We all care about Safety, especially when it comes to our family! The most common concerns with Furniture Safety around the house are:

• Furniture Tips - such as drawers or bookcases falling on children if they are climbed
• Bumps - When children fall against items, such as a coffee table with a sharp edge
• Falls - When a child falls from a height, such as a Bunk Bed
• Access - this refers to such things as opening drawers and doors where we might not necessarily want them to because of harmful or breakable items

Furniture Tips

The main concern with furniture Safety is tips and falls that can cause very harmful injuries. In Australia there is no standard when it comes to Furniture Safety in and around the home for the general public, but suppliers do have regulations that they have to adhere too.

A new mandatory information standard was introduced on 3 May 2024. After a 12-month transition period, the standard came into effect on the 4th May 2025 and the standard aims to reduce the risk of death and injury from toppling furniture. The following are a brief outline of their obligations:

• Attach permanent warning labels to furniture
• Display point of sale warnings, both instore and online
• Include information about the risk of toppling furniture in any instruction manuals provided with the furniture

In general, this applies to any furniture that exceeds 686mm in height or any Tv/Entertainment cabinet.

While it is great to have these standards in place, there is no assurance that these guidelines are met once the retailer allows the product to leave the premises - so essentially it becomes the responsibility of the consumer, you!

The main fear amongst furniture is that when it is allowed to be climbed upon, it can cause the centre of gravity to move forward, and the item topple onto the person or toddler and thus become a crush hazard and has caused serious injury and death. I have literally heard this from a concerned parent as little as weeks ago when it happened to them, but in this case, the father was in the neighbouring room, heard it all and came to the rescue, but it could have been much worse.

So the manufacturers are required to issue information and supply parts to fasten securely any items meeting the ACCC Criteria, but the responsibility falls on the owner of the furniture. We will ALWAYS recommend that furniture be fastened securely to a wall, especially when there are children involved, but there is no law stating that it has to be done. Regardless of what you believe it is the obvious safety choice.

So why don't people get their furniture items attached to the wall?

CUSTOMER - I am renting so I don't want to make holes in the walls.

ALLAN - A hole can be repaired quickly, easily & relatively cheaply, especially compared to injury or loss of life! In most cases a Real Estate Agent will allow permission, but state it must be fixed prior to vacating a premises.

CUSTOMER - I am not sure exactly where I want the item?

ALLAN - Most of the fixings can be easily moved without another hole or extra damage, if not, see the point above, as items can be repaired, lives can't be!

CUSTOMER - But we don't have kids yet.

ALLAN - What about visitors, like friends or relatives with children? Is it worth it?

Another interesting point to be made is relating to "other events". What do I mean about this? Well unlike other Countries, such as New Zealand, Australia does not have a record of high numbers of Earthquakes. In New Zealand, where there are more occurrences of these, it has become more common practice to attach furniture to walls for exactly this purpose. Whilst it is rare, it can and does happen.

Should there be laws pertaining to our houses to ensure everything is secured? And if there was, exactly how would they be policed. My common sense tells me that it simply would not be possible to govern something of this nature due to the sheer amount of furniture involved. The only real way to deal with this is education. But even with education, people will always make their own choices concerning something like this. Should the manufacturers be held accountable for education, the retailers or maybe the government? For this conversation, I do think it is above my pay grade to make a final decision.

Now that we have identified what should happen, the next thing to explore is the how.  All manufacturers will have detailed instructions with their products, along with a set of basic materials to secure items safely. One does hope that each of these products will be safe and prevent furniture accidents, but once again, to my knowledge, there is nobody governing these.

Bumps

As mentioned, this pertains to when a child falls and hits an object such as the edge of a coffee table. The is probably the main cause of injury for children regarding furniture. Supervision is of course the best precaution one can take, but you can't watch a child 24/7 and you would not be able to catch them unless you literally followed them around as they take every step.

CUSTOMER - How can I stop my child from Falling?

ALLAN - Quite simply, you can't! It will happen as children just don't have the motor skills developed as much as adults, well, most adults, well, most sober adults.

You could wrap them in bubble wrap? 

CUSTOMER - So what can I do?

ALLAN - Short of wrapping them in bubble wrap, the next solution is safeguarding them from corners. There are a huge range of products at your local Bunnings or hardware store that have been designed for this use.

If I can offer more advice on these there is one main point - QUALITY! With baby safety products, you do get much better quality with the more expensive brands. It is better quality and safer plastics, which can be the difference between PVC free or toxic plastics and flammable products. Also, the adhesive used on these gets better with the higher quality products.

Look for big brands names, rather than a cheaper home brand knock-off.

Falls

When we are looking at falls, the consideration is height. Think of things along the lines of a rolling out of a bed accidentally. You can quite simply buy a baby safety bed rail and bunk beds come with higher rails on the top bunk.

