Cal 133 Test Being Repealed by State of California

Cal 133 Test repealed as of January 2017. We received an update from the BIFMA Flammability Subcommittee.  In a meeting that was held on November 15th, the BEARHFTI Advisory Council has decided to start the repealing of Cal 133 test. The Cal 133 is a full scale open flame test that exposes a chair seat to an inverted gas burner for 80 seconds.

The statement from BEARHFTI reads as follows:

“After review of national fire statistics and supplemental reports reviewing those statistics, the Bureau has concluded that the current standard places an unnecessary performance standard on upholstered furniture.”

The repealing process should start in January 2017.  It will take some time to get the test completely off the radar but eventually it will get there. In North America, CAL 133 test and Cal 117 test are the two prevalent office chairs flammability tests.  The mechanical and safety aspects are covered mainly by BIFMA X5.1 test and BIFMA X5.4 test.  Over the last few years BIFMA has also expanded its chair standards library with BIFMA X5.11 (heavy users) and it also has BIFMA HCF8.2 for healthcare seating.

Micom will keep offering Cal 133 test services until further notice

Micom is a third party industrial material testing laboratory accredited by the Standards Council of Canada, CGSB, ISTA and many other organizations.

If you require more information about the Cal 133 test repeal situation or if you would like to receive more information about our furniture testing services, we invite you to contact our material testing laboratory today. It will be our pleasure to talk to your about material testing and review your custom furniture testing requirements.