When I first moved to Ft. Lauderdale, I had a terrazzo floor that seemed to always have sand on it. Plenty of trips to the beach bring sand back on everything. Kids and pets walk sand in and it seems to blow in every time the winds get high. Lines of sand ended up anywhere I couldn’t reach with the dust mop.
Then I bought an old steamer trunk that had wooden wheels on it. The wheels didn’t roll very well anymore. When I went to Home Depot to pick up replacement wheels, I bought a couple more sets and put them on other furniture. When I flipped over my desk, I found there were already holes for casters that had been covered with glued on carpet circles.
Little by little I added casters to all kinds of furniture. It was so easy to push the furniture around to keep the floor de-sanded. I got a Roomba and it could rearrange the furniture.
What is the difference between wheels and casters?
If your fridge rolls, it is most likely on wheels. Wheels move forward and backward. Your office chair is on casters. They roll in any direction. Most shopping cards have wheels in the back and casters in the front.
Most casters are a wheel in a fork that can spin. They were invented in 1920 and a lot of furniture from that time has a hole at the bottom of the leg to attach the caster. If you buy old furniture that seems to be too short, look for a metal plate with a hole at the bottom of the leg. Putting the caster back on my dining room chairs raised them the few inches they needed to be comfortable.
Different Kinds of Casters
There are a lot of different kinds of casters, depending on how they attach to the furniture. You might have to even combine these different casters on the same piece of furniture. As long as you can make it level, it works.
Stem Casters
Stem casters have a pin or bolt that goes into a hole in the furniture.
Friction stem locks into a socket located inside the furniture and is easily inserted and removed.
Shepherd Hardware
If there is not already a hole for a caster, you can drill a hole and put in a socket for a stem caster.
Plate Casters
If you are going into something kinda thin, like a trunk, you can drill a hole and use some washers or a metal mending plate to stabilize and support the caster, but a plate caster will work better.
Plate casters have a plate that you screw or bolt onto furniture that is flat enough.
Side Mount Casters
Side mount casters are great when there is really no way to attach the caster from the bottom.
The caster might stick out to the side, so they aren’t good for where you might trip or scrape your foot on it. They make them so that the wheel is easily removed, but that might defeat the purpose if you have to go hunt the wheel, lift and reattach every time you want to budge the furniture.
U-Bracket Casters
U-Bracket Casters are ideal where they can fit over the bottom of the furniture. They keep the caster underneath and stabilize it.
Corner Casters
Inside Corner Casters attach right into the corner and keep the wheel at each corner. The caster stays under the furniture. Outside corner casters stabilize furniture, but they stick out, so you might trip over them.
Inside Corner Casters on Amazon
Outside Corner Casters on Amazon
Cup Casters
Cup casters slip over the leg of furniture. They come in different sizes and widths.
(This is what got me interested in the topic. I bought some antique furniture and the legs were too short. They used to have casters. The chairs are too old and we are too heavy to put a caster back into the little hole in each chair leg. But cup casters raise the chairs to a normal chair height and look just right on antique furniture.)
Round Cup Furniture Casters on Amazon
Square Cup Furniture Casters on Amazon
Hooded Ball Casters
Hooded ball casters are marble shaped, but they have a pin going through them, so they spin like a wheel.
Roller Ball Casters (Ball Transfer Units)
Ball Casters are not strictly casters, but they work like them.
Ball Casters have a larger ball that rolls on smaller ball bearings to roll in any direction. You can screw them to the bottom of furniture.
Braking or Locking Casters
Some casters have a little lever that presses against the wheel to stop it from rolling. If your floor is uneven, a locking caster keeps your rolling furniture from rolling away. Locking casters keep your rolling kitchen island from getting away from you while you work on it. If only one caster locks, sometimes your work surface will still move, pivoting around the locked wheel. You need at least two wheels locked.
Leveling Casters
Leveling casters are casters that adjust to level whatever they are attached to, or include a leveling foot.
Caster Load Capacity
Different casters can handle different amounts of weight. Even the lightest duty ones are enough for the weight of a chair plus the weight of the person in the chair.
Don’t forget about how much is going into whatever you are attaching the caster to. I loaded up a trunk and the caster fork folded in and smashed so the wheel couldn’t roll anymore.
Even though you are using four casters, you can’t really divide the weight by four, since you are likely to have more weight on any two.
Grainger Know-how Caster Load Capacity
- Light duty: 0 to 299 lbs.
- Light-medium duty: 300 to 999 lbs.
- Medium duty: 1000 to 2999 lbs.
- Heavy duty: 3000 to 5999 lbs.
- Extra super duty: greater than 6000 lbs.
There are other variations of casters, too. But these are all the kinds I have bought furniture with or added to put on furniture.
Caster or Castor
Sometimes you see caster spelled castor. Maybe it’s like grey and gray. I’m not judging.
Cast means to throw. It also used to mean to turn. So it is a good word for a wheel that turns.
Castor beans make castor oil, which my mother briefly gave me. They make ricin from castor beans in mystery books. Castor is the bright star in the Gemini constellation. Castor is the French word for beaver, so a lot of beaver related things have castor in the name.