If you've ever tried to carry a stack of boxes, a washing machine, or a pallet of stock by hand, you already know why a sack truck exists.
A sack truck (also known as a sack barrow, hand truck, or sack trolley) is an L-shaped, two-wheeled cart with a small flat plate at the base that slides under a load, letting you tilt it back and wheel the whole thing in one trip instead of carrying it in pieces.
They all do the same basic job, but the details, frame material, wheel type, handle height, base size, and rated capacity, are what decide whether the one you buy actually holds up to what you need it for.
Here's what to look for, how the models in our own range differ, and how to keep one running for years rather than months.
What to look for when choosing a sack truck
- Load capacity. Sack trucks are rated from around 85kg for light, occasional use up to 150kg or more for daily trade and warehouse work. Buy a bit above what you think you'll need rather than right at the edge of it, a truck working near its rated limit day after day wears out faster than one with headroom.
- Frame material. Aluminium and steel are the two you'll see, and the trade-off between them is worth understanding properly (see below).
- Wheels. Rubber wheels with ball bearings roll smoothly and quietly across concrete, tarmac and hard flooring, which matters if you're using it daily rather than for the odd house move.
- Handle height. A telescopic handle means one truck can work for anyone using it, rather than forcing a fixed height on whoever's pushing it. Check the adjustment range, not just whether it has one.
- Base or nose plate size. A wider, longer plate slides under bigger or more awkward items safely, while a narrow one is fine for boxes but struggles with anything irregular.
- How it folds. A genuinely flat-folding design is the difference between a sack truck that lives behind your van seat or in a cupboard, and one that ends up permanently in the way.
Aluminium vs steel: which actually lasts longer
This is one of the most common questions people ask about sack trucks, and the honest answer is that it depends on what you're protecting against.
Aluminium alloy frames resist rust completely, which matters a lot if the truck spends any time outdoors, in damp warehouses, or gets left in a van overnight. Aluminium is also significantly lighter, so you're not fighting the truck's own weight before you've even loaded it, useful if you're carrying it up steps or lifting it in and out of a vehicle several times a day.
Steel's advantage is raw strength under repeated abuse. In genuinely harsh industrial settings, constant impacts, scraping against concrete, being dropped or dragged, steel can outlast aluminium simply because it deforms rather than fatigues in the same way. It's also usually cheaper to manufacture at very high capacities.
In short:
- Choose aluminium for most home, trade, retail and delivery use. You get rust resistance steel can't match in the UK's weather, without giving up meaningful capacity at the loads most people actually move. It's why our whole range is built this way.
- Choose steel only if you're running a truck in constant heavy industrial service, the kind of use where it rarely comes indoors and gets treated roughly every single day.
Which sack truck do you need?
Not every job needs the same truck. Here's how our range breaks down by what you're actually moving.
- Light, frequent loads (students, couriers, retail, events): the T85 is the lightest and most portable in the range at just 3.1kg, easy to carry with one hand and unfold in seconds between drops. Rated to 85kg, comfortably covering boxes, parcels and event kit without paying for capacity you won't use.
- Bulkier boxes and appliances (everyday home and trade use): the T90 is only 5kg more capacity than the T85, but the real difference is a reinforced 1.6mm iron base plate built specifically for extra stability. If what you're moving is less evenly balanced, an appliance, stacked boxes, anything that could tip on a flimsier base, this is the step up that matters.
- Heavy, repeat loads (trade or daily use): the T150 is the dedicated heavy-duty option, built for daily use rather than the occasional light job. A wide 48.5cm by 35cm nose plate and a longer telescopic handle range (89cm to 115cm) mean it's built to be worked hard, not just to hit a higher number on the spec sheet.
- Awkward or unstable loads that need a platform: the FT150 converts between a 2-wheel sack truck and a 4-wheel platform trolley in seconds. Worth being clear on the capacity split: 150kg only applies in platform mode, while as a plain sack truck it's rated to 75kg, half the T150's dedicated capacity. Choose this one when the flexibility of a flat platform for unstable or bulky loads matters more than maximum sack-truck capacity on its own.
How to make a sack truck last
A sack truck has few moving parts, but the ones it has are exactly what fail if you ignore them.
- Check the wheels and tyres before use, especially if it's been sitting unused for a while. A wheel that's gone soft or picked up debris in the bearing makes everything harder to push and wears the frame faster as you compensate for it.
- Wipe it down after wet or muddy use. Even a rust-resistant aluminium frame benefits from not being left caked in mud, and it stops grit working its way into the folding joints and wheel bearings.
- Keep the folding mechanism and pivot points moving freely. A light application of general-purpose lubricant on the hinge points a couple of times a year stops them seizing or becoming stiff.
- Don't load past the rated capacity, even once. Sack trucks aren't built with a large safety margin the way some equipment is, and overloading it even briefly can bend a nose plate or stress a frame in a way that doesn't show up until it fails later, usually at a worse moment.
- Store it folded. Every model in the range is designed to fold flat specifically so it isn't left standing open, taking up space and getting knocked into.
Follow those and there's no reason a sack truck shouldn't outlast the job you bought it for.
Browse the full range, all rated from 85kg to 150kg, delivered free on next working day.
