The Make Life Safer tag is the preeminent solution in the marketplace to making your home safer.
A not-for-profit organization, the Upholstered Furniture Action Council (UFAC) created its Construction Criteria to help manufacturers choose fabrics and other materials components that can safely be used to design and build upholstered furniture. The UFAC method has been in existence for over 40 years and sets the standard for all others. The UFAC method has helped to provide consumers with the wide variety of furniture styles and thousands of upholstery fabrics that they have come to expect while maintaining an independent safety verification testing program.
The UFAC Construction Criteria are the most successful and widely adopted industry standard to protect consumers from smoldering fire ignitions. The UFAC voluntary standard has served as the basis for every modern upholstered furniture standard in the United States, including ASTM E1353, NFPA 260, and the current version of California Technical Bulletin 117-2013. Indeed, UFAC has now adopted the updated 2013 version of California TB 117-2012 as part of its own verification program, although UFAC still requires additional welt cord testing.
UFAC has never required the use of flame retardant chemicals to achieve compliance with its performance standards.
The U.S. Consumer Product Safety Commission (CPSC) has recognized the success of the UFAC program and has repeatedly found that UFAC participating manufacturers constitute the vast majority (85%) of the dollar volume of all upholstered furniture sold in the United States.
According to the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA), total upholstered furniture fire related deaths have fallen from 1,360 annually in 1980 when the UFAC standard was being implement to approximately 440 in 2017.[1] The figures for deaths attributed to upholstered furniture are even lower.
The UFAC construction criteria have played a significant role in the large reduction of deaths, as cigarette-ignited upholstered furniture fires have declined by more than 85%.
The downward trend in residential fire deaths and injuries due to upholstered furniture ignitions can also be attributed, in part, to a number of factors such as (i) less tobacco use, (ii) more and higher quality smoke detectors, (iii) child-resistant cigarette lighters, and (iv) reduced ignition propensity (RIP) cigarettes.
[1] NFPA. 2017. Research: Home Structure Fires that Begin in Upholstered Furniture. Quincy, MA.
