended warranty was easy. She had just gotten two cats, and the salesman "said the warranty was good for all pet stains or tears," recalls Colarusso. "It was perfect for me."

So when one of her cats, suffering from a bladder infection, soiled the sofa last summer, Colarusso figured the warranty would cover the damage. But from the time she first tried to file a claim, she realized getting service would be a problem. What she did not know then was that Stainsafe has a long history of customer dissatisfaction. Colarusso couldn't find out about the status of her claim for weeks and then--after asking the Better Business Bureau in her area to intervene--she finally got her answer.

Claim denied. To date, Colarusso has not resolved the issue.

While it is not clear how many Stainsafe customers have no issue with their warranties or never try to use them at all, the company has frustrated many customers. The difficulties that consumers have experienced with Stainsafe became so acute that the Economic Crimes unit of the Florida Attorney General's Office began an investigation into the company's practices earlier this year. Among the problems the agency said it found was Stainsafe's failure to issue checks in a timely fashion to consumers offered cash settlements and use of language in its warranties that gave the company overly broad discretion to reject claims.

Stainsafe reached an agreement with the Florida attorney general in December. The company admitted no wrongdoing in a document called an Assurance of Voluntary Compliance but agreed to pay the state $300,000. What's more, 574 customers who had been offered settlements but had not been paid for up to 11 months after the offer were issued checks totaling $175,309. The agreement also states that Stainsafe must change its warranty language, shorten the waiting time for settlements to less than 45 days, and give the attorney general full access to its records of dealings with consumers for seven years after the record is made. You can see a copy of the agreement here.

The Better Business Bureau, which rates Stainsafe's conduct as "unsatisfactory" for its failure to respond to or resolve consumers' issues, processed 1,913 complaints against the company in the last three years and 1,004 complaints in the last year, significantly more than its closest competitors. Guardsman generated 330 BBB complaints in the last three years and 126 in the last year; Guardian, 161 and 76; and Ultrashield, 38 and 18. "Obviously, complaints that are not responded to at all are not acceptable," says Al Polizzi, vice president of communications for the BBB of Southeast Florida and the Caribbean. "We don't believe that companies can maintain good businesses by ignoring complaints and ignoring consumers."

The vast majority of customers who file warranty claims with Stainsafe don't lodge complaints, according to Mitchell, who says that the company takes complaints seriously and resolves those it deems legitimate. "There are some people you are never going to satisfy," she says. "They don't read the warranty right. They read what they want to read." The company also is trying to do a better a job of showing the BBB when consumer complaints have been satisfied, Mitchell says.

Consumer Reports recommends against buying an extended warranty for most products (see "Skip the extended warranty," below). But the issue with Stainsafe is not whether it pays to buy a warranty but rather what happens when consumers have a problem product. One provision in the warranty, for example, states that if the damage is not reported within five days, the warranty is void.

Laurie Sheaffer, 35, of Woodbridge, New Jersey, learned the hard way why it's important to read the fine print. Like Colarusso, she didn't need much convincing to buy a warranty when she was shopping for furniture at a Levitz store in January 2004. When the salesman asked her if she had kids, Sheaffer, who had one child and was pregnant, envisioned the damage her kids might someday inflict on the furniture. She paid $380 for five-year warranties for two couches and a loveseat. "He was telling me, anything wrong with the couches, all I have to do is call and get it fixed," Sheaffer says. "It sounded so easy."

With three kids now and a fourth on the way, Sheaffer noticed a hole in her leather sofa in October. She immediately contacted Stainsafe to report the damage, and the customer-service representative asked when it happened. Sheaffer replied that she contacted the company as soon as she saw the hole. But according to Sheaffer, that answer didn't suffice. Customer service insisted on knowing when the leather got punctured, not when Sheaffer saw it.

"I have a five-year warranty," Sheaffer says. "Why should it matter when it happened? Why did I get a warranty? I noticed the hole, and I can't get it fixed."

SKIP THE EXTENDED WARRANTY Consumer Reports believes that extended warranties generally are not worth the expense. Most products don't fail enough to make a warranty a good investment. The warranty for a flat-panel TV, for example, costs about $200 to $400, yet only 3 percent of TVs needed repair during a two-year period, according to our surveys. The average cost of those repairs? About $200. If you are considering buying a warranty, do the following before you pay anything: Negotiate the cost of the warranty. And never buy a warranty that costs more than 20 percent of the purchase price of the item. Determine whether your credit card offers warranty coverage. Why pay twice? Understand the terms. Considering how large some furniture is, ask whether the extended warranty includes in-home repair or pickup. Also find out if there's a lemon clause: After a few repairs, will the product be replaced?