Decoding The Upholstery Foams

Getting a new foam for your couch or car decoration can land you in confusion. This is due to the complexity and huge availability of foams.

The purpose of this article is to make you familiar with foam materials that are used on furniture and other items for upholstery. There are different forms of refurbishment foams available out there. Here you will be explained the rating of those different types and their suitability for various applications. Foams cannot be categorised as good or bad. Each one of them is made for a different purpose.

A foam must be replaced if it is older than 10 years, or if it is beginning to give a rounded front edge on the seat. In the present day, foam has significantly improved to suit its modern age applications. The different variants come with different densities to match specific needs. They are usually rated after being passed various performance tests.

The rounded front edge of a foam occurs because a person creates more pressure on the front than on the rest of the chair or cushion. Some upholsterers can fix the problem with their steamers but that is only a temporary solution. Another reason for a rounded edge of a foam is the material being unsuitable for seating purposes.

There are three types of performance tests conducted on a foam to understand the quality — High Resilient, Density and Indentation Load Deflection (ILD).

High Resilient — When you go to an expert of upholstery in Sydney, you will notice that some of their products are rated as HR. It means that these foams are made to offer a longer durability. HR foams are also rated as FR which means Fire Resistant.

Density — The density of a foam ranges from 18 to 35. To make you more educated, it should be mentioned that there is actually a decimal between the two numbers.

 For example, if you see a foam whose density is rated as 18 it means it is actually 1.8. The production is made from urethane and air. The more urethane the product contains, the higher its density would be. If a foam’s density is 18 it means the foam contains 1.8 pounds of urethane in every cubic foot.

ILD — It is the measurement of pressure of a foam when it is compressed to 25% of its thickness. For example, if the foam is 4 inches thick and it has an ILD rating of 33, it means the foam requires 33 pounds of pressure to get condensed to 3 inches.

Familiarising yourself with these components will make you a smart buyer and help you to ensure the perfect usage of a foam.

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