I used to hate the office chairs. Not for their comfort, because they can be comfortable, but for their wheels. You know, those shitty caster wheels, that always get stuck and scratch the floor, or the carpet, or whatever. The same wheels that make weird noises, scratchy and annoying.
Since I’m seated on those chairs for hours at an end – as I assume most of the people reading this are – they were the bane of my existence. Well, not really, but I hated them with all my heart.
Until last year, when I found out that you can switch the wheels with silicon type ones, like the ones you see on roller blades. And that it’s not that complicated, actually. You can see below how my chair moves now.
These are the steps to follow to replace your old caster wheels with silicone rollerblade wheels:
- identify the type of wheels you need. I use a Markus chair from IKEA and they have a 10x22mm stem size. Most of the chairs have this or 11x22mm stem, so look at what you need.
- order the set of wheels that’s good for you (based on reviews and so on). I’ve ordered these ones from amazon.de, but you can find similar ones on amazon.com or amazon.co.uk.
- Remove the old wheels from the chair. It might take a little bit of effort, but they should be easy enough to remove.
- Push in the new wheels. Again, it might take a little bit of effort, so don’t be worried (unless you bought the wrong, bigger size).
- Enjoy a life free of scratching floors and weird, scratchy noises.
In case you are unsure how to fix them in, here’s the video I followed to replace them:
There is one con, though, for these rollerblade wheels: you might hit the floor once or twice because you’re used to a slow moving chair. You push it back from the desk to sit on it and by the time you act, it’s at the other end of the room. You’ve been warned!
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