Woodstoves are excellent sources of low-cost and renewable heat. Normally, woodstoves are portable units made of cast iron, without wheels and sometimes weigh more than a ton. Whenever you are trying to move the woodstoves, you need to have careful planning, lots of assistance and also quite an amount of leverage. If you do it wrongly, maybe you will end up injuring yourself. Some of the methods that you can use to move your woodstoves is to always keep your group in a completely erect, upright position when lifting the unit, carrying the unit and setting it down by only slightly bending your knees and remember not to bend over your waist.
What you need to do:
- 4 lengths of rope, approx. 6-7 feet each, very strong, approx ½-inch diameter, that holds knots well
- Strong help from friends at least 4 people
- A clear and unobstructed walking zone
- Adequate clearance of doorway
- A safe and sturdy place to set it down
- Cardboard or thick plywood
- Concrete surface
Woodburning Stove
Method:
- First thing that you have to do is to disassemble any parts of the woodstoves such as doors, griddle or anything that you can take off so that it would be easier for you to lift the unit thus making it as light as possible and saving a lot of effort.
- Most of the wood burning stoves come with pieces that can come out easily or without any tools securing it. The most that you might want to use is a simple flat head screwdriver, which would enable you to hinge pins or even to gently pry some items to loosen up. If you managed to lighten the weight of the woodstoves by 30 to 40 pounds, it would definitely help you in moving the unit faster and always be careful if your woodstove is a cast iron type.
- Make sure that your children or pets do not get into your way when you start to move the woodstoves. If you have a room below the area that you want to move the woodstoves, try to get everybody out of the room because even a small wood stove, if it is toppled, it might come crashing down through your floor.
- Whenever you have doubts of whether you would be able to move the unit or not, you can just hire someone who would be able to do the task professionally and is also insured.
- Use several pieces of thick plywood and place them on the floor from your current position of woodstoves to the area where you want to move the unit to.
- This is for the purpose of reducing the damage on your flooring or carpet when you start to move the unit. Ensure that you measure all doorways so that the woodstove would be able to go through all the entrance up until the passageway of the new location.
- You also need to know how to tie knots over the woodstoves whether to use a buntline or a double fisherman’s loop or even a triple overhand knot. In order to do a simple triple overhand knot, you need to take two extra turns of the end of your rope through the knot.
- Once the knot is tied and secured, you must test it to be sure of its strength and it should be really tight. When your knots are ready, you have to carefully tie the rope by encircling the woodstoves leg at its top section where the leg joins the main part of the stove. It should not be tied lower than that because the lower it is, it will definitely change the center of gravity of the stove thus making it slip off when you start to remove the unit.
- The end of the rope that you are going to tie around each leg of your woodstoves must be approximately 6 feet in length. You may also need to tie a safety knot so that enabling your hand to grip or take multiple turns over your palm. This is to help you have a firmer grip so that when you start to lift the unit, it will not slip out of your hand.
- When moving the unit, ensure that your team practices the position for lifting where your arms must always be apart and not close together. The wider you manage to comfortably hold your arms, much more stability you will be getting when you lift the unit.
- It is also wise to use leverage and assistance in moving the woodstove such as a wheeled dolly. Always be extra careful when balancing the woodstove evenly on your dolly because if you are not careful the stove’s weight can easily make the dolly turn over thus injuring your team.
- Communication is the most important thing to do in order to accomplish the task with your team whether verbally or by using signal.
Additional Reading:
The Complete Book of Woodburning Stoves
