AHFA Opposes Proposed Stability Standard Changes

May 10, 2018  by Jason Schneider in Business Strategy, Industry   

At a May 4 meeting of ASTM’s F15.42 subcommittee, Consumer Reports was invited by subcommittee chairman Richard Rosati to present results of product stability testing the magazine conducted earlier this year and published online in March. (The results appear in the May print edition of the magazine.)

The testing included 24 products from 10 companies. In a follow-up report published online May 3, the magazine added test results for six additional products—two came from a manufacturer not in the first sample. 

In its report, Consumer Reports described the ASTM voluntary furniture stability standard (F2057-17) as “weak” and said it “leaves too many children at risk.” The magazine proposed increasing the test weight from 50 pounds—the 95th percentile weight of a 60-month-old child—to 60 pounds—the 95th percentile weight for a 72-month-old child.

Of the 30 clothing storage units Consumer Reports tested, the magazine found 23 that passed a tip test its staff developed applying a 50-pound weight and 16 that passed a second test applying a 60-pound weight. The weights are intended to simulate the weight of a child attempting to climb the unit. Based on these results, the magazine concluded that “manufacturers can make dressers stable enough to meet a tougher standard, because many already do.”

Following his report to the ASTM subcommittee, Don Huber, director of product safety for Consumer Reports, proposed changing the test weight to 60 pounds and expanding the voluntary standard to cover all clothing storage units, not just those over 30 inches in height.

If the proposal had passed the subcommittee vote, a ballot with the recommended changes would have gone out to all voting members of the ASTM F15 Consumer Products Committee for approval. But the subcommittee rejected the proposed change in the test weight and tabled the proposed change in the height of clothing storage units covered by the standard.

A new task group was formed to review the height of units covered by the standard. An age/weight task group already exists and will evaluate newly available 2016 incident data to determine whether any change is needed in the current test method.

“The report presented by Consumer Reports did not draw any correlation between a 60-pound test weight and improved safety,” AHFA Vice President of Regulatory Affairs Bill Perdue said. “It also provided no evidence that ‘many manufacturers’ could already pass a 60-pound test. The industry has hundreds of manufacturers producing thousands of different product variations marketed as ‘clothing storage units.’ Test results from 11 or 12 companies do not represent an adequate sample for making such a sweeping generalization.”