How To Keep Chairs From Sliding on Wood Floors

Giovanni Valle is a licensed architect and LEED-accredited professional and is certified by the National Council of Architectural Registration Boards (NCARB). He is the author and managing editor of various digital publications, including BuilderSpace, Your Own Architect, and Interiors Place.

The right flooring can easily beautify your home, and if you have wood floors, they likely complement your home design and furniture! But you might find your chairs sometimes slide off the wood floors while sitting, which can be annoying. So, what can you do about your chairs sliding on your wood floors?

Here are some tips to help keep chairs from sliding on wood floors:

Get padded rugs for your floors.
Use area rugs.
Fix leg caps.
Purchase stop blocks.
Get grippers for the chairs.
Use leg felts.
Clean your floors regularly.

While it’s good to improve your home and make it look more beautiful, it’s best not to sacrifice comfort and convenience in the process. By reading the whole article, you’ll learn some great ways to keep your chairs from sliding on wood floors.

1. Get Padded Rugs for Your Floors

You can use padded rugs to keep your chairs from slipping off your wood floors. Placing a rug generally helps reduce friction between two surfaces (in this case, your chair’s feet and the floor).

However, it still doesn’t completely stop your chair from slipping off the wood floor as you’d expect. That’s because rugs also tend to slide around with weight on them, keeping them from staying in place.

Rugs will stay put on the hardwood but if you experience it slipping, padding them is your best option. These pads will help reduce the friction between the rug and the floor, keeping your chairs in a stable position.

Pros of Using Padded Rugs

Rug pads are cheaper to purchase, unlike many other solutions.
You get to use them for a long time since they last.
The risk of damaging your wood floors or chair feet with the rugs is low.
Padded rugs are very easy to install.
They’re highly effective in stopping chairs from slipping.
The rug pads are made of rubber and are eco-friendly.

Cons of Using Padded Rugs

Padded rugs tend to hold dust just like any other rugs.
Unlike natural rubber, PVC rug pads tend to leave scratch marks on the floor.
Plastic rug pads, especially those of low quality, contain toxic chemicals that can stain your wood floors and fill your home with toxins.
Some manufacturers also make these rug pads with adhesive coatings to better grip them. However, these adhesives can make the rug pads stick to your wood floor and adhere to themselves, thereby forming lumps under your rugs.

2. Use Area Rugs

The area rug solution is quite similar to the solution above, but it’s quite different based on its usage. Unlike using rug pads to keep your chairs in place, area rugs are used by laying them beneath all chairs.

Area rugs are bigger than traditional rugs and can accommodate all or most of your chairs in your living room. However, area rugs only work well if your chairs are closely arranged to each other without sacrificing space.

You’ll need to purchase a bigger area rug depending on the distance between your chairs. The weight of the rest of the chairs stops each chair from slipping off the floor, keeping it in place.

You might not need to consider getting pads with your area rugs if the chairs are very heavy. If your chairs weigh less, getting pads will usually be your best option.

Pros of Using Area Rugs

You don’t necessarily need to get paddings for them.
Area rugs are easy to install.
There are lower chances of you damaging your wood floors.
Area rugs are highly effective in stopping chairs from slipping across wood floors.

Cons of Using Area Rugs

The effectiveness of area rugs depends on the weight of your chairs or chairs—lighter chairs mean reduced stability.
Area rugs can easily tear if they aren’t thick enough and might result in scratches on your wood floors.
They’re quite expensive—the bigger they are, the more expensive.

3. Fix Leg Caps

You can fix leg caps to keep chairs and other pieces of furniture from sliding on wood floors. This solution is cheap, popular, and is different from the rug solutions mentioned earlier. With this solution, you’re attaching the leg caps to chairs rather than laying-out rugs.

Rubber pad caps are also easy to install. All you need to do is buy these rubber caps and fix them on the legs of your chair. However, you have to measure the size of your chair leg to get the appropriate size of rubber caps to buy.

You can fix rubber leg caps to chairs with different types of rubber cups, such as:

Cup pads
Peel and stick pads
Screw-on caps

Cup pads are designed in a way that they fit on chair legs, just like a sock. Screw-on caps fit similarly, but they’re screwed into place on chair legs, unlike cup pads. Peel and stick pads are quite different from these two since they have different appearances. They come as adhesive tapes that get attached to the bottom of the chair legs, keeping the legs in place.

Pros of Fixing Leg Caps

Fixing leg caps is affordable.
The risks of damaging your wood floors with these leg caps are low.
This solution can last for a long period.
It’s not the best solution, but it will get the job done.
You can get leg caps in various designs, shapes, and sizes.

Cons of Fixing Leg Caps

You might not find caps that fit your chairs if custom-made out of the normal range.
The designs available might not be to your taste.
Leg caps get sold out quickly.
Leg caps tend to lose elasticity over time.

4. Purchase Stop Blocks

The stop block solution works better on chairs that don’t get moved around a lot. It’s mainly used for heavier furniture like beds and sofas, keeping them in place. However, chairs that you tend to move around often wouldn’t be a good fit when using stop blocks.

