(Watch the video at the bottom of this post. This might just be the fastest wheelbarrow in the world!)
For more information, please visit gardepot.
One wheel?
Two wheels?
Plastic tub? Metal tub?
Is a two wheeled garden cart better?
What about an electric wheelbarrow? (Read my review before going this route!)
Here’s my take on wheelbarrows, from a guy that has made his living for the better part of 40 years using wheelbarrows.
In my very opinionated, opinion there’s really only one brand of wheelbarrow on the market. Jackson. The Jackson wheelbarrow is by far the choice of contractors everywhere, and no, the Jackson Wheelbarrow company is not paying me for this endorsement. It’s just that I’ve used and or owned them all and they’ve all disappointed me, all except the Jackson.
Many of the others are look-a likes that are poorly designed.
I’ll never buy a two wheel wheelbarrow and this is why.
1. Can’t push it up a 2 by 12 ramp if I need to get into a bed, into the back of a truck, over a ditch etc. When I am working I often use a 2 by 12 as a ramp to get up into a raised planting bed, or if I have to dump debris into the back of a trailer. Being able to wheelbarrow up a ramp is a valuable attribute that only a single wheel wheelbarrow can do.
2. Two wheels is just more resistance on the ground. Pushing a wheelbarrow is difficult enough, I surely don’t want another ounce of resistance as I do so.
3. Pushing a wheelbarrow is like flying a plane. As soon as you add a second wheel you are no longer flying or gliding around the corners. When you have two wheels you literally have to circle the wheelbarrow to make a turn. Think about that. You have to walk in a wide circle to make a turn.
4. Over the years I’ve probably spread over 5,000 yards of mulch. With one wheel you can squeeze between two shrubs and not touch either one of them. You’ll never do that with a wheelbarrow that has two wheels.
Plastic wheelbarrows are great for mulch, but they really, really stink for soil or sand. When you pick up a heavy load in a plastic wheelbarrow the barrel will flex just a little bit and you will tweak your back as you try to catch the wheelbarrow from tipping. I promise you this happens with all plastic wheelbarrows. I’ve owned a few, hated them all.
Those really nice looking, rugged looking wheelbarrows with the big wide front tire? I bought two of them. Seriously a terrible mistake. I should have bought two Jackson and I should have known better!
1. They flex just as I described.
2. That big fat tire cannot be inflated to the point of being hard. Not matter what it’s still spongy which is like pushing a wheelbarrow uphill all day long. When using a wheelbarrow the tire must be inflated to the point of being really hard, if it’s not, the resistance is increased dramatically.
3. First time we used those fancy shmancy plastic wheelbarrows one of them broke! We loaded it with topsoil, tried to move it and the handle snapped right off! Brand new, $140 wheelbarrow. It’s still laying on it’s side with a broken handle. Unbelievable!
Update: The handles on both of these plastic wheelbarrows broke so I replaced with the really good hardwood handles like they should have had in the first place. Then the next time I used them the front lip of the plastic tub broke and snapped completely off. This happened to both of them. Needless to say I dislike these orange wheelbarrows more than ever.
Oh, and this video. You should watch this video.
If you are looking for more details, kindly visit Wheelbarrow Manufacturer.
Is this the fastest wheelbarrow in the world? I love blue-collar ingenuity!! Take a look…
Questions or comments? Post them below.
If you’re considering buying a wheelbarrow, you’ve come to the right place. I’ve been using and testing all kinds of wheelbarrows for 30-plus years and, contrary to what’s usually true in life, occasionally you really can get something for nothing. Wheelbarrows are a case in point.
Without fuel or electrical inputs of any kind, a good wheelbarrow easily triples or quadruples the amount of stuff you can move with your body alone. Wheelbarrows have always offered advantages like this, but some designs are definitely better than others, depending on the work you have to do.
I have an unusually close relationship with wheelbarrows. I used one particular wheelbarrow at least several times a week for 20 years moving things I never could have budged without one. And for a three-year stint in the late s, a wheelbarrow served as my only bathtub while I built my backwoods country home.
Every so often, manufacturers send me different wheelbarrows to test, whichever ones I want. If you have any specific questions about choosing a wheelbarrow after reading this article, send me an at .
Generally speaking, wheelbarrow designs fall into one of four categories:
Double- and single-wheel contractor models: That’s a double-wheeled barrow second from the left in the photo above.
Garden carts: The one we like the best is on the far right, above. They have big wheels and a large carrying volume.
Poly-tub builder wheelbarrows: Pretty good, but you need to know which plastic to avoid.
Motorized wheelbarrows: Yes, motorized! That’s a self-propelled wheelbarrow on the left of the group above.
For gardening work, I really like high-capacity garden carts. These won’t stand up well to concrete, rocks, firewood and other hard items, but garden carts are terrific for moving the kind of large volumes of fluffy material that gardening often involves.
A company called Carts Vermont invented this kind of large-capacity gardening wheelbarrow decades ago, and they still do an excellent job. That’s ours below, in front of one of our gardens.
If you ever visit a place called Mackinac Island, Mich., in Lake Huron (a terrific spot by the way), you’ll see hundreds of carts just like this all over the place. Motorized vehicles have been outlawed on Mackinac since , so people use garden carts all the time behind bicycles or pushed by hand to move groceries, tools, luggage and supplies of all kinds. Every so often you’ll even see a Mackinac plumber or electrician riding to a job on a bicycle pulling a cart like this loaded with tools.
These are my favourite type of general-purpose wheelbarrow. They’re meant for use with concrete, sand and stone, and they’re the toughest, longest-lasting wheelbarrows around. The best I’ve used generally have a steel pan, one-piece handles and a flat-free tire. That said, one type of plastic-type pan is excellent, too.
Rubbermaid offers a number of items made of what they call “structural foam.” This sounds weak, but it’s actually amazingly strong. Almost indestructible, a structural foam wheelbarrow pan won’t even crack if it’s filled with water and left to freeze solid in winter.
The wheelbarrow pan you see below has been serving us well for more than 20 years. It’s still perfect. Don’t confuse structural foam with regular plastic wheelbarrow pans that often do crack in short order. They’re very different. Structural foam is amazingly tough. That’s what you can see below. Stay away from plastic wheelbarrow pans.
If you’re looking to buy a new wheelbarrow, start by kicking the tires. Literally. There are lots of models out there that use rock-hard, solid rubber tires, but I’ve never found they work well, except for the lightest-duty jobs. If you think you need a wheelbarrow, you probably need a better-than-basic model, and this means an air-filled tire or a flat-free tire. The semi-squishy consistency helps even out rough ground, making it much easier to push a load over bumps and hollows.
Just about the only thing better is a semi-squishy tire that never goes flat. One of the smartest innovations in the wheelbarrow world is flat-proof tires. They offer all the performance and grip of regular air-filled tires, except they never let you down. They can’t because they hold no air.
Instead of a standard, tubeless design, flat-proof wheelbarrow tires are made of semi-solid foam all the way through. Today’s best commercial-duty wheelbarrows roll off the factory floor with flat-proof tires as standard equipment. You can also get them as aftermarket add-ons for older wheelbarrows, too. Beware the cheap flat-free tires because they split and crack in the sun.
You might be able to improve your home or tend a garden without a wheelbarrow, but why would you want to? After all, wheelbarrows offer the only free lunch you’re likely to find these days. Just be sure the neighbours aren’t looking if you use one to take a backyard bath.
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