Why do wheelbarrows use only 1 wheel? Wouldn’t it be more stable and tip over less if they used 2?
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Tipping over is a feature, not a bug. For many wheelbarrow uses, the end result is to tip out all of the contents into a single place. If stability is needed, there are other options like a garden cart.
To add on the benefits, you can push it on trails that are very narrow. Two wheel ones would end up with both wheel on soft grass instead of the compact dirt in the middle of the trail. Also you dodge stones better with a single wheel.
In mud, you can easily move it by putting a wooden plank on the obstacle. Two wheels would need aiming and more planks.
Two wheels are very good to have more surface to not ruin English style grass for example, for a gardener.
A single wheel makes the wheelbarrow easier to turn in tight spaces. Anecdotally, they’re also much easier to push up hills than a two-wheeled wheelbarrow. Two wheels also deal with uneven terrain more poorly than single wheel designs.
A wheelbarrow tipping over is actually beneficial as well, as it makes them easier to empty.
I’ve got two barrows, one with a single wheel, the other has a pair. The trade off is stability for maneuverability, where I *strongly* favor the stability of the 2-wheeled barrow. The shape of the two allows me to easily tip or roll either when that’s my intention, while the single *LOVES* to roll over regardless of intent.
Honestly, the only reason I’ve still got them both is because it’s common for my wife and I to be working in the yard, and we don’t have to share (though I’m often relegated to the single because that’s life.)
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Rolling a 2-wheeled wheelbarrow over uneven terrain is… Challenging. When you have two points of contact with the ground, the weight of the payload will keep both tires on the ground.
If the right tire goes over a bump, but the left goes into a dip, it will cause the wheelbarrow to roll in the direction of the dip. Your arms, meanwhile, remain the same length, so you end up kind of resisting the rolling motion, but it puts a lot of weight on one arm or the other. If you don’t properly resist the rolling motion, it can tip the wheelbarrow right over.
Wheelbarrows with 1-wheel will bounce up and down over uneven terrain, but there isn’t a lot of rolling force because there is only one wheel on the ground. As long as you keep the load centered over the wheel, you can keep it upright over very uneven terrain.
Source: My parents have been doing lawn & landscape work for 28 years, so I’ve hauled many wheelbarrows (of various types) full of dirt/rock/mulch. I’ll take a 1-wheel wheelbarrow over a 2-wheel any day of the week.
Fun anecdote: I knew someone who lived in the woods and wanted to show her wheelchair-bound friend around her camp. No possible way to get a wheelchair in there (narrow paths, puddles, board bridges) but a wheelbarrow did fine.
(Friend could walk a little, enough to get from barrow to chair and back: but not any distance or with any stability.)
I used to do tree work and bought a big, high capacity, heavy-load wheelbarrow with two wheels to carry cut logs from backyards to my dump truck.
I instantly hated it. With two wheels, every little bump in the lawn bangsone wheel up, and tips the whole thing side to side as well as up and down. SO much harder to control, and it took a lot more arm muscle to control it.
I also had to go straight up and straight down hills, because even a few degrees of side hill made the tall heavy loads tip hard to the side.
Basically, a two-wheeled barrow was only useful to me on sidewalks and asphalt, so, it might be ok on SOME construction sites, but a simple, sturdy type with one large-ish, straight, strong wheel and a stiff frame would be much, much better.
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