Stop blocks are quite hard to purchase since they aren’t sold in stores unless custom-made. They’re mostly made with wood, but rubber is an alternative since it works well. You might need to fix them to the legs of your lightweight chairs, or they’ll come off.

Pros of Using Stop Blocks

This method is highly effective, especially with heavyweight chairs.
Stop blocks don’t take space and look like they are part of the chair.
You can use stop blocks as a long-term solution for your slipping chairs without worrying about any damage to your floors.

Cons of Using Stop Blocks

The installation method is a bit technical compared to some other solutions.
No stores are known to sell stop blocks, so making them yourself is your only option.
Stop blocks don’t work for light chairs as much as heavier ones.
Wood stop blocks can damage your floors regardless of their type.
Stop blocks aren’t stylish unless you design them yourself.

5. Get Grippers for the Chairs

Like stop blocks, chair grippers can also keep your chairs from slipping. It feels more like using a mini, peel-and-stick stop block product for your chair legs to keep them in place. The chair grippers come with two different sides to make them work effectively and keep your chairs in place.

One side has a textured design and makes it slide proof and the other side sticks firmly to the chair legs. These two sides work together, keeping your chairs in place so they don’t slide about and damage your floor. The main part of these grippers that prevents floor damage are the felt pad layers that come with them.

Felt layers serve as an extra set of cushions supporting the weight of the chairs and keeping them in place. The best part is that it’s quite easy to make your chair grippers.

Pros of Getting Chair Grippers

Chair grippers are affordable.
They serve as a good long-term solution to keep your chairs from slipping.
Installing chair grippers is easier than other solutions.
Chair grippers are very effective.

Cons of Getting Chair Grippers

Chair grippers can cause discoloration in the long run.

How To Make Custom Chair Grippers

Manufacturing your own chair’s gripper isn’t knowledge that’s deeply hidden since people do it as DIY practice.

Here are the tools you need to follow to make your custom chairs gripper:

Rubber gasket sheet
Twin-sided tape
Scrap wood
Scissors
Glue
Bricks

The steps involved to make your custom chairs gripper are as follows:

Get a rubber gasket sheet. Firstly, you’ll need to get some rubber gasket sheets first before starting the production of your gripper. It’s quite easy to get if you visit any hardware store in your area; the plumbing section has it.
Measure the foot of your chair. The next thing to do is to measure the foot of your chair for which you’re making the gripper. You can do it alone if it’s a light chair, but heavy chairs will require some external help. Cut the gasket sheets to match the measurement you have taken using a pair of scissors to avoid any errors.
Fix the custom grippers. Fixing the custom grippers beneath the feet of the chairs can be very technical at this point. You can decide to lift the chairs a bit and slide the custom gripper in place beneath each foot.

However, the best method would be to flip the chair over and tape the grippers to each chair’s feet. You can also choose to use high-quality glue in the absence of tape, but it might be hard to remove later.

Ensure you clean the bottom surface of the chair legs before taping or gluing to rid them of dust and debris.

Note: It’s not okay to use certain materials, such as felt, beneath the feet of chairs. Feltworks prevent your floors from incurring scratch damages but won’t stop your chairs from slipping. On the other hand, anti-slip tapes will likely prevent your chairs from slipping but will cause scratch damages to floors.

6. Use Leg Felts

You can fix leg felts on your chair legs to prevent your chair from sliding. Not only that, but they also protect your wood floors from scratch marks and white spots.

It’s good to use leg felts on furniture that you move frequently, such as your dining chairs. These leg felts are considered the best anti-slip pads that prevent chair legs from scratching your wood floor.

Depending on your choice, these leg felts come in different materials such as plastic, nylon, and rubber.

To use leg felts for your furniture, cut some pieces of the felt and place them on your chair legs. Manufacturers have also developed different ways to keep leg felts in place. These methods include the use of nails, adhesives, and fasteners.

Pros of Using Leg Felts

Apart from preventing sliding, let felts protect your wood floors from scratch marks.
Leg felts are good for furniture that’s moved frequently.

Cons of Using Leg Felts

Using leg felts is not an effective solution for preventing your chair from sliding, especially when they’ve picked a lot of grit.

7. Clean Your Floors Regularly

It might sound too simple or regular but cleaning your floors regularly also helps prevent chairs from slipping—and keep your house clean. Accumulation of debris at the feet of your chairs gives room for the chairs to slide over them. It also causes damage due to scratching, which can be worse if solid particles are stuck between both surfaces.

Pros of Regular Floor Cleaning

It is cost-efficient.
It doesn’t require installation.
It poses a very low damage risk.

Cons of Regular Floor Cleaning

It only works as a short-term solution.
It’s not as effective as other solutions.

Final Thoughts

No one likes their chairs sliding when sitting. If your chairs keep sliding on your wood floors, you may consider using the following:

Padded rugs
Area rugs
Leg caps
Stop blocks
Chair grippers

You should also maintain regular floor cleaning.

While these solutions solve issues with wood floors, they’ll also work well with other types of flooring. Go on and choose the solution that suits your taste and budget.