How You Fix Hydraulics On An Office Chair

How you fix hydraulics on an office chair? If the answer is you do not know how to do that, you always do not care about that seat and even think about throwing it away. Then you must read this post. Promise you. You can save money after reading this.

How Do Hydraulics Work In An Office Chair?

Office chair uses a hydraulic system to raise and lower the height. However, this system does not use water. It uses mineral oil. A hydraulic office chair contains two cylinders, called “double-acting cylinders”.

These two cylinders are connected through an air exhaust valve. Regarding the working mechanism, hydraulics work is based on Pascal’s law (force = pressure x area). Out of 2 cylinders, there will be 1 with a larger size.

The pressure of the piston acting on mineral oil is the same. So, based on the Pascal formula, the force will also increase when the pressure stays the same, and the area increases. This precisely happens inside the hydraulic office seat when the user uses the hand controls to adjust the height.

How Do Hydraulics Work In An Office Chair?

How To Identify The Problem?

Sometimes, users may have difficulty adjusting the hydraulic office seat height. Don’t worry when faced with this situation. This is a common phenomenon, which can be rectified after correctly identifying the problem. Here are some ways to identify those problems.

Check the height of the chair

You may be unable to adjust the seat lower or higher because it has reached its limit. Therefore, check the height of it to see if there is a problem with it or not.

Check for leaks

To check whether the cylinders are leaked, try pressing the lever. If the desk chair emits a hissing sound, there is a high chance that the cylinder has leaked.

Check for damage

Finally, check the lever and the base of the seat. If there is a problem with the height adjustment, one of the above two parts has likely broken. If you can’t press the lever down despite using a powerful force or can move the lever with only a tiny point, but the seat’s height does not change, then this lever is broken.

In addition, the problem may also lie in the base of the desk chair. If this part is not level, piston operation will be affected. The piston cannot pressurize the mineral oil, so the seat height cannot be adjusted.

Fix hydraulics on an office chair

How Do You Fix Hydraulics On An Office Chair?

To fix Hydraulics on an office chair, follow the 7 steps below.

Step 1: Identify the problem from the chair

As mentioned above, there are 3 common reasons for the inability to adjust the height of the desk chair. You can follow the instructions above to perform this step.

Step 2: Locate the required parts

First, turn the seat upside down. Then look for a round metal object. That object is the connection between the cylinders and the desk chair.

Step 3: Remove the connector from the chair

First, fix the metal base you found in the previous step. After that, use tools like a pipe wrench or pliers to twist the base and pull it out of the seat.

Step 4: Replace the new pair of cylinders

After completing the above step, the old broken cylinder part was removed from the desk chair body. Now put in the two newly prepared cylinders.

Please note that for the seat to be raised and lowered smoothly, the cylinder needs to be able to work. In other words, the new cylinder must be genuine and of high quality.

Step 5: Check the cylinders’ position

You can use soft-tipped, rubber-tipped items to check that the cylinder is in place to tap the top. If the cylinder stays in place and feels solid, you’ve replaced the cylinder properly. In addition, knocking on the cylinder head also helps the cylinder to be more firmly in the seat body.

Step 6: Screw the circular metal base back to its original position

Use the tools you used to remove the circular metal base from the desk chair in the previous step and put it back in.

Step 7: Check the hydraulics of the chair

This is the final step. Press the lever and try raising and lowering the seat. If you can adjust it as usual, then the repair is complete.

Conclusion

That’s how you fix hydraulics on an office chair. The ability to adjust the height of the office seat is very convenient. This seat is suitable for working and studying. This is a very good value seat. You should buy one for home use.

For more information, you can refer to this video:

FAQ

Newsletter Updates

Enter your email address below to subscribe to our newsletter

Elias Kanden

Elias Kanden

Elias Kanden is the CEO of Ergorise. He has over 20 years of expertise, specializing in transformative furniture design.