Skip to content
Two guarantees run on every piece that leaves the workshop, and they run for different lengths of time. The structure is covered for as long as you own the piece. The parts that are fitted, moved or worn against are covered for ten years from delivery. Knowing which is which saves a good deal of uncertainty later, so here is what each one actually means.
Lifetime cover on the structure
The frame, the carcase and the joints are covered for life against defects in materials and workmanship. In practice that means the legs, rails, stiles, muntins, stretchers, posts and bearers; the ends, back, top, bottom and shelves of a cabinet, chest, dresser or wardrobe; and the joints themselves, mortice and tenon, dovetail, dowel and housed joints, together with the glue lines in a jointed top.
This is the part of a piece of furniture that ought never to fail, which is why it is covered without a time limit. If a joint lets go or a glue line opens, that is a fault and it gets put right.
Ten years on fitting, ironmongery and finish
Three things carry a ten year guarantee from the date of delivery.
- The fitting of drawers and doors: binding, dropping, going out of alignment, and the failure of runners and stops
- Ironmongery: hinges, knobs, handles, locks, catches, stays and draw-leaf mechanisms
- The finish, whether polish, paint, lime or rub-through, against flaking, lifting and breaking down
Ten years rather than a lifetime, because these are the parts that are handled, opened, closed and worn against every day. A hinge is a mechanical component. A polished surface is a wearing surface.
Who it covers
The guarantee is given to the original client, at the address the piece was delivered to. It is not transferable to a subsequent owner. It sits alongside your legal rights under the Consumer Rights Act 2015 and does not replace them, and the terms of sale say the same thing in the same words.
What is not covered
The exclusions are the ordinary ones and there is no point being coy about them. Accidental damage is not covered: knocks, dents, burns, scratches, tears and spillages. Nor is misuse, which includes standing on a piece that was not made to take it, overloading a shelf or a drawer, and dragging a piece across a floor.
Commercial use falls outside it. So do alterations and repairs carried out by somebody else, because once another hand has been on the piece the workshop cannot say what caused what. Damage from unsuitable conditions is excluded too: a piece against a radiator, extremes of temperature, standing water, direct sunlight and damp. And normal wear is not a fault, so a leather top that has patinated and brass that has dulled are both doing exactly what they should.
Timber behaving as timber, which is not a fault
This is the category worth understanding properly, because it accounts for most of the calls that turn out not to be problems at all.
Solid boards take up moisture from the air and give it back, and they swell and shrink across the grain as they do. In a dry house in winter a hairline gap can open at the edge of a fielded panel, and it closes again when the air comes back. That is the panel floating in its frame as it was built to, not a joint failing.
Colour change is the second one. Every timber changes: oak deepens and warms, cherry darkens noticeably in the first year or two, mahogany deepens, walnut lightens. Character oak carries small splits following the grain, and those shakes are part of what character oak is, stabilised where that is needed. Boards from the same tree differ, so a sample is indicative rather than an exact preview. Handmade pieces carry small variations between one and another, and leather brings its own markings and patinates with use.
None of that is covered by the guarantee because none of it is a defect. The behaviour of each timber is set out at more length elsewhere on the site, and it is worth reading before delivery rather than after.
Care is part of the bargain
Conditions matter enough that they appear in the exclusions, so the care guidance is not decoration. Keeping a room somewhere between forty and sixty per cent relative humidity suits the furniture and the people in it. Keeping pieces off radiators, out of the direct blast of underfloor heating and away from standing water avoids most of what goes wrong. Silicone sprays, solvents and abrasives cause damage that is not covered, and the care guide is specific about what to use and what to keep away from the surface.
In the first few weeks a new piece may want a small adjustment as it settles into a house that is warmer or drier than the workshop. That is expected. Ask for the adjustment rather than living with a door that is not quite right.
If something is not right
Telephone the workshop on 01449 710500, or email sales@brynhall.co.uk, or send a message on WhatsApp. Say which piece it is, roughly when it was delivered, and what has happened, and send photographs taken in daylight if you can. Daylight matters because colour and finish cannot be judged under artificial light, at either end.
The first question is whether it is a defect or the timber behaving as timber does, and that is answered by looking rather than by argument. Where it is a structural fault covered by the guarantee, it is put right in your home where that can be done properly on site, and back at the workshop where it cannot, with no charge for labour, materials or transport. Beyond ten years on the non-structural items, things are still put right, as a quoted repair.
One workshop drew, made, polished and delivered the piece, so there is one place to ring and no one to be passed between. The drawings are kept, which means a component can be remade years later, or a matching piece made to stand beside it. If you are unsure whether what you are looking at is a fault, the guarantee page sets out the wording, and a photograph and a phone call will settle it faster than reading.