Have confidence in your assembler
"Small children are being regularly injured and sometime killed by incorrectly assembled and installed furniture. All of our badges holders are aware of the issues and what to do to make furniture safe."
Always look for the Status Badge when hiring your assembler - Don't Chance A Bad Experience
Check your assembler now
Our aim is to ensure that all tradesmen who offer professional furniture assembly services in the UK are aware of the safety issues, as well as other legal issues that affect how they work in your homes.
You would expect the assembly instructions supplied with furniture to provide all the necessary information, but they don't and are very often of poor quality, omiting crucial safety information.
As more and more people turn to tradesmen to get their furniture built, it is time there was a standard of what you can expect to get from your professional assembler. We are the first organisation to specifically offer training to and test the knowledge of those already working in this field and those who are new to it.
Check your flat pack assembler knows what they are doing
- Are they aware of the British Standards in place to ensure furniture is built safely regarding: Stability of Furniture; Children's Furniture; and Nursery Furniture?
- Have they completed all their Risk Assessments for doing this type of work?
- Have they offered to dispose of the Waste Packaging legally? They must be licenced to dispose of waste - Check Here. You could be fined if they dispose of it illegally.
How do our badges set assemblers from the rest?
Knowledge
To Build Children’s furniture safely
Know when to attach to the wall and why
Professionally Trained
Experience
Proof of Familiarity with Popular Products
Feedback
Customer Reviews
Independent Assessment of work
Consumers
Confidence: Your assembler is knowledgeable
Legal Awareness: Your assembler is aware of legal issues affecting his job
Trained: Your assembler is trained in flat pack assembly
Experience: Your assembler has demostrated knowledge gained through his experience
Commercial
Trained: Only use independently trained assemblers
Legally Aware:
Experiences: Use Assemblers who have demostrated experience
Assemblers
Increased Credibility
Trained
Legal Awareness
Demonstrates Experience
Work Quickly and Earn More
More Job Opportunities
More Confidence
Why is it necessary?
There are lots of people providing flat pack furniture assembly services, however there are currently no City and Guilds qualifications or similar to show the company or person you hire knows what they are doing. So when you find someone on the internet it really is pot luck as to whether they are competant or not. With our new system, we hope to change all that.
Third Party Checked Sites
All these companies claim to check the qualifications of their tradesmen listed, so you can be sure that they know what they are doing.
- Bark, Check a Trade, Checked and Vetted, Local Heroes, My Job Quote, MyBuilder.com, Rated People & Trust a Trader.
Any normal person would assume if they hire someone to assemble flat pack furniture from someone offering furniture assembly services on one of these sites that they have been trained to some sort of level.
So we contacted them all and asked them what qualifications the flat pack funriture assemblers they had listed actually had in furniture assembly?
They all said pretty much the same thing:
- "There aren't any (qualifications) we are aware of and so it doesn't matter."
To be fair to Local Heroes (operated by British Gas) they didn't bother to reply. Bidvine said they didn't check any qualifications of anyone (!!!!), although that is not the impression their website gives.
Okay, there is a small get out here for these companies, before I launched this website compiling 16 years of my own experience assembling furniture and employing others to do so, plus a lot of research, there weren't any qualifications at all, or minimum standards either. However it is still not right to give the impression people are qualified as flat pack assemblers when they are not, which is what they are all doing. This is not just about attaching furniture to the wall to stop it toppling, there are a lot more safety issues to consider!
It is unfortunate that although 67% of consumers are swayed by reviews, you cannot rely on reviews alone, this article on the Consumer Protection Association website explains why.
The general public deserve better.
Registered Assembler
This badge is gained by providing core information, such as personal details (Core Badge) and character references (References Badge), as well as sitting our courses and passing the tests on relevant knowledge surrounding: British Standards*; Waste Disposal*; and Health and Safety*. As you are working in people's homes you also will need to understand yor obligations regarding child protection legislation.
* The purpose of these three courses is to ensure the assembler is aware of the relevant legal issues surrounding providing a professional flat pack assembly service.
PLEASE NOTE: Assembly companies using lots of assemblers, are responsible for the elements of the Core Badge and References Badge themsleves, so we do not check these for assemblers working for them. Assembly companies like this can apply and display their Assemblers as being registered, provided they have passed the three knowledge tests (British Standards, Waste Disposal and Health and Safety).
Experienced Assembler:
REQUISITES: Registered Assembler + (at least) 2 x Knowledge Badges
There are several Knowledge Badges, which are simple multiple choice questions on popular suppliers products such as Ikea, Argos, John Lewis etc, which you can only answer if you have built a lot of their products. You will need to pass at least two of these tests to prove you are an experienced assembler.
We have started with 4-6 main manufacturers but intend to add tests for as many assemblers as we can so smaller companies where specific experience is an required can build a list of experienced assemblers. For example, we have a specific test on Mrs FlatPack beds - to do these quickly and correctly to a high standard requires experience, and they are really not for the casual assembler.
Trained Assembler
REQUISITES: Registered Assembler + Assembly Course Badge
We have created two training courses.
An introduction to providing a service to people in their home, such as flat pack assembly, to ensure assemblers work in an effective manner and communicate properly with customers. The purpose of this course is for people who are new to working in people's homes, because there is a lot more to it than simply assembling furniture properly for those that can't or don't want to.
The second course provides a series tips and tricks to ensure you work to a consistently high standard and do jobs right first time and quickly. We also cover some basic assembly skills, how components work etc.
You will need to complete the second course to get the Assembly Course Badge. The first training course is not necessary but will help some assemblers.
Certified Assembler (From August 2020)
REQUISITES: Experienced Assembler + Trained Assembler
Once you have attained the above, you will then need to meet the following criteria consistently. This is aimed at self employed assemblers to provide them with an independent source of credibility.:
- Have your insurance checked annually
- Have a DBS Check completed
- Have customer feedback forms completed by at least 5 customers each year.
- Have a least one job inspected each year.
- Abide by our Code of Conduct