where has your furniture come from?

6:40pm; Thursday 17 November; watching Today Tonight.

Feature story....cheap imported furniture from China, in particular...glass tables.

These tables are exploding, without warning, for no reason.

Apparently there is no stress testing of these glass tables at manufacturing point, and there are no Australian Standards for glass tables, either indoor or outdoor, that have to be met.

What??? No Australian Standards???

This is bad.
Why do we not have Australian Standards for glass topped tables, as we do for so many other things?

Do you have a glass table?  Where was it made?

Comments

  1. Elephant's ChildNovember 17, 2011 at 7:20 PM

    Nasty. And frightening if you did have one wondering when or whether it would explode.

    ReplyDelete
  2. SarahNovember 17, 2011 at 7:55 PM

    That's scary! I have a glass top coffee table that my parents bought about 25 years ago. Apparently hand made by a greek man. It's very well made.

    ReplyDelete
  3. RiverNovember 17, 2011 at 8:18 PM

    EC; the show had video footage taken by a mum who was taping her kids playing right beside a glass coffee table when the whole thing just shattered. Glass all over the floor. Other videos showed outdoor tables just shattering and dropping glass on the ground under the frame and an indoor dining table set for a meal with just plates and cutlery, great shards of glass falling to the floor.

    Sarah; it's the newer cheap imports from China that you have to watch out for. I'd say don't buy any furniture made in China.

    ReplyDelete
  4. ElisabethNovember 17, 2011 at 8:40 PM

    I'm not sure where our glass table is made but it belonged to an old friend and is over thirty years old, River. So I think we're safe.

    ReplyDelete
  5. AnonymousNovember 17, 2011 at 9:12 PM

    We had one that exploded. Ok, my partner did put a glass down on it very firmly, but it was surprising that it broke. It is all very well having standards but what is the point when products are rarely tested as to whether they meet the standards. Occasionally a $2 shop will be raided for a specific product, but I don't think it goes much further than that.

    ReplyDelete
  6. ToniNovember 17, 2011 at 10:32 PM

    Oh, I have a bit of a 'thing' about glass topped tables, so all our tables are timber.

    ReplyDelete
  7. RiverNovember 17, 2011 at 10:56 PM

    Elisabeth; definitely safe. I'm pretty sure the problem is with all the newer imports.

    Andrew; I don't think there is nearly enough checking going on. We're becoming a dumping ground here in Aus.

    Toni; I don't like glass tables either. I'd rather not see people's knees or feet etc while I'm eating. Give me timber every time. Unless it's an outdoor table, then I'd prefer stone.

    ReplyDelete
  8. AnonymousNovember 18, 2011 at 12:13 AM

    No glass tables...just a few slabs of glass to protect some tops and a few circles of glass used to extend table surfaces when needed. That sounds scary though...shards of glass flying all over.

    ReplyDelete
  9. MarieNovember 18, 2011 at 1:12 AM

    I used to have a glass top dining table back in the 1980s. Ours was from Italy and I never had a problem with it. My sister-in-law over here has a huge Swedish glasstop dining table and even with two rough, teenage boys she hasn't so much as a dent on it. So it must be the controls in China. I'd be fairly sure the EU had some kind of standard as they have a "standard" for everything else :-)

    ReplyDelete
  10. Windsmoke.November 18, 2011 at 8:05 AM

    I've always thought glass topped tables were dangerous and now this has confirmed it, i prefer solid, sturdy wooden tables :-).

    ReplyDelete
  11. RiverNovember 18, 2011 at 1:59 PM

    Delores; the video footage was enough to ensure I never get a glass top table. I don't like them anyway. Glass tops used to protect wooden surfaces are a different matter, they're pretty safe I should think.

    Marie; the problem is definitely the manufacturing and lack of controls in China. They make these things as cheaply as they can get away with. Tables made elsewhere would be alright, especially older ones where the quality controls were closely adhered to.

    Windsmoke; Glass topped tables made to manufacturing standards,should be okay. But China has no such standards to meet when exporting these things to Australia. We have no standards in place for glass topped tables, and this is wrong. We should have.

    ReplyDelete
  12. Red Nomad OZNovember 18, 2011 at 5:49 PM

    Yet another argument in favour of Op shop shopping! Recycled furniture couldn't possibly less safe than cheapo Chinese-made c**p, can it??!!

    ReplyDelete

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