Felt Gliders, Furniture Gliders And Chair Gliders Protect The Ears And The Floor

How life goes You want to get a really long sleep on Sundays, but other rooms are already busy.

The noises made by family and friends at breakfast are not that bad, often rather pleasant and cozy, but the constant moving of chairs can get on your nerves.

Moving chairs on the floor can sometimes make loud and very unpleasant noises. Everyone knows this kind of noise.

The well-deserved rest is quickly over and you usually don’t even have to think about sleeping, at least not without earplugs .

But the backs of chairs are not only noisy, they can also damage concentration and be very annoying when working.

But it doesn’t have to be. Because it is actually very easy to avoid precisely such background noise, or at least to reduce this noise considerably.

The magic words here are chair gliders , furniture gliders and felt gliders.

What are felt pads?

Furniture gliders, chair gliders and felt gliders are small coasters that are attached to the underside of chairs and furniture. This protects sensitive floors from scratches and marks caused by moving the furniture.

In addition, such gliders can help to reduce the noise when the chair is moved and thus ensure a quieter environment.

From our point of view, the most notable chair glider advantages are:

An interesting starter felt glider set, which consists of 275 self-adhesive felt gliders of different sizes and shapes, is the following set:

Chair glides and furniture glides made of different materials

Such chair gliders are made of different materials. There are furniture glides made of felt, furniture glides made of Teflon, furniture glides made of plastic and furniture glides made of fibers.

But which material should you choose? Well, let’s take a closer look at the different materials.

Basically, one could say that felt gliders are preferably used on smooth floor coverings such as parquet or laminate, while gliders without felt are mainly used on carpets and other dull floors. But not only.

Furniture glides made of PTFE

Furniture gliders made of PTFE (also known as Teflon) are quite all-rounders. Such gliders are suitable for carpeting, PVC, stone floors, tiles, cork, laminate and wooden floorboards.

Furniture glides made of felt

Felt gliders are suitable for floors that are not dull such as parquet, laminate, wooden floorboards, stone floors, tiles, cork and PVC.

Furniture glides made of plastic

Plastic gliders are primarily suitable for use on stone floors, tiles, concrete, cork and carpeting. It should be noted that there are furniture glides made of different types of plastic.

Furniture glides with fibers

Furniture gliders made from a material made of robust fibers are suitable for almost all smooth floor coverings such as parquet floors, floorboards and laminate. You can get a good impression of this type of glider from this offer on Amazon * .

Furniture glides of metal

Furniture glides made of metal and stainless steel are usually suitable for use on carpeting and cork.

Basically, however, you should pay attention to the manufacturer’s information on the recommended floor coverings of the respective gliders before buying to be on the safe side.

How do felt pads hold?

How do felt gliders actually hold on the chair leg? Well, that’s a fair question, isn’t it? The fact is that there are different types of attachment.

Chair gliders can be glued, screwed, nailed and even clamped to the chair legs.

Let’s take a closer look at the advantages and disadvantages of the individual mounting options.

Felt gliders for gluing

The easiest and fastest way to attach felt pads to the underside of the chair legs is to glue them.

There are also plenty of self-adhesive felt pads with a prefabricated adhesive surface. To fix it, the film simply has to be pulled from the adhesive surface and the gliders can be glued to the underside of the chair legs.

However, if the chairs are moved a lot, then – depending on the model – the glides may come off the chair leg prematurely.

Felt gliders for screwing

Another common type of fastening is screwing. Such felt gliders are usually constructed in such a way that the felt sits on a frame made of metal or plastic, at the other end of which a screw is attached.

Felt gliders for screwing are also quick to install, although it can sometimes be necessary to pre-drill the wood a little.

Felt gliders attached in this way often last longer than glued models.

However, there can be a downer in this variant too. Namely when the felt wears out over time and the socket of the glider touches the ground. This can quickly cause unsightly scratches in the floor. This is exactly what they wanted to avoid.

That’s why you should pay attention to good quality when buying and read the customer reviews of the respective models. Often you will find the first indications of durability and quality there.

Felt gliders for nailing

In addition to chair gliders for screwing, there are also felt gliders for nailing, such as this large set on Amazon * . Here, too, it is easy to fix it with a hammer, although it can still happen that it is necessary to pre-drill slightly.

The construction of this glider is very similar to that with a screw. In these models, too, the felt sits on a frame. Therefore it can of course happen that the socket touches the floor at some point when the felt has already worn off a lot. Even then, there would be a risk of scratches.

In order to avoid scratches in the floor, it is therefore advisable to check the chair glides regularly. So you can quickly see whether the felt of a glider has already worn excessively.

If that is the case, you should react quickly and simply replace the gliders with new ones.

Felt gliders for cantilever chairs

But what should you do with some people if the chairs don’t have wooden legs, but are cantilever or designer chairs with round tubes?

