Fix a Sinking Office Chair For Less Than a Dollar! [Tutorial] 

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i'm watching this while i'm sinking down no joke

Hey there... I'm a handy 72 yr old woman and just knew there had to be a way to fix this old chair, so did a search and found your video. I found some old pvc pipe hanging around, cut it and wallah! Done ... in half an hour. This works perfectly! Thanks so very much for doing this video. Saved me a lot of aggravation, saved my back, and saved me $$$.... :) Very Happy!!!

LEGEND!! Till this day hes still helping people fix expensive chairs. Salute

You've saved nearly half a million of us from needing to go out and purchase a new chair! You rock! Thanks!

Amazing! this 62 yr old lady just fixed her own chair! I had the pvc in the garage, cut to length and ta-da!

I like how a gaming channels most watched video is about an office chair. great tutorial man.

me staring at the screen with my chair on the floor, disassembled, realizing i needed to go to the store to get a part

I swear the only reason chairs have a hydraulic height adjust is so you need to keep buying new chairs

my chair sank about 3 times while i watched this. thank you sir.... gonna give this a go!!!

My chair is less than 3 months old, rated for 300 lbs, and still sinks. I googled this tutorial, ordered the part on Amazon (it was like $2 with free Prime shipping, but I figured the extra $1 was worth not having to go into HD during the plague). Took me less than 5 mins to fix, and so far it's great! Thanks for the very helpful video!

Wish I had this several years ago before I bought chairs to replace the old ones, but this will be my go to place for when this problem arises. I like my current chair quite a bit and have no intention of replacing it soon. Thanks for the tute! :)

Tall folks understand that as long as the chair doesn't sink we don't care about adjustability. Great mod. Did mine today, cut the pipe at 5-1/4" to get all the height I could. Thanks!

2 years of living with a chair I love except for it slowly dropping down... in 10 minutes you saved me some serious money! Thank you sir for clear and easy to follow tutorial! Much love from Arkansas US

Hey Mystic Sword Gaming! I just wanted to say thank you so much. My brain can't even think about a simple fix like this, so finding this video and saving my chair for under $1 was nothing short of amazing. It feels like a new chair!

My chair was sinking as I was watching your video. I had a scrap piece of PVC, shopped it down to 4 3/4 inches (for my chair) followed the directions and no more sinking. You saved me money and additional frustration. Thank you!

Am from Mauritius. Have followed your instructions and have used a piece of pvc. Wow works wonderfully and no cost.Thx

Spent months going up down up down . . . reached my breaking point then found this video. Not kidding, QUICK, CHEAP FIX. A little tricky on removing that pin but I had NOTHING to lose. Sitting tall now. Thank you for sharing!

FAR easier then what I was expecting! Thank you so much! My chair wasn't even six months old and was lowering on me. Now it's the perfect height for my frame!

I just found your video from 6 yrs ago and your remedy still works beautifully today. Thanks so much for sharing.

Dude, you just saved me $200+, thank you!!! My desk chair has been sinking for a year, leading to really sore knees due to them being bent at a 60-degree angle for hours at a time. I happened to have some 3/4" inner diameter PVC pipe handy, and a pipe cutting tool (meant for metal pipe, but it works on PVC, too), in less than 10 minutes, my chair is like brand new again. I was ready to say uncle and buy a new chair, I'm glad I did a diy-fix search first.

I just used this tutorial 5 minutes ago. Super easy, straightforward, and no more sinking!! ^_^ Thanks dude!

Went to hardware store they asked for garden or farm i said i'm rigging a office chair they chuckled hahaha

Your tutorial was very thorough, far above and beyond the other handful of videos I watched to repair my chair. I like that you included the exact name of the tubing we would need, which is especially helpful for those of us who are not so familiar with the long, scary aisles in Home Depot. 😁 Thanks so much!

Thank you! Worked perfectly! A couple extra pieces fell out but they seemed to go back in - in more or less the same order, and the chair works fine! It's basically stuck at full height which is okay with my 6 foot 2 frame.

Thank you so much for making this video! watched it 3 times just to know how to remove that darned clip! I managed to D.I.Y. my own chair....may you have a long, healthy and blessed life!

Thank you, this kind of post is the main reason why RU-vid should exist. Very grateful.

