I will start by saying that I know there will be plenty of people who say to hire it done. I'm kinda crunched for time, so that is a little tough. Besides, this isn't the hardest thing I've had to do. Now that we've got that out of the way...

My house sold two weeks ago to a developer who is building a 7-Eleven on my corner. This deal has been two years in the works, but the sale date was somewhat sudden. Kinda like the Army. Hurry up and wait, wait, wait, then go! go! go! I have to vacate by May 5th, and they're planning on demolishing it almost immediately. I have sooooo much stuff. My gunsafe is in my office adjacent to the wall at the back of my garage. Next week sometime, I'm getting my brother's skid steer, using it to mash open the wall, and forking the thing out.

It weighs 1700 pounds empty. I'll post pics if it goes well. If it doesn't, you'll never hear from me again.

This sounds awesome! Moving a safe should be easy with a skidsteer especially if you don't have to give any regard for the house it resides in.

Can't wait for the photos.

I hope to see pics or a video. Wishing well for you brother.

OK so you have getting it out handled. Where are you going to put it.

make sure you lock the dam door shut , mine opened up moving it up some stairs and dam near killed my brother and I.

After you get your safe out, go back inside and drive around a little. Do you have a gopro?

Good luck!

We will require video.

Not so crazy but a couple of thoughts:

Load bearing wall? I know the house is coming down but, perhaps, you want that to happen after everything is out.

While smashing through the wall is cool, there could be unintended consequences that damage the safe. Maybe sawzall around the safe, drop the wall into the garage, skid it out of the way then go for the safe.

Power, water or HVAC in the wall? Again, I know the house is coming down but one doesn't want a hot safe or a fountain, the HVAC would just be a PITA.

This is a one time opportunity, enjoy.

Good luck and it didn't happen without photos.

Laugh if you want but having moved my 900lb vault three times in the past 30 years I move mine using the CAVEMAN method. I have about 15 broom handles that I cut down to 33” lengths (dowels) and once I get mine tilted up on one side I move mine using 2 foot wide 8 feet long plywood strips on the floor and door thresholds and have one person in front and one in back feeding the dowels to each other......

I am old so tend to do things a little differently....And yes I still have the dowels....I did sand the edges after cutting to remove any areas that could cause any damage.....Mark

Yep, sigarmsp226's method works quite well. Moved several around garages and rooms that way.

I also had to move a safe down into a basement and put a padded 4x4 across a door frame and used a come-a-long/chain to lower the 900 pound safe down. I put cardboard on the stairs and did the whole thing successfully. Had made arrangements for someone to move the safe.
...They didn't show up.

I could not wait and it was a weekend.

SPWAMike0317 has some good thoughts on checking and taking proper precautions to make sure the structure doesn't come down on you and that you don't create a hazardous condition that can cause problems. He mentioned HVAC but I'll add the related one; while very unlikely, be sure there's not a gas line in the wall. I linked to a gas line explosion that killed someone and injured several others earlier this week. It was caused by a contractor drilling through a relatively small gas line.

That said, good luck and link the video for us!

Sounds like a plan, good luck. We were out in St George/ Zion Park a month ago, nice State.

Use small sledgehammer and check what's in the wall. If the wall goes with the floor joists on the floor above then it's not load bearing. If it runs at 90* to the floor joists above it's possible/likely that it is load bearing.

Good luck, as others have said about everything, be safe, and take cool video and pics! Can’t wait to hear about it!

Whatever you do, do not ask someone to hold your beer before attempting.

I didn’t read the entire post but you may be able to get a rollback wrecker to move it for you. A friend did that in the past and was able to get it inside of his garage.

quote:

Originally posted by comet24:
OK so you have getting it out handled. Where are you going to put it.

That's the first thing I thought of. Where to put it sounds more problematic.

If I ever move from my house the new owner will be getting a new safe in the deal.

Please please please be careful.
Someone I think had posted a story on the forum about a person that was killed when a safe they were moving fell on someone.

quote:

Originally posted by 1s1k:

quote:

Originally posted by comet24:
OK so you have getting it out handled. Where are you going to put it.

That's the first thing I thought of. Where to put it sounds more problematic.

If I ever move from my house the new owner will be getting a new safe in the deal.

I bought a couple houses last month, one of them being adjacent to one of my other properties only three blocks away. It has a nice detached garage, so once I get the safe out, I'm just driving the skid steer three blocks and putting it in the garage for now. We're going to buy another house this fall, and that will be its final destination. The real problem is where to keep 100 or so rifles and handguns.

The wall is load bearing, but only roof load, no second story. I'll have to build a quick and dirty beam and jack the hole temporarily until the demo. Or get my stuff out first and let it sag. We'll see how big the hole needs to be first. The house was built very high quality in its day (1937), so it is very stout.

Utilities will probably be all disconnected before this goes down.