Framery Pod Care & Maintenance Guide (Australia)

A Framery pod is one of the most expensive individual items in most Australian offices — between $14,200 for a Framery One Compact and $31,800 for a Framery Four. It is also one of the only ones nobody ever maintains. Chairs get replaced, desks get serviced, HVAC gets a contract. Pods get installed and then left alone until something obvious breaks.

This guide is what we tell our own customers. It covers what your team can do, what a facilities cleaner should and should not touch, what needs a technician, and — just as importantly — what will void your Framery warranty if you do it yourself.

Chair Dinkum is an authorised Australian Framery dealer. We service and repair Framery pods Australia-wide, including pods bought from someone else. If you would rather skip to that, jump to the service section or call 02 9640 0642.

The short version: a maintenance schedule

How often	What	Who
Weekly	Vacuum the carpet, wipe the desk and touch surfaces, clean the glass, empty anything left behind	Your cleaners
Monthly	Look at the door seal along its whole length. Check the pod closes and latches without being pushed. Listen to the fan.	Whoever owns the floor
Quarterly	Clear dust and lint out of the ventilation channels. Test every power outlet, USB-C port and wireless charger. Check nothing is stored on top of the pod.	Facilities
Annually	Full service: levelling, door alignment, hinge and gas spring, seal replacement where needed, ventilation, electrical, sensors, and a measured privacy check	A trained technician
After any move	Re-level, re-seal, re-test — and check the building implications	A trained technician

Cleaning: what to use on what

The single most common way an office damages its own pod is cleaning it with the wrong thing. Pods combine glass, powder-coated steel, acoustic fabric, laminate, carpet and — on some configurations — real oak veneer, and they do not all take the same product.

Surface	Use	Never use
Glass	Standard glass cleaner and a lint-free cloth	Anything abrasive, or a scraper on a coated pane
External and internal panels	A mild alcohol-based cleaning solution on a lint-free cloth	Bleach, solvent, scouring pads
Oak veneer	A damp cloth only	Any cleaning solution at all — it will mark the timber
Acoustic fabric and upholstery	Vacuum with a soft brush head; spot-clean with an upholstery product tested on a hidden area first	Soaking, steam cleaning, solvent
Carpet	Vacuum thoroughly, into the corners and along the door threshold	Wet extraction without checking the base construction first
Door seal	Wipe with a damp cloth only	Silicone spray, oil, polish — these attract dirt and can degrade the seal material
Ventilation grilles and channels	Vacuum with a brush head; dust with a dry microfibre cloth	Spraying cleaner into the vent
Control panel and screens	A barely damp lint-free cloth	Spraying liquid directly onto the panel

Tell your cleaning contractor this, in writing. Most commercial cleaning schedules do not mention pods at all, so whoever is holding the spray bottle is improvising.

The door seal is the whole product

If you only look at one thing, look at this.

A pod's acoustic performance comes from a compressible seal meeting a correctly aligned door. Framery publishes 30 D(S,A) dB speech level reduction, Class A under ISO 23351-1 for the One, One Compact and Four — a figure measured on a correctly assembled, correctly sealed pod. A seal that has taken a compression set, hardened, torn or lifted at one corner does not deliver that, and neither does a perfect seal on a door that no longer meets it squarely.

This is the failure that costs offices the most and gets noticed the least. The door still shuts. The light still comes on. Nobody realises the calls being taken inside are audible outside until somebody overhears one.

How to check it yourself, in two minutes

1. Look along the seal. Close the door and sight down the closing edge. You are looking for even contact along the full height — not a gap at the top, not a bulge in the middle.
2. Press the seal. With the door open, press the seal material with a thumb. It should compress and spring back. If it stays dented, it has taken a compression set and is no longer sealing.
3. Check the close. Let the door close on its own. It should travel smoothly and latch without a push or a lean. If someone has to shoulder it, the hinge or the gas spring has moved.
4. Check the corners. Seals fail at corners first. Look for lifting, splitting or a section that has come away from its channel.

Seals are replaceable. Doing it early, before the door has been forced shut a few thousand times and pulled the hinge out of line, is a much smaller job.

Levelling: the cause most people miss

A pod sits on adjustable levelling feet. If one foot is not bearing — because the floor has settled, the carpet has compressed under load, or the pod has been nudged — the cabinet twists slightly. That twist goes straight into the door frame, and the door stops meeting the seal evenly.

So a pod that has stopped being quiet very often has nothing wrong with its seal at all. It has a foot in the air.

You can check for movement by pushing gently at the top corners and feeling for rock. Correcting it properly means levelling at four points and re-checking the door geometry afterwards, which is a technician job.

