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Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by tempestn on Saturday July 06, 2019 @03:42PM (#20371473)
Steelcase Leap is an amazing chair, but more than $500 (or at least it was when I bought mine). I tried a bunch when I finally decided to upgrade from the $200 Staples chairs that wear out in a year and found this one the most comfortable by far. Have used it for a few years now with absolutely no complaints.
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by smacktoward on Saturday July 06, 2019 @04:09PM (#20371627)
I will second this. I used a cheap (<$200) Staples office chair when I started working from home. My reward for cheaping out on this was painful back problems. I eventually gave in and bought a Steelcase Leap, and the back problems quickly went away. So my advice is, there are lots of places where it makes sense to pinch pennies, but this ain't one of them.

Plus, Steelcase customer support is excellent. A couple of years after I bought my Leap, the gas cylinder that controls the height of the chair broke and started dragging on the floor whenever I moved the chair. I contacted Steelcase to see if there was some way to fix it, or to get a replacement cylinder. Steelcase's response was to send me a completely new Leap, without me having to do anything other than show my proof of purchase to demonstrate the chair was still in warranty. That is some seriously above-and-beyond customer support.

Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by Semaphor on Saturday July 06, 2019 @06:11PM (#20372324)
When I started studying lifehacker.com was still a good blog. Their roundups mentioned Herman Miller Aeron and Steelcase Leap. I had a normal 0815 office chair from my work at home. A PHD student I knew had the leap at home because of back problems. When he decided to move away from Germany, he sold his office Leap to his boss and asked around who wanted his home one. I paid 300€ ($336.8 currently) after trying it. Sitting on it just for a few minutes convinced me and I've never sat on a comparable chair anywhere else since then (still using it after over 5 years)
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by dogma1138 on Saturday July 06, 2019 @03:44PM (#20371484)
Steelcase furniture can be bought at pennies on the dollar at office space auctions.

In fact in many places companies hold “clearing sales” to clear the office space from any furniture due to the high costs of disposing of the furnishings when their tenancy ends or when they sale the building.

I bought a Steelcase workstation desk complex that costs around £3000 in the UK for £257 at an auction such as that.

Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by SOLAR_FIELDS on Saturday July 06, 2019 @04:20PM (#20371679)
In some places there are entire wholesale businesses that operate on this model. For instance, in Austin there is a place you can go that resells pretty much every office furniture that you can get from cannibalizing these auctions. http://www.topstexas.com/

They don’t always have the color you want, but I got a basically new condition Steelcase Leap there for less than half of what it retails for.

Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by SeanBoocock on Saturday July 06, 2019 @05:08PM (#20371976)
Hah yeah bought my Arron at Tops almost a decade ago. If anyone is in the Austin area, I would highly recommend checking them out if only to get a feel for the range of high-end inventory.
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by AJRF on Saturday July 06, 2019 @03:53PM (#20371523)
How do you find those auctions? Is there a website with a schedule of them?
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by dogma1138 on Sunday July 07, 2019 @10:43AM (#20375313)
Google for your local area, there are like 100's of these sites in the UK in fact there are sites that charge you money just to send you a list of bankruptcy, police, customs seizures etc. auctions.
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by plttn on Saturday July 06, 2019 @03:54PM (#20371537)
I've also had decent luck on Craigslist. (ymmv, my Craigslist is close enough to SV where the availability is there)
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by hermanschaaf on Saturday July 06, 2019 @03:53PM (#20371522)
Out of interest, how do you find such auctions in the UK?
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by dogma1138 on Sunday July 07, 2019 @10:42AM (#20375302)
Honestly I used google e.g. https://www.bidspotter.co.uk/en-gb/auction-catalogues/bpi-as...

Just search for office auctions UK, I don't remember which of the sites I finally used to get the desk from I went through about 10 of those.

P.S. Just be careful of the sites that charge you money for getting a collections of listings, these have their value for resellers but not for casual buyers.

Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by jonah on Saturday July 06, 2019 @07:29PM (#20372663)
After trying a number of chairs I settled on the first-gen Leap. It was far more comfortable for me than the Aeron or others I tested.

I'm still using it today, almost 18 years later. It's held up incredibly well. The fabric shows only the faintest signs of wear. A few years ago, the gas height-adjusting strut failed, and the Steelcase tech drove an hour to my house and replaced it. He also replaced the armrest caps as well - all for free.

Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by garrybelka on Saturday July 06, 2019 @05:23PM (#20372056)
For a while I preferred Herman Millers. But after spending a year with Steelcase chairs I discovered that Leap is the most comfortable and least fatigue inducing chair for me. I even liked that its seat holds its angle - unlike swivelling seats of HM chairs. Fortunately, Madison Seating sells used Leaps for less than $300 in perfect condition so I got one for home too instead of a previous favourite from Herman Miller.
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by rootusrootus on Saturday July 06, 2019 @06:56PM (#20372533)
One caveat with Madison Seating (and similar shops) is that they refurbish the chairs and they typically do not use OE parts.
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by garrybelka on Monday July 08, 2019 @02:52PM (#20385594)
Interesting. Who designs and makes non-OE parts for Steelcase chairs? It doesn't seem that the market is that big...
Re:Ask HN: Best office chair for home office work? by copperx on Saturday July 06, 2019 @07:58PM (#20372775)
What is the practical significance of that fact? Will the chair fail earlier?