Serta: Start FR standard soon
By David Perry -- Furniture Today, February 20, 2006
Hoffman Estates, Ill. — Bedding major Serta strongly endorses a draft federal mattress flammability standard, but would like to see it take effect much earlier than the proposed July 2007 implementation date.
Al Klancnik, group vice president at Serta and a key figure in the producer's early push to introduce FR mattresses, expressed the company's views in a letter to the commissioners of the U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission. They will decide shortly what the standard should be and when it should be implemented.
Klancnik made a strong appeal to the commissioners to set the implementation date at January 2007, "or even earlier ... to give Americans the open-flame resistant protection they need in their mattresses as soon as possible."
While a number of suppliers of FR products have expressed disappointment at the proposed July 2007 implementation date, Klancnik's letter marks the first public appeal from the industry to set an earlier implementation date.
Klancnik said an earlier implementation date is needed because "hundreds of Americans die in bedroom-related fires every year." Finalization of the standard should be a priority now, he said, noting that Serta began selling mattresses that meet the proposed federal FR standard in late 2003.
"By now," he wrote, "mattress manufacturers have had sufficient time as well as ample opportunity and materials to create safer consumer mattresses. But unfortunately, some lack the incentive to change — and a July 2007 implementation date will only serve as a disincentive."
Klancnik said the July 2007 date "would effectively penalize mattress manufacturers who make open-flame resistant mattresses now, and reward those who aren't willing to spend the extra money until the last possible minute. However, the biggest losers would be consumers."
He wrote that Serta is pleased by the CPSC's "unequivocal stand on the safety of barrier products. Thank you for making it clear that barrier products are safe for everyday long-term use in mattresses."
