Flat-free tires for garden carts, wheelbarrows

by Mario Vaden

Several years ago, I made the switch to flat free tires for all my garden carts, wheelbarrows and handtrucks. One of the best small landscape tool investments ever.

That flat free tires should be flat free is a no-brainer. But whether they disintegrate or not, may be an unknown or variable to many people. Some are micro-cellular polyurethane. To many gardeners that means little.

What's important to some buyers is do flat-free tires get dents? Do pieces or chunks tear away when impaled objects pull loose? Basically, I've put them to the test under heavy loads, and never had one crack, split apart or crumble. As of today while editing this page, some of my flat free tires are over 10 years old, and I haven't needed to replace any. I used to have a video on this page, showing hammering a huge 10 inch spike nail into my flat free wheelbarrow tire, and pulling the spike out. The tire handled it no problem. For weight, I have rolled rocks up to 600 lbs. on my normal sized handtruck.

Benefits include: 1. No need to carry a tire air pump. 2. Time saved by not needing to check air pressure. 3. On gentle slopes, tires don't "schlog" sideways on the rim.

Some hardware stores sell wheelbarrows with flat free tires. There are also flat free bicycle tires too. Some tire centers, like Les Schwab in the PNW, can inject regular tires to become flat free.

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