Please also pay attention to the mattress height on top bunks, every brand should have a guide of maximum safe height, usually depicted buy and arrow and line. These are there as a guide, so the rails stay effective on them.

All that said, this does not stop falls when behaviours are more, let's say adventurous and some of those times when children might want to push the limits and quite literally jump from a height. There are laws in place for the manufacturers concerning the positioning and protection of areas where arms etc might get caught. These cover gaps like the side of a ladder accessing the top bunk and the gap between a bottom bunk. The law indicates that any potentially unsafe area, needs to be protected or covered to prevent these accidents, such as an arm getting stuck and possibly broken.

That said, like the furniture tips section and attaching items to walls, there is no policing of this regarding your household. 

Let's face it, children will be children, and they will try and then hopefully learn from their mistakes, although that said, it of little comfort when these things happen.

Access

This refers to protecting items in your home such as valuable or breakable items, or dangerous and harmful items. Think along the lines of your grandmother’s finest china or the sharpest knife in your kitchen, along with things like poisons. Like with Bumps and Falls, supervision is the best, but not always practical.

The major hardware stores, such as Bunnings have a huge variety of locks and catches to attach to furniture or built-in cabinetry specifically designed for this purpose. some will attach with adhesive, either internally or externally and then some attach with just a couple of screws. Some are activated with a latch system or clasp, whilst others are operated by a magnet style key.

CUSTOMER - So what is your best advice?

ALLAN - Take care and use some Common Sense! Try to identify things that could become hazards and then take precautions. Safety is our responsibility!

WE get asked this question a lot and to be honest there is no easy answer. Firstly, furniture is ALWAYS such a personal choice, what one person likes the next person won't. However, there are a few opinions that we have that we will share.

SOLID WOOD FURNITURE

Without a doubt the best furniture in our opinion is furniture crafted in solid wood. I am talking about hand crated by a Carpenter with the skills to utilise age old techniques to create custom wood joinery. What I am talking about are good old fashioned connecting joins which essentially hold themselves together. In fact, carpentry more is a term used for structural integrity, whilst this type of work more becomes known as wood working, the fine art of making these items pieces of art.

The art of wood working is not as common as it would have been prior to the onset of commercial flat pack furniture, which mainly com down to cost. Labour is expensive and wood working is a process which takes longer than mass production. It is very much price that can determine the most popular items in any category.

Take for example a washing machine. Forty years ago when I was a child, my parents could buy a washing machine for $500 and today, I can still go out and buy a washing machine for $500. It is almost like that price point was an accepted amount, which people were used too know and still want to know today. However, the washing machine from 40 years ago would be a far more superior product than the one form today. In yesteryear, for lack of a better word, products were built for quality and length of use. The same quality machine today might cost 5 times the price. The items today are built to a price, so the $500 machine now will have plastic parts to keep costs down. Whilst the better model from today and long ago would be worth repairing, quite often the new cheap machines have become a throw away product after the warranty expires.

CUSTOMER - What is the best Flat Pack Furniture to buy?

ALLAN - While the best and worst of Flat Pack Furniture can be directly related to which store you purchase them from, price will always play a big part. Put simply, usually the more you spend, the better quality you get.

CUSTOMER - So which is the best Company?

ALLAN - This will be subjective, but one of my favourites has always been IKEA. They are the ones that originally started commercially producing Flat Pack furniture, and the have been doing it since 1956, so they have a lot of experience.

Like many companies, they do have certain price points. Their $100 chest of drawers is not as good as one they sell for $600 or $700! This is evident in simple things, such as the type of material, it is chip board, MDF or solid wood. Some with have no paint, some will have great paint, whilst other have good and better laminate surfaces. Even things such as drawer runners or even hinges for doors have different values and qualities.

Look for trust in the store - is it a well-known brand, or a cheap looking overseas online store.

Part of the practice of Flat Pack furniture becoming more widely used and accepted is related to price. It is simply cheaper to produce something that someone else builds, you will save heaps of money in labour costs. Additionally, something smaller to ship, reduces the cost of shipping, especially when these items are being built overseas in other countries where the wages are lower and shipping containers charge for space - the more products in a container, the cheaper each items costs for shipping. 

Overseas Manufacture is unfortunately the way the world these days. As production costs become high in Australia, these manufacturing processes were moved overseas where costs and labour were cheaper. This has happened in many industries almost forcing us to accept this practice in spite of our best intentions to support local. Many people try and support local, but when the cost is so much higher, it can become hard to do.

CUSTOMER - How can I know what is good and what is not?

ALLAN - As I said before - Look for known Brands. We all know IKEA, Amart, Fantastic Furniture and Harvey Norman as we have heard their names for years.

CUSTOMER - But is IKEA & Fantastic Furniture Cheap Stuff?

