Can anybody give me advise here. I bought a bed for a rental property last week. The tenant has now contacted me to say the support piece of wood in the middle of the bed is broken. Where do I stand on this. Can I contact the shop and demand a replacement?
Assuming it was a new bed and that the tenant wasn't doing something unreasonable to make it break ( for example sawing it) then yes, demand replacement.
The horizontal slats aren't very strong - someone broke one on a new bed frame just testing it with his hand. Probably tenants weren't at fault. If bed in new and you have a receipt - ask the shop to replace / repair.
if you can't get a replacement (unlikely though) just visit your local hardware shop & they should fix you up - bring along a piece of the wood to show them. and anyway, in my experience the support piece of wood that they supply is crap anyway (just my opinion). you are usually better off buying the piece yourself in a hardware shop. tell them the lenght you need and they might even cut it for you there and then. a few screws and bobs your uncle!!
Make sure to ask them for a single piece of wood and not a piece made out of compressed/glued wood. Not sure what it's actually called but it happened to me once - if you look at most (cheaper?) wooden beds, you can clearly see the little v-shaped joins indicating that that part is not cut from one single piece of wood. Each of those joins is a weak point and if you put pressure on it at a particular angle there's a good chance of it breaking. Hope that makes sense.
... if you look at most (cheaper?) wooden beds, you can clearly see the little v-shaped joins indicating that that part is not cut from one single piece of wood. Each of those joins is a weak point and if you put pressure on it at a particular angle there's a good chance of it breaking. Hope that makes sense.