Best Furniture Anchor Kits to Prevent Furniture Tip-Overs - Consumer Reports

And why you should always take the time to find the stud

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Dressers are now safer than ever for homes with small kids, thanks to the Stop Tip-overs of Unstable, Risky Dressers on Youth (STURDY) Act, which went into effect in late 2023. Furniture manufacturers must design their dressers to better resist tip-over events that can be deadly to small children, and Consumer Reports’ recent lab tests of new dressers have shown that the rules seem to be working.

But the advice to securely anchor furniture such as bookcases, dressers, and TV stands to walls remains, especially with so many older pieces of furniture on the market that don’t have to meet the new standard. Too many children die or are injured every year when curious little climbers pull dressers, bookshelves, tables, or televisions down on themselves. Just a few dollars—most of the kits cost less than $15—and a few minutes of installation can prevent a tragedy.

Of course, you’ll need the right equipment. So Consumer Reports recently tested 14 different wall anchor kits: some that come with dressers sold by Ikea and others, and some stand-alone kits you can purchase online or in hardware stores. And, we found, not all kits are created equal, in terms of both performance and ease of use. A lot depends on the wall material you’re dealing with, too.

Generally, metal or nylon-strap components were stronger than plastic components, and peel-and-stick kits tended to perform the worst. But some of the test results were a little surprising: The most expensive anchor kit turned out to be among the worst, for example, while the bargain choice was among the strongest.

Others underscored advice CR has given in the past: Always anchor into a stud. Some of the anchoring kits we tested that were superstrong when drilled into studs, such as those from Ikea, failed easily when stuck into hollow drywall. And of the nine products we tested that claimed to work in drywall without a stud, only three withstood 60 pounds of force—simulating the weight of a child.

Here are the highlights and lowlights of our exhaustive tests.

Project test leader José Amézquita, who has tested hundreds of products in our Yonkers labs and who led CR’s anchor-kit testing, built about 90 wall segments to test the kits. He tested every kit in each type of material—including drywall, wood, or metal—that the kit’s manufacturer said it could handle.

Wall segments used on models with adhesives were primed and painted, as they would be in your own home. He attached bars of wood (stand-ins for the backs of furniture) to the wall segments. Then he used an instrument called an Instron to pull at the wood and measure the resistance.

Everything broke eventually, given enough weight, but there was a wide range of how much force each anchor could take before failing. At some point, adhesive tabs would peel off of the furniture or the wall, metal brackets would break, plastic straps would snap in half, screws would detach from the furniture, or the anchors would tear out of the wall.

Amézquita then recorded the average weight at which they failed, evaluated how easy or difficult they had been to install, and recorded what kind of damage they did when they came apart.

Consumer Reports tested 14 anchor kits by attaching them to a block of wood on one side and a section of wall on the other side. A machine called an Instron pulled at the anchors and measured how much force it took until the anchor either detached or broke. This Safety1st restraint withstood 111 pounds when attached to a wooden stud behind drywall.

To find out, we tested five of the kits that came with the dressers we included in our recent tip-over tests. (As part of the STURDY Act, manufacturers must now include free kits with all dressers.) That included three dressers that passed CR’s tip-over tests, even when unanchored: the Ikea Hemnes 8-drawer dresser, the Ikea Malm 6-drawer dresser, and the Ashley Furniture Sawburn 6-Drawer Dresser. We also tested the anchor kits from the Ashley Furniture’s Boston 5-Drawer and the Bassett Modern Rivoli Small Dresser, which had both failed our tip-over tests.

In CR’s anchor kit tests, Ikea’s metal bracket anchors performed well when screwed into a wood stud. Bassett’s single plastic strap and drywall anchors performed the worst, popping out of the wall after only 23 pounds.

Bassett told CR that most of the dressers it is selling now come with anchor kits that must be screwed into a wooden stud, not drywall, per the included instructions and hardware.

Manufacturers and the Consumer Product Safety Commission occasionally recall free anchor kits that come with furniture. In January 2024, the CPSC and a group of furniture manufacturers recalled millions of zip-tie anchor kits after it was discovered that they could grow brittle and break over time. Luckily, no injuries were reported, but these kits were distributed with furniture made by 33 different companies, so the potential for danger was high.

Source: CPSC Source: CPSC

So if the kit that comes with your furniture purchase looks flimsy, you might want to consider buying a stronger anchor kit separately. Or you might have an old piece of furniture that never came with an anchor kit. If either of those is the case, here are some tips for your shopping.

Most modern homes have interior walls made of drywall with studs behind them, usually 16 inches apart. Studs are the beams used to construct a room, and are more stable and strong than the wall material itself. You can locate the studs with a stud-finder tool—often, a stud will be near an electric socket or light switch. The magnets in a stud finder can help you not only find a stud but also determine whether it is made of wood (most common) or metal (seen sometimes in newer construction buildings).

