How do you lift a wood stove ?

[cmnash]

Any tricks to picking up and moving a 450 lb. stove several feet down a hallway and then onto a raised hearth pad without floor damage and sustaining back injuries ?

My Hearthstone Heritage has been sitting in the hallway (out of the delivery crate) for 2 weeks and I plan to move it Friday. I have a couple of guys standing by and a 600 lb. rated hand cart but it's not made for a bulky object.

I though of placing several round posts or even limbs under it, then rolling it into position; kind of how the Egyptians built the pyramids.

Maybe its a dumb question but I don't want to damage the stove's undercarriage or its enamel finish. This thing was expensive......

I do have a 6 ton floor jack, which might come in handy if it pins some unfortunate helper to the floor.

Thanks guys.

 

[mtcates]

My stove was a few pounds heavier than yours and I got 4 guys to just carry it to the hearth.

 

[SpeakEasy]

STRAPS. Two straps, one under the front and the other under the back - running side-to-side. Then, four guys (one on each end of each strap), and just carry the beast into position. Piece-'o-cake!

-Speak

 

[golfandwoodnut]

remove the door and the fire brick and it may be alot lighter.

 

[burntime]

2 guys to walk it in. Yep its heavy but you do not move it every day...

 

[ecocavalier02]

hand truck/ or lift it or dolly. many ways. i know the pads you put furniture on to work good if you put one under each leg then you can just slide it. that one might not be good with a wood floor though. those straps do work awesome though. im an hvac guy and we remove an install lots of boilers and we do use pvc pipe to role it on. use to lengths role it then move next piece to before other one falls off. also plenty of man power obvisouly is the best of course.

 

[begreen]

I like the idea of straps, but let the hand truck do the work. Sidle the stove onto a piece of slightly larger plywood, then slip the handtruck foot under the plywood. Put some padding between the stove body and the cart. Then take a couple ratchet straps and strap the stove snugly to the hand truck. After this prep, moving it is a piece of cake.

 

[Eaglecraft]

I had to confront the same issue moving a 550 lb. Clydesdale into my house and onto a hearth raised 12 inches high off a hardwood floor. I had the help of 3 big guys and myself and the use of an "Lectric" truck. First I placed kraft paper over the hardwood floor that the stove would need to roll over. (Mind you I had just refinished our red oak floors and didn't want to damage them.) I then placed 1/2 inch plywood over the kraft paper. Because the hearth wasn't wide enough to support the stove and easily complete the installation, I built a rectanglar box using plywood and 2X4's and pushed the box against the hearth. Then using two sheets of 3/4 inch plywood, I made a ramp from the floor to the box. Then we strapped the stove to the "Lectric" truck and wheeled the stove from my trailer (where it was delivered) into my house, onto and up the plywood ramp and onto the box. From the box, it was just a matter of pushing the insert into the fireplace opening.

 

[BrowningBAR]

Any tricks to picking up and moving a 450 lb. stove several feet down a hallway and then onto a raised hearth pad without floor damage and sustaining back injuries ?

My Hearthstone Heritage has been sitting in the hallway (out of the delivery crate) for 2 weeks and I plan to move it Friday. I have a couple of guys standing by and a 600 lb. rated hand cart but it's not made for a bulky object.

I though of placing several round posts or even limbs under it, then rolling it into position; kind of how the Egyptians built the pyramids.

Maybe its a dumb question but I don't want to damage the stove's undercarriage or its enamel finish. This thing was expensive......

I do have a 6 ton floor jack, which might come in handy if it pins some unfortunate helper to the floor.

Thanks guys.

I just installed the Heritage. Moving it involved a lot of cursing, straps, cursing, lifting, cursing, a dolly with wheels, and some more cursing.

 

[Beetle-Kill]

Appliance dolly, with the straps and pads. That gets it into position. Then the straps under the stove with manly men to grad hold and lift it onto the hearth. Back straight, lift with your legs= DUN-done. or find a "escalara". that thing is just plain cool.

