What Can I Do to Stop My Sofa From Sliding?

Sofa Use

• When you sit or lie on a sofa, vertical force is transferred through the sofa frame and legs to the floor. The sofa is most likely to slide when lateral pressure is exerted on the frame. This happens when users begin to sit on, or are getting off of, the sofa. The sofa can also slide when users sit on the floor and use the sofa as a backrest.

Sofa Legs

• Sofas slide because of insufficient traction between the bottoms of the sofa legs and the flooring. Sofa legs that are especially narrow have very little contact area with the floor and tend to cause more sliding than wider legs.

Flooring

• Hard floor surfaces such as ceramic tile, stone, concrete and hardwood offer little traction to prevent the sofa from sliding. Softer flooring, such as carpet, padded vinyl and cork allow the sofa to sink slightly into the flooring. This increases the contact area between the bottoms of the sofa legs and the floor. The increased traction helps to prevent the sofa from sliding.

Remedy

• To prevent the sofa from sliding, friction between the floor and sofa legs must be increased. This is accomplished by placing rubber or soft synthetic-rubber pads on the bottoms of the sofa legs. Antiskid furniture pads are available at many discount-variety, home improvement and furniture stores.