I am moving my AS to the hearth within the next month. The specs. say it weights 450 lbs. I think it is more like 600 lbs. I have it on a furniture dolly on my enclosed porch. Getting it to the hearth will be no problem from there. I need ideas of getting it from the dolly and sliding it across the hearth to it's final location. I used my skid steer to de-skid it but that is not an option inside. My present idea is to wheel it to the hearth, slide 2x4s between the ash pan and the legs. Get four people on the 2x4s and lift it off the dolly and into place. Good idea or not? Any other ideas? There is a GTG in Oct. close to me and several attends have volunteered to help if not installed by then. I want to have everything ready to go so I don't up to much GTG time if I need to have them.
Take off anything removable. Firebrick, door, panels,........... Pretty sure WS knows what the stove weighs.
I moved my AS in myself. I took off the door, and top. I used a piece of FRP panel scrap to slide it off the pallet. Still heavy though. Even taking out the bricks that stove is still a beasty. Wish I was closer, be glad to give you a hand. Four people sounds like a plan! Your gonna love that stove!
Don't know how hard it is to remove the soapstone. In previous post in different forums, several people have said they installed by themselves. They most be a real mountain of a man. Can't wait to get it in and fired up. I had my skip steer to de-skid and transport it to the deck. Built a ramp to get it over the threshold. It was all we my wife and I could do pushing and me pulling to get it in. When the wheels came off the ramp, we almost lost it. It fell towards me and I had the weight in my arms as it tried to come over center.
Glad your ok. I flattened both tires on my dolly. When the first collapsed, I almost dumped it! I had my straps tighter on the second failure. I had no other help unfortunately. And I'm not a mountain of a man. Tiny fella. 5'10" and 170 lbs. But, I am a man from the mountains.
I'm in a similar boat. managed to get the IS inside and up onto a furniture dolly between myself and my buddy's wife who was an awesome spotter (he's recuperating from a heart attack.. No way I was letting him push on this thing!) But getting it off the dolly and onto the hearth is going to be interesting. Hoping the chimney install crew is more than one guy! Or if it's just one, I hope he's got a strong back. -edit- not sure if it applies to the AS, but Woodstock tells me the ash pan enclosure on the IS is strong enough to take the weight of the stove as a lifting point if necessary.
I've used those plastic carpet slides on pieces of 1/4" luan plywood. It protects the floor and slate until in place. I used 2 x 4's as levers and blocking to lift the stove to get sliders under it. The slate hearth looks very nice. I'm looking forward to pictures. Good luck with moving it in place.
I took a couple 2x’s and made a little ramp from the pallet to the hearth to slide the stove on. There were two of us, me with a bad back and my retired neighbor with bad hands. I sat the pallet about 18” from the hearth, we walked the stove out that far, then lifted it up above the level of the hearth with a floor jack and a scrap of 2x under the center of the stove, lifting on the ramps and all. Then we slid/walked it down onto the hearth, let it down and pulled the 2x’s out. I took the top and the door off and removed the fire brick.
I have an aluminum ramp that I used to get my AS into the house. Its the ramp I use to get my father in laws wheel chair into the house when he visits, so it has a decent length to it. AS on a dolly went right up it. Heavy enough that the wheels left long lines up the aluminum though.
Several people said they removed the soapstone. On a very brief inspection, I did not see how the soapstones come out. They did wiggle a little, I did not get a screw driver to try prying the bottoms up. How do they come out? How much do you think it lightens it up by? Sunday or the 29th are my installation dates. I will have to check the carpet sliders out.
Roger my friend and I used these Appliance moving straps to move my drolet Austral (500#s). He's in his 50s and of average size. All total the move was around 200 feet and went up three stairs then up another step into the house. We placed it on regular brown cardboard so I could slide it around on the porcelain tile hearth as needed.
I believe the quoted weight for the IS interior soapstone was only about thirty pounds. Check the manual for instructions, I haven't opened mine yet, but there may be a plan in there.
When we put ours in we used a auto floor jack under the center on a sheet of masonite. Lifted it just enough to roll it to the hearth. Then lifted it up with the jack putting scrap lumber (2X6 ?) under each pair of legs until it was just higher than the hearth. Then the jack was put on a stack also and it was rolled into place. Never any heavy lifting or risk of falling.
