Do I have to secure an IKEA TV stand to the wall?

Question

I'm a young adult preparing to move out into an apartment the first time, and I'm trying to fill out some gaps in terms of furniture before I get going.

I found this IKEA tv stand that's perfectly small and cheap, but there's this business about anchoring it to the wall? I've never seen furniture anchored like that in my life!

Do you think it's really necessary to drill holes and all that fuss over such a small stand? (I'm looking at the MOSJO if that helps).

Edit: People keep mentioning kids. I'm moving out for the first time! I don't have a kid or pets! It's just me and a little apartment.

Answer 1

No, nothing to do.

If you download the assembly instructions for MOSJÖ you won’t see anything about a bracket for attaching the item to the wall, and there isn’t one included in the package.

Answer 2

"Why do I have to attach IKEA furniture to the wall specifically? No other furniture seller requires this."

This is because of IKEA's iconography in the minds of the public.

If you buy a locally made TV stand from George Utrecht Family Furniture down on Mill Road, and a child climbs on it and it falls over, you'd never dream of suing old George. You probably don't even know whose furniture that is.

The idea that furniture toppling was a dangerous threat wasn't really coming together, because it was 1000 worldwide accidents from furniture built by a thousand sellers, suits were rare, and no defendant ever had the marketing "punch" to get the message out.

Needless to say, with IKEA, lawyers and bereaved saw an opportunity to do some good. The bereaved were happy to trade away some settlement $, and IKEA was happy to participate. And IKEA got the word out.

Unfortunately, people misconstrued this message to think "only IKEA furniture needs to be anchored to the wall. No no! What Ikea says about anchoring furniture applies to all furniture.

Answer 3

Perhaps not, but recognize the risks.

A few years ago, there were several tragic accidents where young children were crushed by Ikea furniture. Since then, Ikea has issued recalls and safety warnings, instructing people to attach their furniture to the wall to avoid such incidents.

The piece you mention is only 30lbs (14 kg) and 15" (40 cm) tall, so it's unlikely to tip over, and unlikely to cause severe harm if it did, so it's a pretty low-risk piece of furniture even if you don't attach it to the wall. But do recognize that it can be a safety hazard, especially if you have rambunctious young children or pets.

As an adult with no kids who normally operates their furniture within the design parameters, however, I have never felt unsafe near an unsecured piece of Ikea furniture. The Ikea police won't track you down if you don't use the wall bracket, but you'll bear the full responsibility if there is an accident.

https://www.thesun.co.uk/living/2021262/why-does-ikea-furniture-fixed-wall/

Answer 4

I have put a lot of these IKEA TV stands together for people and always suggest that they let me secure them to a wall. The old style TVs were so heavy that the stands were absolutely going no where but the flat screen TVs are light and high and can be positioned toward the front of the stand, making it easy to topple over. I know of adults that have toppled them over trying to get behind the stands to mess around with the cables. You might not have small children but you could have friends over that do. Play it safe and sink in a toggle bolt. Enjoy your new, first apartment and stay safe.

Answer 5

If you have young children in your house I'd fasten it to the wall. Ikea started providing this as a standard after a child died after tipping over a piece of their furniture. If you don't have children it's not really necessary, just a thing Ikea's lawyers are telling them to include in all their furniture sets now.

https://www.usatoday.com/story/news/investigations/2020/01/06/ikea-settles-46-million-after-dresser-kills-child/2821182001/

Answer 6

The IKEA piece in question would have come with a small metal bracket with screws. One arm of the bracket attaches to your furniture and the other arm has a largish hole in it which you have to figure out how to attach to your wall, the details of which depend very much on what your wall happens to be made of and how far away from it the piece is. People who don't live in earthquake zones will likely put these brackets in their junk drawers and forget about them.

As others have said, the risk of harm of the thing tipping over scales with (a) whether you live in an earthquake zone (b) whether you have toddlers in the home and (c) the weight of the thing that's resting on it. If the answers are No, No and Light, then you might well just not fret about it. If (a) is true then any local hardware store will advise you on how to secure furniture and if (b) is true then any of the dozen books your family has given you will have chapters on making your house child-safe (which involves strapping the tv to the stand, in addition to hooking the stand to the wall). If (c) is "heavy" then you've been suckered into taking your uncle's 36" trinitron that he doesn't know how to get rid of, and you should leave it at the curb and find a sale on a flat-panel.

As furniture goes, the Mosjo looks pretty ... can I say, "squat"? Not something that's going to flop over when a truck rumbles by. If it was a full-height Billy looming next to your futon, I'd say, yeah, tie that big boy to a stud. I had a room lined with Stens when I lived in San Francisco and you're damn right I hooked them to the walls (lag thread screw hooks into the studs, with short lengths of light chain around every second upright). In the absence of kids, I wouldn't worry about a low TV stand.

Answer 7

As Robin Whittleton correctly pointed out, MOSJÖ does not need to be anchored to walls, there's no such instruction in the manual and there are no anchoring parts provided.

Considering we're on Home Improvement site, you can add doors, shelves etc. to it on your own. From now on true common sense must work.

There are two modes of failure of the furniture one must take care of. It can either collapse unter the load or it can flip over. Anchoring addresses the second option.

Old furniture used to address the flipping by using heavy frame structure, light doors and few drawers close to floor. Those wont flip because the centre of mass is always in the furniture.

Younger pieces were proteced by screwing together building one big solid body that is heavy enough to be flipped easily.

New pieces are "design" and optimized for price. The result is lighter body structure and heavier doors, taller drawers etc. Glass, which is much heavier than wood, is used more and more. Such pieces must be anchored because even opening door or drawer can move the centre of mass too forward to flip it over.

Another point of view is stability of the whole setup. Older equpment is either smaller or heavier than today's equipment. TV sets were more like boxes (with all three dimensions simillar), new LCD/OLED/plasma screens are more like sheets (one dimension negligible to the other two). Speakers were rather heavy wooden boxes, now they are "design" tall tubes, shells etc.

Now imagine something hitting the MOSJÖ with 20" TV screen on it. It is light, so is the screen so the supports will skid slightly which will put the screen out of ballance, which is, unlike the MOSJÖ, thin and tall...

So, the answer is: "No, you don't need to secure IKEA TV stand to the wall" but if you do secure it properly, the security gain overcome the drawbacks with high margin.

Answer 8

You should probably anchor most furniture to walls. Almost all furniture has a non neglible toppling hazard, and toppling is mesyy - you do not want your furniture and its contents damaged.

And this can happen easily, especially if your furniture has drawers or e.g. is top heavy.

You will need only very few equipment to secure your furniture and you probably need equipment anyway. E.g. a good cordless drill, screwdrivers, screws, etc. are mandatory for any househould. Otherwise you have to go borrow everything when you want to anything.