You’ll want to make sure to choose the right anchor for your wall and stud material, and also choose the right hardware that comes with the kit. Some kits come with multiple types of screws and attachments, so be sure to read the instructions in the package carefully before you get out your hammer and drill.

Anchoring into exposed brick or cement walls can be very tricky, for obvious reasons, so for this, CR recommends calling a professional.

The Simple Mount Furniture Anti-Tip Kit (Home Depot), consisting of metal straps, brackets, and screws, performed best in CR’s test on wooden studs behind drywall. It averaged 347 pounds of force per anchor before its ends finally crimped and detached.

“The Simple Mount wasn’t too hard to install, and it’s pretty strong,” Amézquita says. However, each package includes only one strap, and he recommends you buy two, to be able to anchor your furniture in two spots (more on that below).

Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports

A few others that did well were the Booda Brand Furniture Anchors (Amazon), a bargain at $10 for a box of 10; the QuakeHOLD! Furniture Securing Straps (Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Lowe’s); and the Safety 1st TV & Furniture Wall Straps (Amazon, Home Depot).

A runner-up for strength on wood studs was the Dreambaby Hinged Furniture Anchors, which withstood 209 pounds (Amazon, Ace Hardware, Dreambaby). But we found the Dreambaby to be a pain to use; installation was a 38-step process. This long process might cause consumers to make a mistake along the line, or worse, give up.

We also tested the Lomily Furniture Wall Anchor Straps and Qdos Zero Screw Furniture Anti-Tip Kit on wooden studs, and neither performed very well compared with others in the tests. The Lomily straps disengaged at 77 pounds, and the Qdos came apart at 63 pounds. Neither Lomily nor Qdos responded to CR’s requests for comment.

There weren’t as many options for metal studs as there were for wooden ones. But of the seven we tested, the winner was QuakeHOLD! Furniture Securing Straps, which have thick nylon straps with metal-enforced holes and metal brackets and screws (Ace Hardware, Home Depot, Lowe’s). These “Earthquake Fasteners” resisted 230 pounds of force for one anchor or 460 pounds for two together.

Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports

The Simple Mount Furniture Anti-Tip Kit (Home Depot) and Booda Brand Furniture Anchors (Amazon) also did well in the metal studs, holding up 188 and 170 pounds of force, respectively.

The Lomily, Qdos, and Safety1st did not perform as well. The Lomily’s zip tie disengaged at 80 pounds; the Qdos came apart at 74 pounds; and the Safety1st’s wall bracket broke off at 65 pounds.

Tim Edwards, director of regulatory compliance for Dorel Juvenile Group—the parent company of Safety1st—said that CR’s test results show that its anchor kits exceed industry standards.

CR’s advice for anchoring furniture has always been: Find the stud. Don’t just anchor it into a hollow stretch of drywall, even with those expanding plastic plugs that are specifically meant for this wall material. Those are fine for hanging art because it pulls against the anchor only with a downward force. But they won’t cut it in a furniture tip-over scenario, which would be a heavy force pulling outward, away from the wall. This round of tests proves that point.

Even though nine of the anchor kits we tested included hardware and instructions for use on hollow walls, only three of them could withstand 60 pounds of force.

Take the kit that comes with the Ikea Malm 6-Drawer Dresser, which includes metal brackets and plastic drywall anchors, washers, and screws. When drilled into wood studs, the kit resisted an impressive 329 pounds. But when tested on hollow drywall with the plastic anchors, it ripped out of the wall at 58 pounds. Likewise, the kit supplied with the Hemnes 8-Drawer Dresser stood up to 302 pounds in wood studs, but the anchor popped out of drywall after only 41 pounds.

Ikea declined to comment on CR’s test results but said that its own tests showed that its furniture and anchors meet industry standards. Ikea did not answer CR’s question about whether or not it had considered including language in the assembly instructions that would indicate to consumers anchoring to a stud is stronger than attaching to hollow drywall.

“When manufacturers include drywall anchors with their kits, it makes it so easy for consumers to install them that way—but we think they shouldn’t,” Amézquita says. “If they didn’t include that hardware, people would know not to put them in hollow walls. You should always have a backing of solid wood, or metal, or concrete—something like that.”

Aside from the new law for dressers, there’s also a voluntary industry standard for the anchor kits themselves, indicating that they must withstand 60 pounds of static tension before breaking. But that standard doesn’t necessarily simulate what happens when they are attached to a wall and a piece of furniture. Our tests showed that some kits have strong components but weak attachment points. This was particularly obvious when we tested anchors in hollow drywall.

