Finding and purchasing the appropriate upholstery foam for your project can seem like a drag. This is especially true when you’re not quite sure what you should be looking for or what your options are. Fortunately, finding the right foam for seating doesn’t have to be as complicated as it seems.
In this article, we will discuss the various seating foam options, explain what you need to know in order to make the right purchase and discuss the different options available to you. Let’s take a closer look.
Benefits of High-Quality Foam for Seating
When you invest in high-quality foam for seating, you get a range of different benefits. Some of these may include the following
1. Excellent support and great comfort
When you purchase an appropriate type of seating foam or upholstery foam, it will combine the best of two different attributes. First, it will be sturdy enough to provide sufficient support. Second, it will be soft enough to create a comfortable seating experience.
2. Affordability
When you purchase upholstery foam for your chairs, benches, and other seating options from a trustworthy source, you’ll often get the benefits of a premium product at a reasonable price.
3. Pressure relief and body contouring
The appropriate type of foam for seating will provide pressure relief by providing sufficient support. It will also adapt to the contours of your body by having enough give to create a comfortable seating experience.
4. Durability
A good quality upholstery foam will offer the durability that you require and have a long lifespan so that you don’t have to replace your seats regularly.
Types of Foam for Seating
When you’re getting ready to purchase your upholstery foam, it’s a good idea to acquaint yourself with some of the options.
There are many different types of upholstery foam on the market, but most of them consist of one of four varieties.
- Latex foam
This is the most expensive of the four types and may be created using either natural or synthetic rubber. It’s soft, bounces back well when it has been compressed, and offers excellent breathability. However, because it is so soft, it doesn’t offer much support.
- Memory foam
This is a unique type of polyurethane foam that is produced in a vastly different formulation from other types of polyurethane. It is also known as viscoelastic polyurethane foam because it maintains both the elasticity of a gel and the viscous nature of a liquid. As with latex foam, it is comfortably soft but doesn’t offer much support.
- Polyurethane foam (High-density)
Also known as cold foam, high-density polyurethane foam offers the most support of the four options listed here. However, it also tends to be harder than the other types, which means it’s not ideal for thin seat cushions. However, it’s brilliant for use alongside a softer foam.
- Polyurethane foam (Low-density)
Low and standard-density polyurethane foam is considerably softer than cold foam but also doesn’t offer the same level of support. It isn’t as soft as memory or latex foam, and its lifespan is considerably shorter. It’s also the cheapest option, which means it often gets used anyway.
It’s worth noting that some of the foam sheets for seating purposes may contain a blend of different foams rather than only one sort. Under certain circumstances, this can be advantageous as it marries the qualities of more than one foam to create a better “hybrid.”
Foam for Seating Forms
When you’re buying foam for a chair or seat rather than something like a bench or sofa, you generally won’t find many available options. This actually makes the process easier rather than harder.
Technically, you could probably have someone cut standard sofa or cushion foam to the appropriate dimensions and thickness. However, it’s typically much easier to buy foam for seating in the form of a sheet.
There are many different foam sheet rolls, consisting of an array of different foam options. All you have to do is choose the type of foam sheet that you think will best suit your purposes.
Buying Foam for Seating
Buying foam for seating is relatively straightforward as long as you know what you’re getting yourself into. Here’s a basic rundown of the process
- Step 1: Decide whether you want to have the foam cut for you or do it yourself. If you want to have the supplier cut the foam, you’ll need to take measurements so you can provide them with the required dimensions. If not, you can worry about this later.
- Step 2: Decide which kind of foam you want to use.
- Step 3: Order your foam, either cut to size or enough so that you can cut it to size yourself.
- Step 4: Install the cut foam on your seats. If you ordered uncut, you can cut it with relative ease using a serrated or electric knife.
And there you have it, you now have all the information and knowledge you need to purchase foam for seating.
Article by Community Writer.
