Wardrobe through upstairs window

[Mike Barnes]

We want to get a heavy oak wardrobe, about 7'x4'x2', into a bedroom though a first floor window. Actually the bedroom window is a pair of inward-opening doors with a Juliet balcony, and there's room to get the wardrobe in above the balcony (just), or it would be possible to remove the steel balcony (four bolts) to provide more room and floor-level entry.

There's reasonable manoeuvring room for machinery under the window but to get there from the road there's a width limit of just over 8' at ground level.

My question is: DIY or get someone in?

The DIY route would actually involve paying a builder friend to erect a scaffold platform, and bribing the farmer across the road plus his JCB to do the lifting.

If I get someone in they'll presumably have the right gear and all I have to do is to pay them. I assume that companies exist that specialise in this sort of thing, but right now I wouldn't know where to start looking.

At the moment this is all a distant prospect and I haven't asked anyone what's possible and how much it would cost.

Has anyone done this kind of thing before, and if so do you have any thoughts or recommendations?

[Derek Geldard]

Done properly it's hellish expensive nowadays due to elfin safety. The HSE would want the building to be scaffolded to provide a working platform outside the window. The last quote we had from Pickfords (some years ago) for taking a machine into a 1st floor window was £2.6k +VAT.

I have emailed you with the methods statement / risk assessment for the last job we were involved in.

Derek

[Roger Mills]

You may be able to do it by hiring a scissor lift like

for a day.

It would be easier if you removed the balcony. You could use the lift to provide access for balcony removal, and then come down again to get the wardrobe.

[Martin Pentreath]

I helped a good friend a year ago to get some long, hefty steel beams into his end-of-terrace loft for a loft conversion, so in effect this was two storeys off the ground. There was a small window in the gable end going into the loft which we used. In flagrant disregard of all health and safety rules we hired a gadget from (I think) HSS on a towable trailer. It was a telescopic lift. It had a kind of concertina arrangement which scissored open and raised the platform as you manually cranked two handles on the base (it had a fairly hefty degree of low gearing). It had stabilising legs which came out to give it less chance of falling over, which would be fine for furniture I think, can't say it was great for a twenty foot long bit of steel which four of us struggled to left when it was teetering around twenty feet in the air, thankfullly it wasn't a windy day! Anyway, it worked for us, nobody got crushed to death, and I think didn't cost much more than =A3100 for a day's use on a Saturday.

Cheers!

Martin

[RobertL]

Have you considered dismantling the wardrobe so it will fit up the stairs? if it's an old wardrobe you might be able to unglue it (using moisture) and then glue it together again using hide glue. It migh even be partly screwed together.

Robert

[chrisj.doran]

Can you slide it up a couple of ladders at a shallow angle with the aid of enough muscle [*] pulling and/or the JCB pushing? Use an old carpet to protect its back and reduce friction.

[*] Ancient tradition tends to involve the local rugby team and an adequate supply of liquid refreshment.

Chris

[andyv]

Dismantling is probably your best best. From limited experience a lot of older furniture can be split. I had a big 1920's wardrobe which wouldn't go up the stairs, but the doors came off and it could be separated into two halves. No ungluing, just screws were involved.

[Mike Barnes]

Good idea. Actually the wardrobe is new, *very* new, as in: it hasn't been built yet. But the cabinet maker who's going to construct it says that it would be absolutely impossible to (re-)assemble it in the bedroom - it has to go in in one piece. I have no idea why.

[TMC]

Any cabinet maker worth his name would be able to construct a piece that could be assembled on site

Unless that is you have given specific plans and a price limit

As others have said before flat pack wardrobes of the size that you specify could be split into 2 halves.

If not take off the balcony iron work use 2 ladders side by side put a wide webbing strap around the wardrobe a piece of old carpet on the back couple of people top and bottom and away you go. Normal way of getting furniture in and out of terrace house front bedrooms

Tony

[nightjar]

I'd go for a rough terrain side reach fork lift truck.

Colin Bignell

[newshound]

Absolutely agree. I'd go further, a serious cabinet maker would want to assemble it on site himself so that it could be accurately fitted to walls / floors.

And you might want to take it out one day.

[Richard]

A very boring week spent in Nice last year was made more bearable by the time spent watching removal men moving furniture in and out of flats - one even on the fifth floor. They all used a flatbed van about Transit sized with telescopic ladder(?) on the flatbed. This had a square platform which was adjusted to be level and ran up and down the ladder(?) under wire rope power. As far as I could see each floor in the flats had one, either removable or over sized, window on the street side for this purpose.

So, maybe a scissor lift is the answer.

Richard

[Adam Aglionby]

Had an old safe taken out a first floor by hiab arm on a truck, Sunday morning while HSE was asleep.

Adam

[Clint Sharp]

In message , Derek Geldard writes

Last job I did that involved first floor access, no, wait the only job I've ever done for work that involved first floor access, involved a quarter of a million pounds worth of IBM hardware and was done by 'Bob' from the warehouse with his trusty forklift and was over before you could say 'Have you done a risk assessment' Of course, *I* didn't arrange it, the client did.

[Clint Sharp]

In message , Adam Aglionby writes

I have to ask, did the owners know, how long did it take you to open with the obligatory angle grinder and are you the guy who did our local cash point the other week?

[Adam Aglionby]

oor by hiab arm on a truck, Sunday

Old office , think original owners had cashed in their chips some time ago.

Scrap yards won`t touch unopened safes.

Didn`t open the darn thing in the end, old fire resisting type, so could probably have ripped the back off but makes a possibly asbestos contaminated mess.

Think forklift preferred removal tool for those..

Adam

[RobertL]

I hear dit said that the (huge) bass drum that was specially made for the first performance of Verdi's requiem was too big to fit though the doors of the vienna opera house so they demolished part of the wall to get it in.

Robert