Ventilation

Framery publishes maximum airflow of 36 L/s for the One Compact, 26 L/s for the Framery One and 100 L/s for the Framery Four. Those are the figures with clear channels and a healthy fan. Dust, lint and hair accumulate in the intake and extract paths and quietly reduce them, which is why the most common ventilation complaint — "it gets stuffy in there" — is usually a cleaning problem rather than a fault.

• Vacuum the intake and extract channels quarterly, more often in a dusty or high-traffic space.
• Never place anything on top of a pod. Boxes and plants on the roof are extremely common and they sit directly over the plant.
• Run the fan through every mode occasionally and listen. A rising whine, a rattle or an intermittent buzz is a bearing, and it is much cheaper to replace before it seizes.

On filters: most Framery pods do not have one. An activated carbon filter is available as an option on the Framery One — it adds 6.5 cm to the pod's height, so you can usually tell at a glance whether yours has one. If it does, it needs replacing periodically. If it does not, there is nothing to change, and anyone selling you a filter service for a pod without a filter has not looked at it.

Electrical, and the parts that fail first

Power and data are the highest-touch parts of a pod and the most likely to fail — and nobody discovers a dead USB-C port until they are already sitting in the pod with a flat laptop and a call starting.

Test these quarterly, properly, with an actual device:

• Every power outlet
• Every USB-C connector — check it charges, not just that a light comes on
• The wireless charger, if fitted
• The data connection
• The sit-stand desk through its full travel, and every button on the handset (the Framery One has a sit-stand desk; the One Compact has a fold-out desk)
• The lighting, including whether it switches on and off on occupancy as it should

Inspect the supply lead and plug for damage and any sign of heat. Anything showing heat marking should be reported immediately and the pod taken out of service until it has been looked at.

Smart features and sensors

If your pods report occupancy into a booking system, check that they are still reporting. Sensors do not announce their own failure — the pod simply shows as free forever, or as occupied forever, and people stop trusting the booking system rather than reporting a fault.

Framery Connect sensors carry a one-year warranty, the shortest term on the pod. Check status and battery at least twice a year, and note the firmware version so you know whether you are current.

What will void your warranty

Framery's published terms are specific, and several of these are things a well-meaning facilities team does without thinking:

• Repairs, alterations or customisation carried out without Framery's written consent. This includes drilling the pod to mount a screen, a shelf or signage.
• Non-approved parts. A generic seal strip is not an acoustic seal, and fitting one takes the pod out of cover.
• Moving or dismantling the pod against the instructions.
• Installation by anyone who is not a Framery-trained installer. Framery is not obliged to fix defects on a pod that was not installed by one.
• Missing the notification window. Defects must be reported within 21 days of being discovered.

The warranty also only activates in the first place when an installation report is filed. If you inherited pods with a fit-out, or bought a building with them in it, it is worth finding out whether that was ever done.

How long you are actually covered for

Framery's warranty is not a single flat term. It runs by component:

Component	Cover
Product generally	5 years
Wear parts — gas lifts, gliders, fabrics, carpet, doors, seals, hinges, locks	2 years
Electronics — LED lighting, fans, chargers, screens, sensors, motors	2 years
Framery Connect sensors	1 year

Read that against the list of things that fail. Every acoustic-critical component and every piece of electronics is out of cover from year three. Most of the Framery pods in Australian offices went in during the hybrid-work build-out between 2021 and 2023, which means a great many of them are now uncovered and have never been serviced.

Warranty terms as published by Framery (16 February 2024 and 2 August 2024). Terms change — check the ones that apply to your purchase. Nothing here affects your rights under the Australian Consumer Law, which apply separately.

Before you move a pod

Pods get relocated constantly — floors get reconfigured, teams move, leases end. Two things to know before it happens.

First, a relocated pod must be re-levelled, re-sealed and re-tested at the new position. A pod that is simply wheeled or walked across a floor and left will usually not seal properly afterwards, and moving one against the manufacturer's instructions affects your cover.

Second, in New South Wales the Building Commission's practice advice of 24 January 2025 treats office pods as rooms rather than furniture, with their installation handled as building work — which brings in certification, fire services, egress and accessibility considerations. No other state has published an equivalent position. Supplier compliance letters, ours included, do not bind an Australian certifier. If you are moving pods as part of a fit-out, raise it with your certifier early rather than after the fact.

It is also worth testing that the building's occupant warning system is audible inside the pod with the door shut, at the new position as well as the old one.

