What TB117-2013 Is, and Whether a Sofa Needs Added Flame Retardants to Pass

You are on your knees next to the sofa, four months into the research, phone flashlight balanced on the armrest so you can see under the seat cushion you just flipped. The law tag is where the forum post said it would be: a stitched white strip, small type, half hidden in the seam. You read about flame retardants at one in the morning, and it has stayed with you since. You half expect this tag to settle it. The chemicals are in there, the law required them, and every sofa is the same.

Your suspicion about the old rule was correct. It really did push added chemical flame retardants into furniture, and you were right to distrust it. But the rule you were told about is the one California replaced in 2013, and the current rule asks a different question: can a smoldering cigarette set this sofa's upholstered layers burning? A sofa can now pass the state's fire standard with no added chemical flame retardants in it at all. The tag under your thumb is about to tell you which kind of sofa you have.

What TB117-2013 is

Picture the test itself. A lit cigarette, placed against the layers of a sofa the way a dropped one would land: on the cover fabric, or in the seam beside the cushion. That is the heart of TB117-2013, the flammability standard upholstered furniture sold in California must meet. The standard measures, in its own words, "the resistance of upholstered furniture component assemblies to combustion after exposure to smoldering cigarettes."

Read that phrase slowly, because each word is doing work. "Component assemblies" means the layers as they actually ship: cover fabric, the batting under it, the filling under that, assembled the way they will sit in your living room. "Smoldering cigarettes" names the ignition source. The layers are tested together because that is how they will burn together.

What changed from the original TB117 open-flame test

The original TB117, the standard that governed upholstered furniture for decades before the 2013 revision, worked differently. It put an open flame directly to the filling materials, the foam and batting inside the cushions, and asked whether they would ignite and keep burning. Filling materials like foam do not resist an open flame on their own, so the old test effectively required added chemical flame retardants to pass. That is the honest strength of the claim, and it deserves the exact wording.

In 2013, California rewrote the question. The old test asked whether the filling, tested alone, survived a flame applied to it. The new test asks whether the whole assembled sofa resists a smoldering cigarette. That single change moved fire safety from something added to the materials toward something built into them. The state also added a mandatory disclosure label under a separate law, Senate Bill 1019, stating whether the sofa's materials contain added flame retardant chemicals.

Can a sofa pass without added chemical flame retardants?

Yes. TB117-2013 can be met through wool and construction, so a sofa can pass the smolder test without added chemical flame retardants.

A smolder test changes what a sofa needs. There are two general routes to fire resistance in upholstered furniture. One is chemistry: substances added to foam or fabric that change how the material burns. The other is materials and construction: choosing fibers and layering them so the assembled sofa resists ignition on its own.

The second route usually runs through a barrier layer, a fabric or batting between the cover and the filling, there to block a smolder before it reaches the foam. Wool is the example worth knowing, because its behavior fits the test the way a key fits its own lock. Wool is naturally flame-resistant: it smoulders, never melts, and no chemical flame retardants are added to it. Construction matters too: how the sofa is put together is part of what meets the smolder test. Barrier-material and construction routes meet TB117-2013 without chemical additives. Fire resistance can be assembled into a sofa, layer by layer, with nothing poured in.

What TB117-2013 does not test

Take the objection seriously. If a sofa can pass without the chemicals, is it less protected than what the old rule demanded?

The answer lives inside the standard's own text, in the half most summaries skip: "These test methods are designed for the assessment of the resistance of upholstered furniture component assemblies to combustion after exposure to smoldering cigarettes; they are not intended to measure performance under open flame exposure."

So say plainly what the label demonstrates and what it leaves untested. A sofa that passes TB117-2013 has shown smolder resistance. It has shown nothing about open flame. The old standard and the new one measure different things, so "less fire safe" has no single clean answer; it depends on which fire you are asking about. The limit is real, and it stays standing.

How to find out whether a sofa uses added flame retardants

Start with the tag you are already holding. Under Senate Bill 1019, upholstered furniture sold in California carries a label, usually printed on the same white law tag, under a seat cushion or on the deck beneath the seats. Somewhere on it is a statement about flame retardant chemicals: either the materials contain added flame retardant chemicals, or they contain none. The exact wording uses the word that matters. Added.

That word is the one to read. The state is asking what was put into the materials, whether anything was blended into the foam or fabric to change how they burn. A fiber that resists smoldering on its own, wool being the example above, needs nothing added, and a sofa built that way can state so honestly. A sofa whose filling was treated states the other thing. One word carries the whole difference.

Now the caveat you already suspected: the label is the manufacturer's own declaration, and no lab result travels with the tag. Treat it as the start of the answer, then ask the seller one question: how does this sofa meet TB117-2013, and which layer does the work? A specific answer, naming a material and a construction route, is a stronger signal than the tag alone, because a seller who can name the layer has thought about fire safety as a build question rather than a paperwork question. A shrug answers the question too, in its own way.

How Covelle meets TB117-2013

Covelle states that it meets TB117-2013 fire safety through wool and construction alone, with no chemical flame retardants in any layer. The layer doing the work is Joma Wool batting. It is naturally flame-resistant; it smoulders, never melts, and no chemical flame retardants are added to it. The claim and the route are stated together, and that pairing is worth copying as a buying test. Any seller can print a compliance tag. A seller who tells you which material does the work has answered a harder question.

Notice the word Covelle refuses to drop: added. The brand says no chemical flame retardants have been added, the same qualifier the state label uses, and it never strips it. That is the correct instinct, because "added" is the only part of the claim anyone can actually check against the materials.

You can put the cushion back now. The tag is still stitched under it, and one word on it, added, just became the only one you need. You know what question it answers, you know why the answer changed in 2013, and you know what to ask the next seller who cannot tell you which layer does the work.

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