So... What are YOU doing? - Part 8

[Lamb]

The plumber will be here in about an hour to replace some faucets in the house. It will be nice to have them shiny and new

 

[tango]

I have no idea of the type of room it's in, but if you have any anchor points (inside or maybe even outside) it a come along or two sounds like it would give you the control you need and keep you away from it as it is moving in case of a fall. I've move some pretty big stuff with them in the past. In my visualization of the problem the only concern doing it this way would being certain the base of the thing couldn't slide back toward the wall as it was tilting over and create an uncontrolled situation.

A come along would also give you the advantage of being able to pull it from the base so that the pulling forces are well below the center of gravity and prevent a tilt over from occurring.

What type of floor is it being moved over and how resistant to damage would it be? Sliders might work as well as or even better than wheels if you can pull it with a come along.

When you refer to a come along, what does that look like? I'm wondering if it's a contraption I haven't come across or if I'd call it something else.

The gist of the problem is a radiator, maybe 18 inches square and nearly six feet wide, standing on six legs that rest on small wooden plinths. The radiator weighs 3-400lb at a guess, it's hard to say for sure. The floor is linoleum so dragging isn't an option, even assuming I could drag it. The big problem is the weight of it. I have a heavy duty hand cart that I've used to shift other radiators but they were taller - maybe three feet square and 12 inches front-to-back - so it's easier to get underneath them and strap them to the cart. This radiator is wide enough to be unwieldy and the central feet also mean I can't get the cart under the middle of it, so it would be unstable whatever I do.

As far as anchoring is concerned I've stripped the room back to the bare concrete walls, although in theory I could drill holes through the ceiling joists above. I considered doing that but would really prefer not to have to do such a thing. Some contraption with ropes and pulleys might prove necessary, even if only to lift the thing up and move it to a different location. At some point I want to move it to a different room entirely, but I think I'll pay my heating guy to do that job.

 

[Frankj]

When you refer to a come along, what does that look like? I'm wondering if it's a contraption I haven't come across or if I'd call it something else.

The gist of the problem is a radiator, maybe 18 inches square and nearly six feet wide, standing on six legs that rest on small wooden plinths. The radiator weighs 3-400lb at a guess, it's hard to say for sure. The floor is linoleum so dragging isn't an option, even assuming I could drag it. The big problem is the weight of it. I have a heavy duty hand cart that I've used to shift other radiators but they were taller - maybe three feet square and 12 inches front-to-back - so it's easier to get underneath them and strap them to the cart. This radiator is wide enough to be unwieldy and the central feet also mean I can't get the cart under the middle of it, so it would be unstable whatever I do.

As far as anchoring is concerned I've stripped the room back to the bare concrete walls, although in theory I could drill holes through the ceiling joists above. I considered doing that but would really prefer not to have to do such a thing. Some contraption with ropes and pulleys might prove necessary, even if only to lift the thing up and move it to a different location. At some point I want to move it to a different room entirely, but I think I'll pay my heating guy to do that job.

A come along, sometimes called a hand winch, This is an image grabbed from HF where they sell cheap enough to buy one or two for the shop and one for each of your cars practical. You can do some amazing things with them including things like winching yourself out of a ditch by yourself as well as moving heavy things around horizontally or vertically.

The cable length isn't critical, you can use a strong rope or chain to attach it to an anchor point and just winch it the cable length them rewind it and winch it again till you get it where you want it to go.

If the tile is not delicate, you can use sliders under the legs to simply drag it out, pieces of heavy carpet with the pile side down will usually work too, particularly with the weight distributed over six legs (may be a good ides to make a short test drag first to verify it's OK)

Hope this comes through, never tried posting an image before.

 

[tango]

Curious, I've never seen one of those before (the image came through fine, thanks!)

I'm not sure how many hooks I'd need to put into ceiling joists to be able to support the weight of the radiator without them ripping out of the joists and I'd need a pretty heavy duty rope to take the weight of the radiator (I'm not sure if I could physically get the links of a heavy chain through the radiator, given the way it's constructed).

For now I've got it out of the way so I was able to do most of the work I needed to do behind it, although there's more work I want to do and I'll need it moved again before I can reframe the wall. Even if all I can do is raise it up, move it a couple of feet and set it down again, that could be a workable solution.

(Off to the HF website to see more about what these things can do!)