 

[Kankujoe]

I used a furniture dolly to move & install my Englander NC-30. It was a real bear to move around. I dread moving it again next spring/summer when I build a hearth around it! It wasn't as bad as moving my 800lb safe a few months before. Still trying to decide what my final hearth install will be like, I think I'd like to raise it up above 10-12 inches. Right now it's sitting on a double thickness of cement board (hardie - wonder) until I decide on my hearth build. Hopefully I'll have the help of a few friends to lift it next time. Good luck on your install!

 

[fraxinus]

As long as the platform will fit between the legs, a piano dolly is the best way I ever found to move a stove. Four wheels on the ground, no lifting at all, keeps the center of gravity low, no need for straps, etc.

 

[pen]

I would put carpet or cardboard down, then slide my floor jack under it and go to town. If you don't have or can't borrow a floor jack, I find I can get 3 buddies around in no time w/ a 30 wacker of beer and some chops.

pen

 

[RoseRedHoofbeats]

Use a dolly, absolutely.

~Rose

 

[tcassavaugh]

I've always used a hand truck and ratchet straps. use a 2 x 4 under the legs then the truck lip under the 2 x 4 to pick it up/back after strappng it. find the ballance point and you are good to go. course moving it onto the hearth might be a pain in the back.

cass

 

[forvols]

Install in my basement I used a 2ton engine hoist and straps. Not your situation though. I vote for the dolly and straps....and couple bruts to help, feed em some pizza and beer afterwards during your break-in fire(s).

Tony

 

[Ellis]

I just installed my 600# fireplace insert last weekend with two of us. Hand cart to the front door, dolly in the door to the fireplace and lightweight sheet metal on the hearth to slide it in (then levered the stove up enough with a large screwdriver to get the sheet metal back out). My help had to leave for a while, so I decided to try myself getting from dolly to hearth/fireplace - had no problem doing this alone. Have fun and enjoy your new heat!

 

[Dakotas Dad]

Our stove is a bit lighter, but we removed everything we could, then just the wife and I "walked" it across the house, and up onto the hearth with a ramp. A dolly was use to get it into the house, could have been used to get into position, but we didn't. Straps and padding worked with the dolly.

 

[Backwoods Savage]

I put our stove on a piano dolly by myself! Two guys helped get it into the house and then uncrate it. Then they lifted it up onto the raised hearth while I made sure it did not tip. It all was fast and amazingly easy. We did remove the top lid, firebrick and firebox door before lifting it onto the hearth.

We used a little smaller dolly than this one:

 

[tcassavaugh]

if you have to unload it from the truck, a good set of ramps is a must. i did my summet by myself with a hand truck and a set of ramps. Not fun, but can be done. Gravity makes you realize you are past the point of no return and all you can do is hope to have a semi controlled decent.

A lot of good suggestions here. One other thing i have done is gone to Walmart and picked up some of those sliders/coasters and put them under the legs and just slide it (I've moved a lot of wood stoves) to where you want it. Works pretty good on both carpet and tile.

cass

 

[Milton Findley]

I just finished a Hearthstone install too. I watched as two big guys with a dolly and straps brought it in off the truck and placed it on my hearth. They worked hard at it, but it went well enough even when they ran the dolly down the steps.

Then, I wrote the check for the other half of the purchase price. That was my trick for moving the monster.

 

[cmnash]

Thanks much for all the suggestions ! Glad to hear I'm not the only one that had to think this out.

I have about 24 hours to now formulate a plan. It sounds like straps, a few manly men, and a case of beer will move the whole house.

Maybe its the wisdom of advancing age (turned 60 in Oct.) or something, but I find myself giving more thought to doing things smartly these days.

Years ago I would have dragged the thing around and broke something or killed someone in the process.

 

[shawneyboy]

Grunt, use straps, cuss, grunt, cuss, grunt, strain, grunt, cuss, allow time for the sore back to recover.

 

[Jags]

The neighbor at the cabin had the same question. I told him to grab one end and I will grab the other. He is a big boy, and I'm just too stupid to know better.

 

[RandyG]

My Fireview is still in the crate in the garage, still have moving ahead of me, not sure yet how its going to work, cross that bridge when we get there but WOW that is the heaviest thing I've ever seen for its size.......