That is also no problem. Because there are special felt glides for cantilever chairs that are simply clamped under the round tube, such as these here at Amazon * .

But there are also transparent chair glides for round tube cantilever chairs made of PTFE like this one here at Amazon * .

How long do felt pads last?

How long do felt pads last? Several years, many months or just a few weeks? Many customers should ask themselves this legitimate question before buying such gliders.

Because if you knew that before buying, you could possibly put a few more sliders in the shopping cart in order to have replacements ready as soon as the mounted sliders are worn out.

But in fact one cannot answer this question reliably. Because the durability depends essentially on the quality of the glider, the material of the glider, the floor covering and the use.

The flooring is crucial

If you use the felt gliders on a very smooth and well-cared for floor, such as a parquet or laminate floor, the small gliders will last longer than on a very rough floor.

Beautiful old wooden floors sometimes have wide joints between the planks and sometimes you can even find nail heads sticking out. If a chair with felt glides is regularly moved over such a floor, premature wear is almost inevitable.

It should also be clear that felt pads last longer on chairs that are only slightly moved and stressed than on chairs that are exposed to high stress and a lot of movement.

What loads are the gliders exposed to?

Sometimes you have these one or two chairs at a dining table that are only used when guests come to visit. Opposed to this are the favorite chairs that are used and moved almost every day.

If you look at the felt pads on these chairs after a certain period of use, you can often see a difference.

And then of course there are also differences in the quality of felt gliders. Some simply last longer than others.

So we see that there is no general answer to the question of how long felt gliders last. It is only important that you check the gliders at regular intervals to check whether they are still fulfilling their intended purpose or are already very badly worn.

Felt glider test

Now, of course, you can ask yourself the question: which felt pads are the best? To answer this question, customers often look for reviews.

 

That is why we looked around the website of the Stiftung Warentest for a felt glider test and a chair glider test. However, at the time of this writing, we did not find such a test.

At this point in time we only found two hits for the keyword “furniture glides”. However, these do not refer to a furniture glider test, but each refer to a book on the subject of repairs.

However, we didn’t really expect to find anything there with this topic.

Chair socks and chair leg socks as an alternative to felt pads

So-called chair socks or chair leg socks can also be used as an alternative to chair gliders. Chair socks can also be used to protect the floor from scratches and at the same time reduce noise.

Many chair socks look very similar to normal socks for the feet and are simply put over the individual chair legs. This is very easy and can be done in no time. Tools are usually not required for this.

Such chair leg socks are also available in different colors and even with motifs. That looks funny and can set certain accents.

The material used is often wool, cotton, felt and / or elastane.

But there are also more or less ball-shaped chair leg socks made of rubber, which are then covered with a layer of wool. Such designs often look a bit more subtle on the chair legs.

These socks are usually cheap to buy and usually come in sets with several parts, such as these here on Amazon * .

Such chair leg socks are not for everyone, because they are always visible. You either like them or you don’t like them.

Be considerate of your neighbors with chair gliders

Loudly moving chairs is not only very annoying in your own four walls. Even one floor below and next door, these noises can usually still be heard well and are certainly not met with unlimited enthusiasm there.

However, when it comes to soundproofing in apartment buildings, a certain sensitivity and consideration is always required. The best sound insulation of the wall to the neighbor can usually not achieve much if noise is produced there unrestrained and completely without consideration.

It can therefore not hurt to set a good example and to protect the ears and nerves of the neighbors.

Chair gliders are an inexpensive and very easy to use method to achieve just that.

According to the motto:

What you don’t want someone to do to you, don’t do it to anyone else!

In addition to chair gliders, quiet slippers can also contribute to this goal.

Furniture glides not only for chairs

Furniture glides are often only associated with chairs. However, it sometimes makes sense to equip other pieces of furniture with furniture glides. For example, tables and other pieces of furniture that are often moved.

For example, we have equipped our large dining table with furniture glides, as it is sometimes moved back and forth on the old wooden floor.

Because good surface protection simply contributes to the preservation of floors and furniture. In addition, furniture can be moved more easily with furniture glides.

Chair glides for meeting rooms and conference rooms

Office chairs with castors are mostly used in offices. Such chairs are often moved, but of course the rollers do not require any additional glides.

However, it can look different in large meeting, conference and event rooms. There you can often find seating without castors.

But: In such rooms, the greatest possible peace is of course essential.

At an event, one listens to a lecture with great tension and concentration, but is constantly disturbed by the back of chairs in the audience. Restlessness arises and concentration suffers.

Many people are probably familiar with such a situation.

In addition to many other measures for soundproofing, it can also be important in such event rooms to pay attention to high-quality chair glides for industry.

Conclusion

Little effort, big effect. This is the best way to describe chair gliders. Because these little helpers can actually help to protect the floor and also to reduce noise.

These gliders can be installed quickly and are relatively cheap to buy.

What more could you want?