Even quicker fix!! ...This inspired me to take a quick look at my sinking wheel base and I literally took just a binder clip to fit in as a spacer against the seat pole without even taking the wheel base apart at all. Didn't even need to invert the chair for better access. I just slid up the plastic sleeve cover and spotted where a spacer would stop the chair pole from sliding down. One medium large binder clip worked, but I slipped in two just for good measure. I had to flip back one side of the wire flips on the binders so it would fit up against the pole better. Then I slid the plastic sleeve back over it and voila! A perfect fix in 30 seconds to a longstanding problem that I've put up with for 2 years! Unbelievable instant fix!!! I liked my chair too much to replace, but endured the continual nuisance of it repeatedly sinking all the time. Problem fixed!!!! Thank you for the inspiration to invent a fix of my own! More simple than I could have imagined!

Now that is using the old noggin! My old noggin is a little rusty, so thanks for the kick-start! In 2011 I purchased two office chairs, Endsleigh Executive Big Tall Chair #246-219/743-577, (one brown leather & one black leather) as a gift for my Father - my Dad chose the brown chair. I kept the black chair, which was a replacement chair for a prior office chair that suffered the same fate - sinking like low tide. In 2015, I learned that my Father's chair's gas cylinder sunk and both chairs were peeling/flaking - "fake leather" - and making a mess in the room. I had one chair reupholstered in marine nylon in the color peacock green, for a very fair price. The brown chair is in the garage with a sheet as a cover to prevent the "faux-leather" from sticking to your body and clothes. The peacock green chair just collapsed today! I will look through my irrigation repair supplies, but most likely I will purchase the Poly Insert Coupling. If the repair works for me, I just may get the brown chair reupholstered in a color (?).

Bless you for this. It fixed my chair perfectly. I had to order the part online, and shipping added $5 to the $0.90 cost of the part (the only hardware store that had it was across a toll bridge for much more!). The part (Home Deport, USA) also came with flanges which I trimmed off so I could retain the plastic sleeve over the shaft of the chair.

Thank you! As an overweight woman who spends most of her free time gaming, this has been a huge money saver for me! :) I thought the tube wouldn't be long enough but it works great. For anyone who attempts it, just be aware that once that first washer comes off, there might be a lot of cakey oil and grease inside the chair. It's messy and stains, so fair warning!

Very good video.....I used it to remove the old 'sleeve' surrounding the piston, leaving the piston arrangement and cutting down a sprinkler head from my irrigation system....cut this down to size, put it all back....worked....free fix. Best element of the video is the part on how to remove the bottom clip....without this part of the video, you can't go much further. Mess it up, you get to buy a new chair or find another video on fashioning clips....Well done. Thank you.

My chair is 18 years old and I love the style of it. My husband was online looking for a new chair but I just knew there was a way to fix it. I live on a ranch so we had plenty of scrap pieces of 1" PVC pipe. I cut off 3", followed your concise and precise video instructions, 10 minutes later I was finished. VOILA! THANK YOU kind sir.

Appreciate the life hack will try this out soon

This fixed my chair as well. What a relief to not have to play the up and down game when trying to concentrate on work. Thank you so much for creating this video!

Your video is still helping even 4 years later! Your fix worked wonderfully and cheap! Thanks

This is a life saver of a tutorial. I didn't use the exact same coupling, but something very similar and now my chair is perfect, not sinking, and sturdy!

WOW! Thanks, what a novel approach. Watched a lot of other videos on this issue and all of them are about getting a new cylinder but I could never get the old one off. This solves that issue. And I never adjust my chair anyway so this is the perfect solution!

great video, i've become a bit of a chair enthusiast and this really helped me on a chair with a clip i was messing around with :D

Awesome, will try this tomorrow!

Thank you! My 6.5 feet 220 lbs body frame gave my office chairs usually a six month life span... tried this with a peace of metal pipe lying around in the shed, worked like a charm!

thank you so much-- you just saved me a bundle!!!!! my steelcase has lots of life left in it, and as someone commented below-- big/tall guys want their chair all the way up.

Thank you, Thank you, Thank you! I had the same problem, so after watching your video, I tackled my own. I could not find the exact same piece as you used, but I bought a couple of pvc connectors and they are working great! My cost was $1.67 and so totally worth it.

Brilliant! I was just about to buy a new chair after weeks of frustration. As a low inocme pensioner, and my chair being less than 2 years & otherwise in great condition, I've been trying to hold on with the (impossible) hope that the chair would somehow come good. Then I saw this video. Thank you. You've made my day and many more to come will be far less stressful than recent ones have been.

