All upholstered furniture must meet fire resistance standards. This includes sofas, beds, garden furniture and cushion fillings. It’s a criminal offence for a furniture supplier not to meet the safety standards. Read this page to check your furniture is safe and find out what to do if you think it isn’t.
Furniture must be fire resistant
All upholstered furniture must meet fire resistance standards. New furniture must be permanently labelled. Any second hand furniture made after 1950 must be fire resistant and meet certain tests.
What are the standards?
The Furniture and Furnishings (Fire Safety) Regulations say that for new furniture:
- filling materials must meet certain standards so they don’t catch fire easily
- upholstery must be cigarette resistant
- covers must usually be match resistant
- a permanent label must be fitted to every item of new furniture, with the exception of mattresses and bed bases. This is for enforcement officers to check a piece of furniture meets the regulations. However, mattresses must have a permanent label to show that they meet British Standard 7177 and are match and flame resistant under the General Project Safety Regulations 2005.
- a display label must be fitted to every item of new furniture at the point of sale, with the exception of mattresses, bed bases, pillows, scatter cushions, seat pads, loose covers sold separately from the furniture and stretch covers. This is to show the resistance of the furniture to igniting
- suppliers of domestic upholstered furniture in the UK must maintain records for five years to prove their furniture meets the regulations.
EXAMPLE OF DISPLAY LABELS CONSUMER USE AND CONTRACT USE
