Save yourself from all the pain and adjust your seat in just the right position, especially if you have a desk job. A desk job is any such job where you have to sit in the chair for long hours; an incorrect sitting position can be detrimental to your health in such a case.
Office chairs come in all sorts of designs. The newer models mostly include a lever at an accessible location. This helps to pull the seat up or down to set it in its desired position.
If your office chair doesn’t have a lever, it could either be one of the older models or because the lever had broken. Either way, there are alternative methods on how to raise office chair without lever. We’ll discuss all these alternatives in this post.
Decide a suitable height
An important decision to make before raising or lowering your office chair is what height suits you best. Most people will continue sitting in a chair adjusted to the incorrect height, ignoring all the signs, including pain in their neck and back. They won’t take any action until the situation aggravates.
Don’t be one of those, and don’t burden your body with the unnecessary strain.
Choosing the right height of the chair for yourself is quite simple. Here are some things you need to make sure of:
- While sitting in the chair, you should be able to place your feet comfortably on the ground.
- Your thighs should be positioned horizontally.
- The angle between your thighs and your calves should be 90 degrees.
- Your sitting position must work well with the height of the table or keyboard so that you can work comfortably.
- When standing, the seat of the chair should be at the same vertical level as your knees.
Once you have taken into consideration all of the above points, you’ll find a suitable height for your chair and will be able to work comfortably while sitting in it.
Adjusting the chair without a lever
Once you have selected a suitable height for your office chair, the next big question is how to raise office chair without lever.
Raising or lowering the newer models of office chairs is simple. They feature a pneumatic cylinder, which adjusts the height of the chair by building air pressure within it. The action of the cylinder is controlled through the adjustment lever, which is easily accessible while sitting in the chair.
As for the older office chair models, the adjustment isn’t that simple. They work on a rotational adjustment system which cannot be operated while sitting in the chair.
What you’ll need
You won’t need a bunch of fancy tools for a task as simple as this one. Here’s what’s required:
Procedure to follow:
To adjust the height of an old office chair model, here is the procedure that you will need to follow to learn how to raise office chair:
Step 1: Spin the seat
- Stand beside the chair since you cannot adjust the height while sitting in it.
- Try to spin the seat around its post. Turning it clockwise will lower the chair while turning it counterclockwise will raise it.
- Sit in the chair to check if the right height has been attained.
- If it’s still not positioned correctly, spin the seat a little more in the appropriate direction until the desired height is achieved.
- Every complete rotation of the seat changes the position by 0.25 inches, for most models. So if you need to raise the chair by an inch, you will need to rotate it counterclockwise four times.
If the seat spins easily, your work is simple. You will only need to go on to the further steps if the seat post is stuck and is not revolving around its post smoothly.
Step 2: Lubricate the post
In case the seat is not spinning, it must be because of the dust that has collected around the post over time. Here’s what you’ll do to fix it:
- Wipe the entire post around which the seat rotates.
- Lubricate it throughout the length.
- Add some of the lubricant to the mounting socket that holds the post to the base of the chair.
Step 3: Tighten the post
Now that you have lubricated the post, you need to tighten its connection with the base of the chair. Here are the steps to follow:
- Locate the set screw that holds the mounting socket in place.
- Use a screwdriver to tighten the set screw in its position. An Allen wrench can also be used for the same.
- Tighten the screws all the way until the connection of the post and the base is tight.
Step 4: Adjust the height
Once you have lubricated the post and tightened it, you’ll find it easy to adjust the height of your office chair. Here’s how to raise an office chair higher:
- Place a foot firmly on the base. This will prevent it from turning with the seat.
- Now spin the seat in the appropriate direction until the height is achieved. As already mentioned, a counterclockwise rotation will raise the chair, while a clockwise rotation will lower it.
Conclusion
Although adjusting the position of an old office chair isn’t as simple as that of a new model, it’s not impossible. Of course, adjusting it to the correct height is, after all, a much better option than enduring back pain and posture problems that result.
Now that you have learned how to raise office chair without lever, you will find it rather simple to do so. Raise it to the correct height and enjoy a comfortable sitting position that lets you concentrate on your work without constantly worrying about your back.