ALLAN - Well yes their items can be inexpensive (or cheap), but they also have also been around for so long because of the Trust we have and the consistency. Yes, they are "Cheap" compared to solid wood furniture, but as for Flat Packs, they are not the CHEAPEST that we see.

CUSTOMER - Is IKEA better than Fantastic Furniture?

ALLAN - In my opinion, yes, they are a little better, let's face it, they have been doing Flat Pack Furniture  the longest. But they both have different price points in products. They both sell a $100 set of drawers and a $600 set and in both cases, the more expensive one is better. Also these companies have rigorous Quality Control checks and do their own manufacturing overseas. Factories overseas also have different levels of quality, the ones used by larger more well know companies like these two would have to pass certain checks and double checks by these companies to ensure that meet certain standards.

In the world of putting Fat Pack furniture together, these are amongst our favourites and more well trusted brands - Don't discard them.

CUSTOMER - What about On-Line Shops?

ALLAN - Most of the bigger Companies will also sell furniture on line, in fact all the brands I just mentioned above do, in fact they also have "On-line Specials" or "Exclusives". Did you notice recently that Amart Furniture Stores more than halved their floor space and other Companies started appearing in those other spaces in their former HUGE shops? This is because the trend is going to purchasing online.

CUSTOMER - But why? I want to see, feel and try my new furniture?

ALLAN - Remember back when that Virus all but closed the world down and we were isolates in homes, suburbs, towns and states. When we couldn't go out and because of the amount of people they were at risk, such as the elderly, a lot of the "Bricks & Mortar" style shops expanded their range of items online. Even Bunnings introduced the Bunnings Marketplace where they still sell furniture. More shops followed suit, and we saw the expansion of businesses like Temple & Webster, which is now the largest online homewares retailer in Australia. These shops also introduced a style of sourcing products on a third part y basis similar to like Amazon. So, a lot of these products or brands are available on different web sites at differing prices. 

In fact, more and more customers are now making comments to the following effect - "Oh, it does look nice in person" or even "Oh wow... that is a lot smaller than it looked on the web site?".

CUSTOMER - How do I know which ones are good?

ALLAN - This is a hard Question because it comes down to trust and reputation. If the product on show looks really fancy for the price, maybe it is. ALWAYS check the Reviews on Web Sites that you are unfamiliar with and see what other people say about them. Or better yet, give one of the Assembly magic Team a call and ask them. Chances are, they have dealt with them or heard of them before, but if they haven't, that is the time to re-think.

In general, look for trusted brands or brands with good reviews and then consider the Price that you are paying. Usually the more expensive the item the better quality.

GENERAL TRAMPOLINE INFORMATION

Trampoline have been around for almost a century. The modern Trampoline as we know it was invented by George Nissen and Larry Griswold in 1934 at the University of Iowa to be used by tumblers and astronaughts, as a training tool to help home their acrobatic skills and for other sports such as diving, gymnastics and freestyle skiing. But as people enjoyed using them so much it became a past time and sport in it's own right.

Basically a Trampoline is an elevated resilient webbed bed or canvas sheet supported by springs in a metal frame. It provides a spring based platform for literally jumping and rebounding from to achieve height, which then enabled the jumper to perform manuvoures. This basic idea has evolved over the years to obviously include better materials and better designs. There are many sizes and many more brands, along woth different shapes and sizes.

One thing about all trampolines is that they bounce. Regardless of the shape, size, brand or price, you and your kids more importantly, will be able to spend hours bouncing in them. 

Customer: Are the more expensive brands better?

ALLAN - As mentioned above they all bounce, and they all will provide fun. The more expensive brands are made using better quality materials and they do have certain designs that make them safer and unique characteristics that separate them from each other. Some even have electronic games built.in for more hours of fun with everyone.

Customer: Which brand is better?

ALLAN: There are many, many brands, but the two that are the biggest and best are the Vuly and Springfree Brands.

Customer: Are they worth the money?

ALLAN: Honestly it depends on how much they are used and how. But also how you as a parent see your children's safety and also how you view the brands. Some have certain features that people like and some have certain features that people will view as better or worse. 

Generally speaking the more expensive brands are made from better materials, which essentially mean they will last longer and have better warranties with support. It can be a choice or a trial of sorts. Let's imagine that your children are younger and never have had a trampoline before and you aren't quite sure if they will get use out of it? Would you spend thousands or hundreds? At the end of the day, they all bounce?

SAFETY

When it comes to safety on Trampolines, it is of paramount importance after the question of bounce and quality. There are many different considerations, probably the one that is the most important is falls. Most brands these days, come with the almost standard Safety Nett, which encompasses the outside barrier if the trampoline to prevent falls off the side of the trampoline.

The next consideration is quite often safety from the springs themselves and the risk of pinching and entanglement. Most of the time these get protected by pads.

There are many more considerations and opinions, and the following information will attempt to enlighten you to some.