For instance, the Qdos Zero Screw Furniture Anti-Tip Kit failed at 57 pounds, the Lomily Furniture Wall Anchor Straps failed at 48 pounds, and the Yeya Furniture Strap Anchors failed at just 30 pounds. The Qdos is also notable for being incredibly complicated to install and didn’t perform as well as others we tested even when screwed into studs. And the Yeya, whose straps snapped apart easily in every test we put it through, happens to be the most expensive kit we bought, at $26 for a two-pack. Yeya did not respond to CR’s request for comment.

"CR’s test results demonstrate that not all anchoring kits are as strong or reliable as they need to be—and that can put children at risk," says Gabe Knight, senior policy analyst at Consumer Reports. "While some performed extremely well, others, including some more expensive options, didn’t. Consumers deserve a strong mandatory performance standard that all anti-tip kits should have to meet.”

Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports

One kit we tested that actually did well on drywall was the TIPNOT Furniture Anchor (Amazon, Walmart), which is a thick, hard piece of foam with adhesive on each side. It handled an impressive 184 pounds on hollow drywall before it broke.

The advice for anchoring in drywall remains the same. CR’s experts emphasize that you should always try to find the stud and use it if possible, because this will give you the strongest protection against tip-overs. If you absolutely must anchor to a hollow wall, use toggle bolt anchors. We recommend metal toggle bolts over plastic ones because they tend to be stronger and last longer. (Toggle bolts were not part of our tests, however; we tested only the hardware included in the kits.)

Whatever anchor-to-wall combination you’re dealing with, CR’s experts say the best practice is to always anchor your furniture in at least two places, depending on the size of the piece. Some of the kits that came with furniture from Ashley and Bassett actually came with only one anchor (the law now requires dressers to come with at least one). But Amézquita says anchors should ideally always come in pairs.

“If you only anchor in one spot, the furniture can pivot, making it easier for the anchor to break,” Amézquita says.

Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports Photo: Scott Meadows/Consumer Reports

Ashley Furniture told CR that the company has no plans to change the number or type of anchors it includes with its furniture, but that customers can always request additional tip restraints for free from the Ashley website. Bassett Furniture says that some of its dressers come with two anchors, while others come with just one.

In addition to anchoring at two or more points on your furniture, double-looping the tether in each spot also doubles the strength of the anchor overall, so it’s a good idea to do this if possible. (Plastic straps may not allow for doubling, but the fabric or wire tethers might.)

When we tested the strength of the straps alone (unattached to a wall), a single loop of the Booda Brand Furniture Anchor resisted 217 pounds, but the double loop resisted over 500 pounds.

Consumer Reports and other experts and advocates say these testing results show the importance of stronger safety standards and mandatory testing for anchor kits. There are many different types of anchor kits available on the market, and they vary widely in strength and usability.

These “results underscore why it’s critically important for there to be minimum and mandatory testing and safety standards for anti-tip devices and furniture anchors,” says Kimberly Amato, whose 3-year-old daughter Meghan was killed two decades ago by a falling dresser, and who is vice-chair of the advocacy group Parents Against Tip-Overs.

Amato is also involved in deliberations about strengthening the industry standard for anchor kits, at ASTM International (formerly known as the American Society for Testing and Materials). The current voluntary standard for these kits requires only testing their static tension—that is, the strength of the straps alone, before they are attached to furniture and a wall. Amato believes that the standard should require testing real-world scenarios, with the anchors attached to walls and furniture.

Indeed, CR’s results show that testing the kits’ tensile strength alone can’t predict how strong the kits will be when they are attached to walls and furniture. The Qdos kit, for instance, withstood 146 pounds in the tensile strength test but only 63 pounds when screwed into a wooden stud (both of these results were far below the capacity Qdos claimed on the product’s Amazon page, which was 200 pounds).

Amato also argues that manufacturers should be required to include anchor kits with many types of furniture, not just dressers, and should instruct consumers exactly where and how the anchors should be attached to the furniture and wall to best keep kids safe.

“The style and integrity of the anti-tip device is only half of the safety equation,” Amato says. “If it’s not properly attached to the wall and the furniture, consumers will be left with a false sense of security and children will remain at risk of being injured or killed by a tip-over.”

She says she hopes that the industry standard will get stronger and more protective, and then ultimately that it gets adopted by the CPSC and becomes law.

Lauren Kirchner

Lauren Kirchner is an investigative reporter on the special projects team at Consumer Reports. She has been with CR since 2022, covering product safety. She has previously reported on algorithmic bias, criminal justice, and housing for the Markup and ProPublica, and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in Explanatory Reporting in 2017. Send her tips at [email protected] and follow her on Twitter @lkirchner.