What wears out first in a sofa

The sofa ages unevenly. Knowing the order in which it passes, it is easier to understand what is worth paying extra for.

After five years, the sofa does not look the same as in the salon, and there are usually three reasons. They come in predictable order.

First: filling in your favorite place

They always sit in the same place, and the polyurethane foam sinks there first. This is how the same "pit" appears, by which an old sofa can be recognized - with a completely intact fabric and a strong frame.

What slows it down: a combination of layers of different densities instead of one solid, and a metal damping snake under the filling - it distributes the load over an area instead of collecting it at a point.

The second: the mechanism, if you sleep on the sofa

A sofa that is unfolded twice a year and a sofa that is unfolded every night are different lifetimes of the mechanism. Simplicity wins here: the fewer parts, the less it can break.

The second part of the same is the floor. Rollers under load leave marks on soft surfaces, and an uneven floor skews the mechanism and accelerates its wear.

Third: fabric on the folds and armrests

Not the entire upholstery wears out, but the places of friction: the edge of the seat, the fold when unfolding, the top of the armrests. On the velor, baldness appears there earlier than anywhere else.

This is the part where the choice of fabric at the ordering stage determines the look of the sofa years later more than any other.

And the creak does not come from there

The squeak almost never comes from the mechanism. It comes from the connection of the frame, in which a microgap has appeared - and that is why the parts of the frame are glued with PVA: the glue removes the gap, which there will be nothing to fill later.

If the sofa started to creak, look not for the mechanism, but for the place where the two parts meet.