The big two brands, VULY and SPRINGFREE are both Australian Companies, both designed here and with certain features independently.

 VULY

They back their products starting with a 3-year warranty for their base model, the Flare, to 10 years for their top of the range model, the Thunder Pro 2.

The Flare, Ultra 2 and Ultra 2 Pro use a spring system with a combination of Safety Nett with pads. What is unique with these is that the Bouncing Matt and Nett combine at the point where the spring attached to the matt, which means that it is virtually impossible for a hand or feet to come in contact with the springs. Essentially the safety matt is there to protect while the child is entering the trampoline. The poles supporting the safety nett are also kept at a distance from the actual nett, which helps prevent hard contact while jumping.

The Thunder 2 and Thunder 2 Pro both use a unique leafspring crafted from a single piece of single steel. This design creates the strongest and award-winning platform for the Bouncing Matt. They might look like the strangest trampoline around, but they are also amongst the safest.

SPRINGFREE

The Springfree brand use a unique and patented composite rod, used instead of springs, that lie beneath the trampoline jumping surface out of harm's way, providing peace of mind that your children are safe. They do claim to be the world's safest trampoline and they do provide provide a 10 year warranty to back their quality claims.

Their safety nett is also supported by one of the safest flexible pole systems on the market. They only have the one type of trampoline, simply available in different sizes and shapes, trusting in their unique spring free design.

By no means are these two brands the only ones, there are hundreds of brands available and regardless of the price, they will all provide countless hours of fun for the whole family.

Customer: Are cheap brands okay?

ALLAN: As I have said before, they will still bounce and all brands do have certain safety rule and regulations they must abide by. So rest assured that they will be safe, especially with correct care and maintenance. The main point of difference with the cheap brands is that they won’t “exceed” the safety standards and because they are cheaper, their warranties won’t be as long and essentially the quality of the product is less. They will use cheaper parts that will wear sooner rather than later.

Customer: What are the Safety Standards?

ALLAN: The standards encompass 4 main criteria:

1. Design and construction: The standards outline specific design and construction requirements for trampolines, such as jump mat materials, frame construction, and spring specifications. These guidelines prevent premature wear, structural collapse, or hazardous conditions during use.
2. Safety padding and enclosures: The standards detail the requirements for trampoline safety, ensuring the padding material's adequate thickness and the correct height of enclosure nets. This minimises the risk of injuries resulting from impact with the frame, springs, or the ground.
3. Warning labels and safety information: Trampolines that adhere to Australian standards must display clear and distinct warning labels, providing essential safety information to users and recommending adult supervision for children under the age of six.
4. Testing methods and performance requirements: The standards establish a series of rigorous tests, such as impact and fatigue testing, to evaluate a trampoline's performance and structural integrity. Passing these tests guarantees the trampoline's ability to withstand prolonged use and various weight capacities without compromising user safety.

The next thing to ensure with trampolines is that they are installed and maintained accurately.

Set up and maintain your trampoline for safety

• Follow the product assembly instructions and any safety guidelines that may come with your trampoline.

• Follow product guidelines for your child’s age, size and development.

• Regularly check that the trampoline is in good condition.

• Make sure the:

• mat doesn’t have holes

• springs are intact and securely attached at both ends

• frame is not bent

• safety net has not deteriorated due to sunlight and weather exposure

• leg braces are securely locked

• the trampoline play area is free from moveable play equipment, toys and bikes.

• Put the trampoline on a flat surface. It should also be placed away from hazards like walls, play equipment or garden furniture. There should be a minimum overhead clearance of 8 metres from ground level to avoid clothes lines, trees and wires.

• Cover the ground around the trampoline with a thick layer of soft, impact absorbing material, like pine bark or woodchips. Rake this regularly.

The next thing about the Trampoline is general safety – Keep the following in mind:

Teach your children how to trampoline safely

• Only one child at a time.

• Learn basic jumps and bounces first, before they try more complex manoeuvres. Overconfidence can lead to injury.

• Jump in the centre of the mat.

• Climb off the trampoline or ladder, and don’t jump off the side.

• Don’t bounce toward or off the safety net.

• Don’t go under the trampoline when someone else is using it.

Follow the 5-step trampoline safety checklist

To keep children safe on trampolines follow this checklist.

1. One at a time - only one child should be on the trampoline.
2. Supervise - always watch your children on the trampoline.
3. Safety padding - always use safety padding on the trampoline frame.
4. Check the condition - regularly check the trampoline for damage.
5. Hazard free surrounds - keep the trampoline away from hazards like walls, fences, trees and washing lines.

Trampolines can be great fun for children and provide hours of exercise and entertainment for them. Please keep in mind that they can and have been a source of injury when not installed correctly, maintained or checked correctly and used correctly.

If you are EVER in doubt about a Trampoline please contact one of our experienced guys to get the best advice!

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