Navigating stairs

[bkenobi]

A quick search revealed nothing related to getting toys up and down stairs safely and easily.  I did a quick search on google and found the following idea.

http://www.bobshowto.com/Tips-Tricks/moving-tips/winches-ramps-move-myself.htm

I've been thinking of implementing something similar, but I'm not sure if there's anyone out there that's already tried something similar.  If so, I'd love to hear advice/lessons learned/etc. 

Fire away!   

[bkenobi]

FWIW, I have heard about stair climbing hand trucks, but they are a little out of my price range.

http://tinyurl.com/26b4t89

[SammyWI]

Generally, if you have a sturdy handtruck and strap your toy down to it securely, two guys can move a lot of weight up or down stairs.  Just go slow (one stair at a time).  I've moved a small gunsafe up and down stairs by myself (about 170 lbs) with a handtruck.  With one friend, we moved 300 lb slate slabs from a pool table up the stairs and out of my basement.
 

[bkenobi]

We just moved from a tri-level house to a 2 story with a basement.  When I needed to get things in or out of the old house, I would use a set of ramps for the front steps and a second or 3rd person to navigate/stabilize the cabs and pinball.  That worked ok, but I can't imagine going up/down the ~20 steps into the basement at the new place without significant help.  The stairs are wide enough that I could put 2 people at the bottom and 1 or 2 at the top to lift a cabinet up the stairs if it came to that.

I was really thinking that it would be nice to be able to get the heavy lifting out of the equation so that my wife and I could move things up/down the stairs.  We now live a bit outside the range that I can easily get people to come help with manual labor like that.  If I construct a winch setup then I could take it down to a winch operator/spotter from the top and someone to help navigate/position/spot from the bottom.

If I can't find an easy way to move things up/down the stairs, I'll probably have to use the detached shop for working on the cabs and storage.  Based on how things are set up, I think it would be more convenient to use the basement though.   

[M.Lanza]

That's pretty much how I moved mine, but I just used a sheet of plywood
as a ramp and used a ratcheting cable puller instead of a winch.
It probably takes a bit longer to operate, but the result is the same,
while being more cost effective.

[bkenobi]

How tall was the staircase?  I think mine is ~15ft along the diagonal.  How you deal with connecting the plywood sheets together?  Also, how did you keep the sheets from sliding down the stairs (or was friction sufficient)?

This seems like the ideal way to navigate the stairs, I guess I'll just have to play with the particulars.

[mrclean]

My advice, If your talking about moving vids... I have moved several machines into my basement / down stairs. Overtime I found that the best method IMO is to remove as much weight as possible. It might be a little bit more time consuming this way, but trust me it's worth it. It's the same thing with moving a dresser with all your clothes inside.

- Remove the PCB
* Remove the Monitor
- Remove Control Panel
* Remove Back Door
- Remove Glass Bezel
- Remove Marquee

Sure the marquee, bezel, pcb, and control panel don't weigh much that's really more for protecting those pieces during moving. However removing the Monitor / Back Door significantly will reduce the weight of the cabinet. Making it alot easier for 2 people to carry without the need of a hand truck down the stairs with much more ease.

And If your nervous about removing certain wires, label everything so that way you can be sure your reconnecting everything properly.