Keep Your Kids Safe: Secure Furniture to the Wall

IKEA’s dressers made news in 2016 for causing injury, and in some cases death, to multiple children. Despite a comprehensive effort to recall all dressers and chests, as well as supplying free wall mount hardware, IKEA is still facing class action suits regarding the design of these dressers.

According to the Consumer Product and Safety Commission (CPSC), someone in the U.S. is injured every 17 minutes by a furniture, television, or appliance tip-over. About every 43 minutes a child in the U.S. is injured from a TV or furniture tip-over incident.

Before a baby is able to pull themselves up, which usually starts between the ages of 8 months and 12 months, parents should look to secure furniture to the wall. Large and heavy pieces of furniture, such as dressers, bookshelves, TVs, and TV stands, can tip over when a child climbs or pulls on the furniture. While furniture in every room should be taken into consideration, CPSC found that 51% of tip-over fatalities occur in the bedroom.

One way to prevent tip-overs is to anchor large pieces of furniture to the wall:

• Use a stud finder to locate the studs in your wall.
• Attach one end of the anchor to the wall stud and the other end of the anchor to the solid top frame of the furniture. Do not attach the anchor to the thin back of the furniture.
• If you tossed the anchoring kit provided by the manufacturer, a replacement kit can be ordered from the manufacturer, or a suitable replacement can be obtained from a number of reputable online sources.

Watch this video from Consumer Reports for a thorough review of your wall anchoring options and how to use them. This is another resource for different anchoring kit options, depending on your personal preference and the furniture or television you are securing.

CED’s team of expert engineers have years of experience investigating product liability, like furniture tip-over injuries. These injuries, which can result in death, are easily avoided by properly securing furniture and televisions to the wall.

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