» Strathwood Teak Chaise Lounge

Strathwood Teak Chaise Lounge Reviews

Customer Rating:
Summary: great product
Comment: I was very pleased with the quality, color and sturdiness of this product. I met my expectations.

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Not up to Amazon par
Comment: I just received this chaise and I had to return it. First of all, I received a used chaise. The box was already torn open and pieced back together like it had come back from a safari in Africa. Next, I noticed the wheel was lose and unstable just as the prior reviewer mentioned. The kicker was that I sat on it and the pieces of wood made a breaking sound and gave in like it was already broken. Next, the chaise doesn't go past 35 degrees and the back has the potential to break right off just as the prior reviewer mentioned in his point 2. This item should be dropped from Amazon's lineup - no if's, or but's about it. The functional design and structure needs some reinforcement. It looks great but it doesn't matter if you can't sit on it, can't sit up in it, and it makes you feel like it's going to break. How could you send a used one as a new one?

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Customer Rating:
Summary: Strathwood Teak Lounge is a Great Value (But Not Perfect)
Comment: First I should mention that I've only had this for a short time so I can't comment on durability or weathering. I bought two of them. They arrived quickly and were well packaged and in perfect condition. They're almost 7' long, so they come in a big box that you'll probably have to cut up to dispose of. (Think refrigerator box.) The box is stamped "made in China." I guess that shows you how cheap the labor is in China that they could ship these here cheaper than making them in the states. I wish they were American made, but then they'd probably be a lot more expensive. As it were, these are a great value at a fraction of what most other teak wood furniture costs.

They are pretty solid, but not Fort Knox solid. If kids jumped up and down on them, they would break. For the use they are intended, they are beefy enough, though. I think the teak wood is very pretty. I will probably oil them to keep them this color, rather than letting them turn gray.

The backs on them, don't rise up past 45 degrees. So if sitting more upright is important to you, you might not like that aspect. Even at their most upright position, you are reclining. A big selling feature for me is the fact that you can fold the back all the way down flat... completely flat. That's good if you're laying out on your stomach. (Some chaise lounges don't fold down completely flat and it can hurt your lower back to lay on your stomach on one that doesn't fold flat.)

The pull-out drink table is a very nice feature. When it's under the lounge, it fills the full width of the lounge. You can pull it out on EITHER side (without any kind of modification required), something I'm not sure is clear from the description. That can be important, especially if you have two of these sitting side by side, as I do. When the drink table is pulled out, it hits a stop that prevents it from sliding all the way out. At it's full extraction, more than half of it is still under the lounge, so it is a fairly solid cantilever situation.

Two areas of concern:

Concern #1: The way the wheels connect to the axle doesn't provide a lot of lateral strength. As long as you're careful to roll the wheels straight and not "scoot" them side to side, it should be ok, though.

Concern #2: OK, this is a really hard one to explain. I could show you easily, but putting into words is very difficult. In order to fold the back down flat, you have to first lift it up all the way and move the prop bar to the other side of the support bar. That, in and of itself, is not a bad thing. But if you try to fold it down flat with the prop bar on the same side of the support bar that it is when the back is upright, it hyper-extends the hinge point, putting a lot of stress on the bolts where the prop hinges to the back. If you put a persons weight on the back while the prop bar is in this position, it would almost certainly split the wood where the bolts go through. Again, this is very hard to explain, but it's something I consider to be a fairly substantial design flaw. (And the reason for four stars instead of five.) For you carpenters, think in terms of a hinge-bound door. A portion of the prop bar hits wood before it's folded all the way flat. But the prop bar also provides a lot of leverage against the bolts, so if you force the prop bar down flat, something's going to break. They should have used a metal bracket that sticks out so that the prop bar could fold all the way in either direction without hyper-extending the hinge point. If you and your family are the only ones using the lounges, you can just show everyone the potential problem and everyone can just be careful not to do that. But if your lounges are used by a lot of guests, and especially children, it's probably only a matter of time before it gets broken. Just in case, I took a dremel tool and notched out a place on the bottom of one of the slats to relieve some of the stress where the prop bar hits the wood. I couldn't relieve the stress completely, but hopefully enought to at least prevent breakage should someone try to lay the back down flat with the prop bar in the wrong position.

Overall, I am pleased with my purchase, especially considering the price I paid. I think with proper care, these should last a very long time.

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