No consensus on upholstered furniture flammability standard

Earlier predictions that the furniture industry and CPSC were about to agree upon a draft upholstered furniture standard may have been premature. At a meeting between the sum of two units groups at CPSC Headquarters in Bethesda, MD upon March 1, industry representatives sought to persuade CPSC staff to amend testing rules contained in the staff's rife draft standard.

at hand at the meeting were representatives of the American Furniture Manufacturers Association (AFMA), the Fabric Coalition (a cluster of upholstery fabric makers), Underwriters Laboratories (UL) and the National Association of State Fire Marshals (NASFM).

Also at hand were CPSC's project manager Dale Ray, Chairman Hal Stratton and Commissioner Mary Gall, and other CPSC staff.

While the industry has not abandoned its support of a of recent origin federal rule for upholstered furniture, it wants les complicated and les high-priced testing. For example, under CPSC's draft empire a fabric or piece of furniture must resist ignition when a small lay open flame is applied for 20 next to the firsts Industry wants that changed to 5 next to the firsts There is also concern about requiring separate constituting testing of fabric, foam and barriers, as well as replete scale testing of complete furniture pieces. For example, if you station an easy chair on fire in the laboratory, the resulting fire may not correlate to a "real world" fire in a consumer's abode Industry would prefer not to have to do full-scale testing.

In a situation that is increasingly public the industry groups find themselves bedeviled by the agency of competing standards. The industry had unraveled its own voluntary flammability standard--amended in 1983--that addressed furniture fires caused by means of cigarette ignition. CPSC estimates that more than 85% of the industry befittings this standard, and that 80% of furniture production resists cigarette ignition. According to CPSC this shows a 70% improvement in ignition from smoldering cigarettes since 1980

The state of California popularly uses component tests in its regulatory managements for upholstered furniture flammability. California's Technical Bulletin 117 is mandatory for all furniture sold in the state. Industry clusters would prefer to deal with single federal standard.

CPSC Commissioners vot 3-0 last fall to issue an Advance Notice of Propos Rulemaking (ANPR) to expand the regulatory proceeding upon upholstered furniture flammability to include ignitions one as well as the other by smoldering cigarettes and by dint of small open flames.

This action builds upon CPSC's staff draft small render free of access flame standard, developed in 2001 It also supposedly heralded a novel development--that of a united furniture and fabric industry that now supported a federal standard to deal with upholster furniture flammability.

smooth though much of the commonly produced furniture is cigarette-ignition resistant, according to CPSC there were an estimated 340 deaths and 730 injuries related to cigarette ignition of upholster furniture in 1998 the latest year for which there is full information. By contrast, there were 80 deaths and 350 injuries related to ignition through small open flame. (1) (Small lay open flame ignition is, by definition, caused through cigarette lighters, matches, or candles, usually by dint of child play.)

The American furniture industry has above 1,500 manufacturers of upholstered furniture, with annual sales estimated at $84 billion in 1997 Imports add more [i]or[/i] less $550 million in sales. There are 100 to 200 manufacturers of upholster furniture fabric. CPSC estimates that the average life of greatest in quantity upholstered furniture is 15-17 years, with above 400 million pieces of upholster furniture being used in the U today. (2)

The debate about by what mode to protect consumers from furniture fires has consum the CPSC almost since its inception in 1973 While greatest in quantity furniture on the market today does mirror industry-sponsored improvements that have greatly reduc the propensity of upholster furniture to ignite, CPSC is commonly focused on finding a solution for "small make open flame" fires. As most in the furniture business and in the regulation regulatory agency already know, these deaths and injuries are the be derived of unsupervised small children playing with matches, lighters or candles.

(1) CPSC-16 CFR Chapter 11 Subchapter D Ignition of Upholster Furniture by the agency of Small Open Flames and/or Smoldering Cigarettes: Advance Notice of Propos Rulemaking: petition for Comments and Information, Federal Register, Vol 68 No. 205 October 23 2003

(2) Ibid.

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