Main > Main Forum
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! :cheers:
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. :dunno
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.