moving a 600lb woodstove

When I moved our 700 lb. beast, I attached it with heavy ratchet straps to a dolly, then it wheeled very easily. Getting it on & off the dolly was interesting.
An appliance cart is another option.

IMO, forearm forklift straps suck on stairs....the load gets transferred to one unlucky individual because the lifting level changes. They're great on flat ground.
I have used a furniture dolly + ratchet strap method for solo-moving, and the 2 man heave-ho method when going up stairs and carrying to the hearth.
Also the 4 caster furniture dollys when restoring my other stove, so it moved around the garage, and out to the painting area with ease.

Hire young burly men to do the job. It is one of the distinct pleasures of being middle aged.

if you can take out fire bricks saves a couple of hundred pounds. we used straps worked good still heavy though.

Just have the Hearth store you bought it from deliver it and set it on the hearth. It'll be the best $250 you ever spent!
Here is what they will use: http://www.escalera.com

You could rent a battery powered stair climbing appliance dolly. EDIT, what webby just linked too ^^^
Or have the local stove shop come over and move it to (or close to) it's final destination.
Is it on a pallet? A couple 2x4s pushed through the pallet make good "handles" for 4 guys to get in a good position to carry it in.
Of course anything that can be removed to lighten the load is a big plus (or "minus" as the case may be! ) like the door, firebricks, legs, etc.
Prybars,(levers) blocks, and wheels, as in some type of dolly, are your friends.
An old machinery movers trick is to roll heavy things on pipes, you need at least two pieces, the one that rolls out the back gets moved around to the front for its next pass.

I had plenty of time to think about this since Woodstock had a production glitch and had to wait. I did this with my girlfriend and I. Made rails sligtly canted, waxed them up, Home Depot straps lifted and pushed in place. (My girlfriends legs pushing). 700 lbs is heavy I have to say. Why not a dolly? This house was built in 1850, the joists are, well let's just say NOT 16" on center and the joists run the direction of the rails.. The rails spread the load out.

I put casters on mine so my kid and I just have to lift on/off the hearth; about 2 feet.

Don't know how easy it is to get to your steps, but we backed the pickup truck up to the the sliding glass door. We ran 2 x 12's from the bed, over the four steps and the step up to the door, so they ran from the bed to just above the oak flooring. Put old carpeting upside down on the floor, and moved the stove with a furniture dolly. Three guys handled it easily.

Pick it up and go.

The stove guys removed every easily removable part. Two doors, fire bricks, grate, burn plates. To get it up a flite of stairs they used a refrigerator hand truck. Two guys.

I've moved in every stove to date by myself except the Cape Cod and the Mansfield with an escalera and a pneumatic tired roller board with casters. These 2 stoves are particularly difficult and awkward to move.

My 72 year old neighbor helped me.

Those powered stair-climbing dollies are amazing. Never saw one before my stove was installed last summer. I wouldn't try to move a stove without one.

Highbeam, never understood the phenomenon of this, my buddy and I carry anything closer to the center and it's heavier. Go to the ends and it's somehow lighter. What is going on here????

I have my wife and a dolly....plus some carpet to protect the hardwood. We have moved a few, but most around 3-400lbs. Oh, it helps to yell at each other while lifting.

My neighbor had a few steps to clear to get in the front door as well. Hung their stove off the front edge of the pallet forks on my tractor and put it right in the door onto a waiting dolly. Not an option for everyone, but if you have someone that has access to the equipment it was amazingly easy to just lift it out of their truck and set it in the open door. We only did this after failing at more conventional methods to move it, so even with the machine at my disposal it didn't initially occur to us to do it in this way.

Rearscreen said:

Highbeam, never understood the phenomenon of this, my buddy and I carry anything closer to the center and it's heavier. Go to the ends and it's somehow lighter. What is going on here????

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As you move away from the stove you have more clearance to use your legs while keeping your back and arms out of the game. Your legs are much stronger.

The shoulder straps are awesome. Me and my bro in law moved a 500 lb stove easy.

Friends . . . and the offer of pizza and beer afterwards.

firefighterjake said:

Friends . . . and the offer of pizza and beer afterwards.

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i'll second this. when I moved my jotul f55 in this past Friday (lightweight at 475lbs), I lined up 2 buddies of mine to come by to help well one was running late so instead of waiting, we went on with the move. the dealer fork lifted the stove into my full size pickup so to get the stove out, we used two 2x10's by 8' long and just slid the stove down which was a piece of cake. while still crated, we strapped it to my hand truck and proceeded to our first obstacle....5 icy front steps. this by far was sketchy at best. I did the best I could to get the ice removed beforehand but I couldn't. I can say, with trying to keep traction and the weight of this stove, if the stove was 10 lbs heavier, I don't think we would have gotten her up. but we did and with no problems. there were a couple, hey lets take a break so we don't drop this thing moments though. and the final obstacle was one more step up into the house. from there it was easy wheel to its location. due to me putting the stove in front of my fireplace opening, we moved it quite a few times in place and back out to get things measured up, mocked up and finally put in place. I was using the rear exit to a T connector which connects to my stainless steel liner. all in all, many helpers make light work.

When I installed the HT ( approx 500 lbs )I kept it in the crate, 40' slide on 2x4 up to the house from drive way. Once in the house I had an old carpet under the crate to slide it in position. A flight of stairs is another story.