Symptoms, and what they usually mean

What people report	Usual cause	Fix
"You can hear everything through it now"	Compressed or lifted door seal, or a levelling foot off the floor twisting the frame	Technician — seal and alignment
"The door doesn't shut properly"	Hinge alignment drift, or a weakened gas spring	Technician — adjust or replace
"It gets stuffy"	Blocked ventilation channels, or something stored on the roof	Clean the channels; clear the roof
"The fan is loud"	Bearing wear, or debris in the fan path	Technician — clean or replace
"The USB doesn't charge"	Failed connector or power unit fault	Technician — test and replace
"The light stays on / won't come on"	Occupancy sensor or LED driver	Technician
"It shows as booked when it's empty"	Sensor failure or lost network connection	Technician — sensor and connectivity check
"It smells"	Carpet and upholstery soiling, plus reduced airflow	Deep clean and ventilation service

If a pod has already stopped being private and you want to work out which of these you have, our companion guide on why an office pod stops being quiet sets out the five usual causes and a three-minute test that separates them.

Framery pod service and repair, Australia-wide

Chair Dinkum is an authorised Australian Framery dealer. We service, repair and relocate Framery pods anywhere in Australia — including pods we did not sell.

What we do:

• Annual service. Levelling, door alignment, hinge and gas spring, seal inspection and replacement, glass and panels, ventilation, full electrical test, sensors and firmware, interior and finishes — with a written report and a measured privacy check compared against the same pod's previous result.
• Repairs. Seals, hinges, gas springs, fans, LED and driver faults, power and USB-C, desk mechanisms, sensors, glass.
• Fleet condition audit. One visit, every pod inspected and measured, and a written report on what is worn, what is failing and what is still in warranty. If your fleet comes back clean, we will tell you that.
• Relocation, decommissioning and recommissioning.
• Genuine Framery spare parts.
• New installations with the installation report filed so your warranty activates on handover.

To get a quote, tell us how many pods you have, which models, and roughly when they went in. If you do not know the models, one photo of each pod is enough.

Call 02 9640 0642 or send us the details. Showroom: 1/209 Harris St, Pyrmont NSW 2009.

Frequently asked questions

How often should a Framery pod be serviced?

Once a year as a minimum, and twice a year for pods in constant use such as coworking floors, university libraries and client-facing spaces. Framery publishes a maintenance checklist but no fixed interval, because the right frequency depends on how hard the pod is used. What matters more than the schedule is that someone is recording condition each time, so you can see what is changing.

Do Framery pods have a filter that needs changing?

Usually not. An activated carbon filter is available as an option on the Framery One and adds 6.5 cm to the pod's height, but most pods in Australian offices do not have one fitted. If yours does, it should be replaced as part of a full service. If it does not, there is nothing to change.

Can our regular office cleaners look after the pod?

They can do the weekly cleaning, provided they are told what products to use on which surface — particularly that oak veneer takes a damp cloth only and that nothing should be sprayed into a vent. They should not adjust hinges, levelling feet or anything electrical.

What actually goes wrong with an office pod?

In rough order of how often we expect to find it: door seals taking a compression set so the door no longer seals along its full length; levelling feet losing contact so the whole door geometry shifts; ventilation channels clogging with dust and lint; USB-C ports and wireless chargers failing; gas springs weakening so the door stops closing properly; and occupancy sensors quietly stopping reporting.

Will servicing restore the pod's original acoustic rating?

Be careful of anyone who says it will. The published rating comes from a controlled laboratory test under ISO 23351-1 that cannot be reproduced in an occupied office. What we do is a repeatable in-service check — a calibrated source inside the closed pod, a Class 2 sound level meter outside at a fixed distance — measured the same way every visit. That shows how much your pod has changed since it was last measured, which is the question you can actually act on.

Can you service a pod we bought from another supplier?

Yes. We service Framery pods regardless of who sold them.

Do you service other brands of pod?

Not at this stage. We work on Framery pods only, because that is where we have manufacturer training and access to genuine parts.

Do you supply Framery spare parts?

Yes, subject to availability from Framery. Lead times vary by part and we will give you the real one before you commit.

We inherited pods with our fit-out and have no paperwork. Can you help?

Yes, and it is worth doing. A fleet audit will establish the models, their approximate age, their condition, and whether the warranty was ever activated. That last point catches people out — cover only starts when an installation report is filed, and it does not transfer automatically on resale.

Related reading

• Why your office pod isn't quiet any more — five causes and a three-minute test
• Soundproof meeting pods for Australian offices: Framery specification guide
• Specifying Framery pods for Australian commercial fit-outs
• Acoustic pods in Australia: how to compare them honestly
• Products: Framery One · Framery One Compact · Framery Four
• Framery Australia dealer page · Framery prices and quotes