A good office chair is essential for your comfort, especially if you spend a lot of time at your desk. When you sit comfortably, you’re likely to be more productive as well. What’s often overlooked when maintaining an office chair is replacing the wheels. Poor-quality or worn-out wheels can hinder the mobility of your office chair and damage your floor. In this blog, we’ll explain why it may sometimes be necessary to replace your office chair wheels and how you can easily do it yourself.
Why Replace Office Chair Wheels?
1. Better Mobility
Worn wheels can lead to a stiffer movement of the chair. With new high-quality wheels, your office chair will roll more smoothly over the floor.
2. Prevent Floor Damage
Poor-quality wheels or damaged wheels cause scratches and dents on the floor. Office chair wheels with a hard surface should be replaced to ensure the floor is well protected.
3. Increased Comfort
Poor or worn-out wheels can make the chair unstable, leading to discomfort or even back issues. Better wheels ensure a comfortable seating position.
How Are Office Chair Wheels Attached?
First, it’s important to know how an office chair wheel is attached to the chair. Once you know this, you can easily remove the wheels. An office chair wheel is usually attached with a stem. The stem is the pin pressed into the wheel on one side and into the chair on the other side. There are two types of stems: grip ring stem and threaded stem. Office chair wheels typically use a grip ring stem.
Removing Office Chair Wheels
Now that we know how the wheel is attached, let’s look at how you can remove the office chair wheels. The first step is to remove the wheel. You can try pulling the wheel out of the chair. If this doesn’t work, you can grip the wheel with pliers and tap it with a hammer until it comes loose. Often, the wheel comes out along with the stem still attached. If the stem remains, you can use pliers and a hammer to remove it as well.
Measuring the Stem Size
To ensure the new wheel will fit your chair, it’s important to accurately measure the stem size. The stem size is the diameter in millimeters of the portion of the stem that fits into the chair. This is measured using a calliper. The stem size for most office chairs is either 10 or 11. If you're replacing IKEA office chair wheels, it’s usually 10. Always check to be sure.
If you plan to reuse the old stems, look for a wheel that matches this stem size. However, we do not recommend this. By ordering new wheels with stems from us, you can be sure they will fit perfectly. Additionally, when removing the wheel, the stem can sometimes remain stuck in the wheel.
Installing New Office Chair Wheels
Once you’ve removed the old wheels, measured the stem size, and chosen the correct new wheels, you can install them. This process is easy with our wheels and stems. When you order Scratch no More office chair wheels with stems, we pre-press the stem into the wheel for you. You simply need to push the wheels into the chair.
Summary: Four Steps to Replace Office Chair Wheels
1. Remove the old wheels with stems
2. Measure the stem size
3. Order new office chair wheels with the correct stem size
4. Press the new wheels into the chair
If you’d prefer to see the steps performed in a video, you can watch the video below:
Replacing your office chair wheels is quite straightforward when following our steps. If you have any questions regarding this article, feel free to contact one of our specialized team members. We’re happy to help!