I have liked your video, as a fellow Canadian, I have just fixed my wife's chair in the same way as you describe, it works perfectly and just saved me a butt load of money on a new chair, as she loves her current chair and has had it for 7 years. This is an awesome fix has just extended the life of her chair to probably at least another seven years or probably longer. I made a slight change in that I went into Rona's (A hardware store for, all you non Canadians) and spent $6.00 on a galvanized steel equivalent of the part you suggested, for even greater longevity for the chair. Thanks again.

Thank you for this! I'm fixing my mom's chair right now, just letting the coupling dry since I painted it to match :-)

Thank you for your video. I just did this with a PVC pipe (2") and I misjudged the length of pipe I needed. I forgot to consider the play when you sit down that's present in a chair with working hydraulics, so I made the pipe too long. Fortunately, a neighbor is helping me and we can just cut it a little bit shorter, but I thought I'd mention it here, in case others are measuring the chair at its optimal height without taking that into consideration.

Was at my wits end with this chair, had some PVC I tried after watching this video, working great. Your video saved what's left of my sanity.

Worked great. I bought a tailpiece for a sink of the 1 1/2 inch by 4 inch dimensions and it works perfectly. Thank you!

done. had some left over 1 1/2 inch pvc in the basement. worked magically! Thanks for taking the time to make the video!

Thanks for this! I cut 3" section off my metal hoover noozle (a Henry hoover) and it's worked perfectly

One of the best video's with fixing the annoying problem of sinking the chair..So simple explained, obviously you are a smart guy....for sure....thanks Dan

Omg!! And just like that my chair is fixed. From saw time to fixed ~ 10 minutes!! Thank you because I can’t afford a new chair right now and I was at my wits end with my chair which had a mind of its own.

Looked at several different ways to fix a sinking chair. Decided on yours and it worked great. Word of caution, though. Please take note of how you take the bottom assembly off and the order in which the washers come off and go back on. There are several washers and they do have a precise order on which they go back on. Other than that, a breeze. Thanks...Tommy

I just want to say thank you very much from Vietnam. I fixed my chair magically!

Thank the Lord for people like you with simple solutions to life's annoying little problems.

Thank you so much for this easy and (super) affordable fix! One trip to Home Depot and now I don't need to replace my chair!! I left the outer casing on which hides the coupling perfectly. Great video!

This simple fix worked great. My wife and I always keep the chair as high as it will go, so this worked great. I already had a piece of PVC that I cut to length. Thanks for the idea!

Brother this was Genius! I didnt have the coupling you showed so I used a simple piece of PVC that fit over the shaft and Done! My office chair is fixed! I am so stoked! Thank you!!!!

Just wanted to say thank you for this video! My chair's hydraulics are starting to fail, and your video saved me a TON of money! Literally had a piece of PVC tubing lying around that works perfectly!

Awesome!!! Who's here in 2022. Just found this video....went outside cut a piece of 1 1/4 pvc pipe about 5 inches for my model chair and its done!!! WAHW! was even able to reuse plastic sleeve chair is as good as new again.

this is an epic fix. Can finally keep my chair at the highest position and it never sinks down.

great share, chair shopping just became poly coupler shopping! Thank you so much!

Best solution on RU-vid!!!! I have purchased the item. We'll see how well it works. You did a great job and came up with an easy fix! Thank you so very much!

Worked great!

Worked great for this 6'1" tall 250 pounder from Texas. Thank you ever so much. I bought a gaming chair and didn't even have it for a full year before the cylinder went on me. This fix was cheap, fast, and perfect. I never put the chair lower anyway.

OMG Thank you so much! This was really easy to do. I had a PVC from a long time ago. It only took like 5 mins to do. Didnt want to buy another computer chair. Thanks again

THANK YOU SO MUCH!!! I’ve been struggling with my chair for MONTHS, unable to afford a new chair. My chair progressed to a fast-drop, which was quite jarring! Thanks to you, I fixed my chair for $1.50 in under 10 minutes, after struggling with figuring out that I should release the hydronic to the highest position. Once I did that, it took about one minute to assemble everything again. I’m 5’6”, and the chair at it’s highest position is perfect for me. Again, thank you so much for posting this video! You’ve saved me and lots of other people hundreds of dollars and helped us DIY with a bare minimum of effort! I wish all my problems were this easy and inexpensive to fix!

Couldn't get to the store so I cut a paint roller in half and it worked a charm, thanks for the idea saved me buying a new gaming chair!

