Chair Volumes and Container Loading, In Numbers

The volumes to work from

The carton of four stacking chairs runs about 0.22 cubic metres, which is 0.055 per chair. Chairs packed singly in a carton for upholstered versions run 0.09 to 0.12 each. The 700 mm square table packs flat at roughly 0.08 cubic metres with the base in a separate carton, and a 1,200 by 700 mm four-seat table runs 0.13 to 0.16.

Add those up for a sixty-cover room: thirty two-seat sets at 0.08 for the table and two chairs at 0.055 gives 0.19 per set, so 5.7 cubic metres, plus spare chairs and a bench run. That is a third of a twenty-foot container, which is why a first order usually consolidates with something else or moves to a groupage service.

What fits in each container

The twenty-foot container carries 28 to 33 cubic metres of usable space and a forty-foot high cube carries 65 to 68. Furniture loads to about 85 percent of the nominal figure because cartons are not fluid, so plan on 25 for a twenty and 56 for a forty high cube rather than on the box's own label.

Weight rarely binds on furniture. The twenty holding 25 cubic metres of chairs weighs six to eight tonnes against a limit of around twenty-one, so the loading plan is a volume exercise from start to finish, and the only weight question is whether a container can be stacked two high on the deck of a feeder.

Loading order is a design decision

The zone that opens first should be at the doors. That sounds obvious and it is regularly got wrong, because loading is done in the order the production line finished rather than the order the room needs. Marking the packing list by zone and loading in reverse zone order costs nothing at the factory and saves an hour of unloading and re-sorting on site.

Heavy items go low and forward: table bases, bench plinths, packed chairs in fours. Cartons that will be opened on site first go last. Where a mixed shipment includes QSR tables and upholstered seating, the seating goes above the tables rather than under them, since a table corner will mark a cover through a carton.

Calculating before ordering

Divide the total price by the cubic metres and the freight cost per seat becomes visible before the order. On a sixty-cover room, the difference between 0.19 and 0.24 cubic metres per set is about a third of a container, and that is a bigger number than most negotiation on unit price achieves.

stacking chairs for fast food are the most efficient thing to ship per seat, at roughly 0.055 cubic metres each against 0.09 for a chair that cannot stack. fast food chairs specified for stacking rather than for looks usually pay the freight difference back on the first shipment alone.

Documents that travel with it

The packing list should give carton count, cubic metres and zone per line, and the loading photographs should show the container as it was sealed. Those two documents are what a claim rests on and what a site manager uses on the morning of delivery, and both come from the same spreadsheet that produced the quotation.

fast food table and chair sets labelled by position mean the room can be built in the order it was drawn. quick service furniture that arrives as a hundred unlabelled cartons takes a crew twice as long to place, which is a cost that never appears on an invoice.

What buyers ask about this

Can furniture share a container with other goods?

Yes, and it usually does on a fit-out. Keep the furniture at the doors so it is unloaded first.

Is groupage cheaper for a small order?

Cheaper per cubic metre until damage and delay are counted. For anything above ten cubic metres a twenty-foot is worth pricing.

How much spare space should be left?

Five percent. The container packed to the last cubic metre is the one that arrives with crushed corners.

Do cartons need pallets?

Not for hand unloading, and pallets waste ten percent of the volume. fast food furniture for a site with a forklift is better on pallets, and it should be said at enquiry stage.

Reading a QSR set quotation sheet without getting caught

How many fast food chairs fit in one stack, and what it costs

Chair volumes and container loading, in numbers you can check