Bean bags are the ultimate alternative seating, offering unparalleled comfort that you’d be hard pressed to find in even the most luxurious traditional chairs and sofas. - Until the beans lose their bounce that is.
If your bean bag chair or sofa isn’t offering the same body-moulding cushion and support that it once did, and no longer pulls a blissful sigh from your chest, it’s time for a bean bag refill.
While it can be tricky and/or costly to restore the bounce of traditional seating cushions, with bean bag chairs and sofas like those we manufacture in Nottingham UK, it couldn’t be easier. But first, you have to make a choice about filling.
Types of Bean Bag Filler
EPS Beans
At GBB, our bean of choice, both for our bean bag seating and the bean bag refill bags we offer, is the EPS bean.
Expanded Polystyrene beans (EPS) are the most lightweight option, perhaps the most comfortable, they maintain their cushion and form for longer periods of time than other fillings, and are heat and moisture resistant.
This makes EPS-filled bean bag seating lightweight and more appropriate for outdoor use, though our outdoor-specific bean bag seating, which contains these beans and a specially designed fabric, is perhaps the ultimate choice for outdoor applications.
Micro Beads
While some micro bead manufacturers market them as a bean bag refill option for DIY bean bags, reputable bean bag furniture brands like us don’t recommend micro beads for our seating.
The size, and ungiving nature of micro beads makes them too hard and unable to produce the level of cushion and support we demand from our super sumptuous, ultra comfortable seating.
Foam/Memory Foam
Foam may rival EPS beans in terms of being a long lasting filling that springs back to form time after time, but it can be heavy (especially memory foam) and is less resistant to heat and moisture which can lead to mould, and the foam clumping together.
Unlike other bean bag refill methods, memory foam doesn’t offer the same tactile response that a classic EPS-filled bean bag chair or sofa does, something that will be missed by any fan of high quality bean bags.
Natural Fillings
Similarly, natural fillings like actual beans, large seeds like buckwheat, rice, and even sand, hay, and sawdust have been used in bean bag seating over the years, but they’re not optimal options.
Many beans, seeds and grains of rice are required to adequately fill a bean bag, making the seat heavy and adding pressure to the seams of the chair. They’re also hard, ungiving, offer no cushioning, and are therefore not conducive to a comfortable experience. Sawdust, hay and sand are similarly nonoptimal bean bag refill options, due to the weight of the seat when filled, and their inability to mould to your body as effectively as EPS beans.
Types of Bean Bag Filler
EPS Beans
At GBB, our bean of choice, both for our bean bag seating and the bean bag refill bags we offer, is the EPS bean.
Expanded Polystyrene beans (EPS) are the most lightweight option, perhaps the most comfortable, they maintain their cushion and form for longer periods of time than other fillings, and are heat and moisture resistant.
This makes EPS-filled bean bag seating lightweight and more appropriate for outdoor use, though our outdoor-specific bean bag seating, which contains these beans and a specially designed fabric, is perhaps the ultimate choice for outdoor applications.
Micro Beads
While some micro bead manufacturers market them as a bean bag refill option for DIY bean bags, reputable bean bag furniture brands like us don’t recommend micro beads for our seating.
The size, and ungiving nature of micro beads makes them too hard and unable to produce the level of cushion and support we demand from our super sumptuous, ultra comfortable seating.
Foam/Memory Foam
Foam may rival EPS beans in terms of being a long lasting filling that springs back to form time after time, but it can be heavy (especially memory foam) and is less resistant to heat and moisture which can lead to mould, and the foam clumping together.
Unlike other bean bag refill methods, memory foam doesn’t offer the same tactile response that a classic EPS-filled bean bag chair or sofa does, something that will be missed by any fan of high quality bean bags.
Natural Fillings
Similarly, natural fillings like actual beans, large seeds like buckwheat, rice, and even sand, hay, and sawdust have been used in bean bag seating over the years, but they’re not optimal options.
Many beans, seeds and grains of rice are required to adequately fill a bean bag, making the seat heavy and adding pressure to the seams of the chair. They’re also hard, ungiving, offer no cushioning, and are therefore not conducive to a comfortable experience. Sawdust, hay and sand are similarly nonoptimal bean bag refill options, due to the weight of the seat when filled, and their inability to mould to your body as effectively as EPS beans.
The Ultimate Bean Bag Refill Option
At GreatBeanBags, we’ve tried and tested every type of bean bag filling, observing their benefits and shortcomings to find the ultimate filling for our bean bag chairs and sofas, and our refill sacks.
We find 3-6mm virgin EPS beans to be the perfect choice, offering greater support, body-moulding comfort, and cushioning than micro beads, foam, and natural fillings. Unlike other bean bag refill options, EPS beans don’t clump together as easily, offering you longer periods of sumptuous comfort, before you need to replace your filling.
Our Refill Sacks
To make refilling your bean bag chair as easy as possible, our filling is sold in sacks. No loose beans here.
This means, when you have to replace the filling in your GBB bean bag, you simply swap out the existing sacks for new ones. Got a bean bag chair and sofa from a different manufacturer with loose beans inside? No problem, simply empty the beans and replace them with our filling sacks. No need to open or empty the sacks, that would defeat the point of this quick and easy solution.
We offer our bean bag refill sacks in 4 sizes:
- 2 cubic feet = 1 x 2 cubic feet sack
- 4 cubic feet = 2 x 2 cubic feet sacks
- 6 cubic feet = 3 x 2 cubic feet sacks
- 8 cubic feet = 4 x 2 cubic feet sacks
If your bean bag is looking or feeling a bit tired, we recommend topping up around 15 to 20% of the original amount of filling. So, for one of our large bean bag chairs, which comes with 10 cubic feet of bean bag filling, a 2 cubic feet top-up should do the job. No need to break the bank by replacing the contents of your bean bag entirely.
This is just a general rule of thumb, so be sure to contact our team if you have any questions about the right size of refill sacks for your bean bag.
Safe Bean Bag Refills
The virgin EPS beans in our refill sacks are flame retardant and comply with the British Furniture & Furnishings Fire Safety Regulations.
Don’t remove the beans from the refill sack to ensure they don’t pose a choking hazard to children and pets, and to stop them from escaping into the bean bag seat.
You can buy refills from our filling page. Contact our team if you have any questions.
