Tips To Improve Home Ergonomics

Is a home comfortable? Is your furniture comfortable for all members of the family? And the materials, are they the most suitable?

When choosing a piece of furniture, you always think about its design, its comfort or its price, but not about whether that piece will be suitable for resting or whether it will generate health problems.

That’s what ergonomics works for. According to the Ergonomics Association, it is the set of multidisciplinary knowledge that takes into account the adequacy of products, systems and artificial environments for the needs, limitations and characteristics of its users, optimizing efficiency, safety and well-being .

In some homes there is a designation of chairs and chairs for each of the members. These situations are not lacking in logic since the physiognomy of each individual makes the ideal design of each resting place different. And it is that, if the furniture of the house does not ensure the safety and well-being of its inhabitants, there may be consequences for health. Therefore, the following guidelines must be taken into account:

1. Ergonomics and materials

In the first place, the deformations and permanent coupling of armchairs, sofas and mattresses to the person who uses them the most or with the most weight, where the original state is not recovered after use, are due to a poor choice of filling materials. At the other extreme, many times it is intended to avoid this deformity by choosing hard materials, which prevents adaptation to the user’s body at the time of use, resulting in damage to health.

One of the most advisable fillers for mattresses and sofas, although also more expensive, is that of feathers or a combination of these with other materials, since they adapt perfectly to the person who uses it and has the ability to recover its original state.

2. Ergonomics and sizes, heights and distances

When choosing furniture, the biggest problems are found when choosing sizes, heights and distances , since you can find a family unit in which its components have very different anthropometric characteristics.

Thus, if it is known that on the sofa the kidneys should be protected by the backrest, that a person’s hips should not be lower than the knees and that the armrest should be at the elbow, it is clear that it is not these characteristics may be met for all members. Therefore, ideally they should have adjustable structures or individualize , at least, reading or resting chairs.

3. Ergonomics in kitchen furniture

The same problem arises with kitchen cabinets . Working standing up, in front of a very low or very high worktop, forces you to assume incorrect postures that, in the long run, can seriously affect your health. For this reason, it is convenient that the height of the worktop is modified according to those inhabitants who use it the most.

So, if you are thinking of changing the furniture, you must not forget such important aspects as those that determine its ergonomics. The health and rest of the inhabitants of the home depend on it.