Brilliant! I have two 3D printers, I just printed a spacer, thanks for the great idea!

YOU SIR, HAVE MADE MY DAY!! I will at some point today be on my way to THE DEPOT to grab a piece of that poly or some PVC to fix my chair. No longer having to scour the web for a new chair!!! Ty soo much!!! LOL

I have several of these chairs. Three gaming chairs and a couple office chairs. At least 3 of them started sinking about 6 months after purchase. I am tall and felt ripped off by the supplier. Thanks so much for this fix. It works and saved me quite a bit of money.

Thanks man! This helped a ton I love it and appreciate the help. 4 years later and you are still helping people! :D

Thank you! Mine cost a whopping $2.97! Bought a 1-1/4" Sch 40 x 2' section of PVC at Home Depot and cut it to 4 1/2". The 1-1/4" inside I.D. slid over the cylinder but was small enough to fit inside the original black cylinder covers. So it looks like it did originally, just doesn't sink anymore!

Thank you this is exactly what I was looking for. I love my chair, and didn't want to spend much to fix it. cheers

The video that keeps on giving. I just fixed our home office chair with this vid. Thanks so much for making it!

Thank you so much. I’m sick of dealing with my chair. My issue was I thought that I would have to find a 7” round clamp to fix it. Now I know that is just a cover to the hydraulic tube. I’m totally going to try this fix!

this is great. we need more simple solutions like this in life! great vid!

Really helpful video. My present chair is in very good condition, it is just that it sinks and I was very reluctant to throw it out. This video saved me from buying a new chair many thanks.

Thank you. For now you saved me $300. I messed up a bit with the clip on the bottom while removing it, but somehow I was able to re-assembly everything and it seems to work fine.

thanks for the help-my chair has been driving me crazy and i work w/ those coupler things all the time-ill try it out!

This saved me so much money - thanks man!

Thank you so much. It worked. On both our chairs. We live in Mexico. Home Depot here had a part for about 30 pesos, (two dollars Canadian). You have saved us from having to buy two new chairs. Thank you again. :-) Your video was so helpful and thorough.

Thank you very much! That made my day! I'm gonna use steel pipe because that's what I have on hand! Paid $150 for chair last yr and it sinks 3 or 4 times a day,and do I get pissed off! Thank you very much!! Love it! 😊😊👍👍

As a person that uses an expensive office chair to sew from....I am currently at the lowest point...AGAIN! I usually sit at the highest position. I greatly appreciate your video!

Worked like a charm. Used 6" of inch and a half PVC pipe and now back in the game. Luckily I fixed it. My wife was about to throw it out the window.. .lol. Great video, thanks

Thank you very much. I didn't have to get a tube, but I found that 2 washers on the gas cylinder were out of place, and that caused my chair to sink. Without this video, I wouldn't have realised that

Just did it with mine and it worked like a champ. Thanks for the quick fix.

Excellent solution

not exactly the "fix" I was looking for but ill be damned if it doesn't work great, good tips

The clip was a pain to get back on, but 85 cents for the coupling instead of another 30 bucks or so for a cheap task chair works for me - thank you!!!

What a good idea,thanks from England.

It works, thank you from Texas. I had a 2” diam. PVC, cut to 3-1/2” and worked perfectly. You may want to place the chair at highest level to allow the center cylinder come all the way through. It helps taking pictures at each stage if you have super memory issues. Thanks again for sharing your experience.

thank you for this, just rushed out to the hardware store at 7pm to fix my chair i was so frustrated, it started sinking only after a couple of months.

imagine my surprise when you finally showed the chair and I have the exact same one :)

Chairs height adjustment feature wore out a couple of days back. Had a severe neck pain from using it in it's sunk position. Your fix worked like a charm, thanks a bunch

perfect fix, thank you! was so much easier than replacing the base. only suggestion is 4 inch tube seems to be just about perfect as opposed to 3 1/2, with the 4 inch it can only sink about 1/8 of an inch.

Fantastically simple fix that only cost $0.72 at Lowes! The hardest part was finding the coupling which was misplaced in the store. Really appreciate the detailed photo. There’s a WD-40 “fix” out there but it failed right away. Thank you for sharing this!!

WOW, I just bought a new chair. I'm so pissed LOL Thank you

Thanks for the tip! I had a piece of left over PVC pipe in my home and fixed my chair in 5 minutes after watching your video. Much appreciated!