I bought a smaller Cannon safe for upstairs. Cannon claims it weighs 400 pounds. A good buddies and I moved it up stairs. One of my buddies is one of the strongest fellas one will find.
We got it up there without issue. Looking back that was not a good idea. I would not even think of doing a 700 lb safe with friends.

My big safe is 1800 pounds it was delivered initially for $50 when I purchased it like 10 years ago but no steps. Those folks are no longer in business. I moved 5 years ago I contacted one moving company and specifically told them dimensions and weight they arrived and would not move it. Only folks I could find to move it were piano movers and it cost $475. No stairs.
It will be staying here if we ever move. I will likely go with multiple smaller safes next time.

I won’t move without hiring it out.

quote:

Originally posted by Anubismp:
Yeah I'm thinking leaving it (i'll talk to my realtor about that) or just paying out and having a company move it. Glad I asked, may have saved my or my friends lives.

Or sell the safe......perhaps after you have an offer on the house......though that leads to maybe undesirable people coming to your house OR knowing you probably have valuables.

I paid the safe company to move my safe (that I bought for them 4 years earlier), they unbolted it, moved it, drill new holes at my new place, bolted it, etc. It was $300 for everything. Now they had exactly what they needed in the way of thick steel ramps, dolly's equipment, and made it look easy...….but I would NEVER try to move a safe up stairs myself, EVER.

On tile they literally put the safe on a moving blanket and dragged the moving blanket.....the moving blanket slid right across the tiles.

I called Phoenix , Luna has the appliance dolly you want,
Harper # 6983-18
or The Luna number is #2478 or #2474
$503.00 and $539.00
+ shipping



"its probably about 700lbs empty."

figure about four sturdy men"
or one that knows what he is doing

When we vacate our storage unit in northern CA, I will put an ad in calguns.org. That will attract a pretty selective clientele of potential buyers. But OTOH they will be going to a storage unit, not my house.

The very last thing I would consider is moving it myself. No, let me take that back. I would never consider that.

I would hire a safe company to put it on a truck and another safe company to take it off at the destination. Total would be > value of safe.

quote:

Originally posted by a1abdj:....

quote:

If your safe is 2ft by 3 ft that would mean the weight should be (2x3x40) 240 pounds...

This is a common misconception. While it is true that most residential structures are designed to support 40 pounds per square foot, that's every square foot of the floor. In other words a 10x10 room could support 4,000 pounds equally distributed.

A safe would be a point load, and although they don't specify this on residential frame construction, they do on the commercial side. A commercial floor designed for 60 pounds per square feet can support 2,500 pounds within any 6 square feet.

Although I am not an engineer, and I know houses can vary in construction, my loose rule of thumb is 1,000 pounds on stairs, and 1,500 pounds on any suspended floor.

I know that you have a lot of experience with commercial safes etc. and I am impressed with some of the pictures you’ve posted over the years
But for the sake of all things holy please don’t pretend you have more experience than me when it comes to designing, building and standing behind the engineering and floor capacities of residential homes.

I would hate for someone to read your comments and find out that their floor can’t support their 700 pound safe and it kills someone.

Even installing granite counter tops will frequently require a beefed up floor system in new construction.

This message has been edited. Last edited by: smlsig,

quote:

But for the sake of all things holy please don’t pretend you have more experience than me when it comes to designing, building and standing behind the engineering and floor capacities of residential homes.

Despite the fact that my family has built a few thousand homes (1949 to present), I leave these things up to those who have the background. In this case, a structural engineer who signed off on my structure collapse policy from my insurer.

You know a king size water bed weighs around 1,800 pounds. Then you have thousand pound pianos, thousand pound plus aquariums, etc. Ever heard of one of those crashing through the floor? I've never had a safe fall through either.

quote:

The subject of actual floor loading vs. design floor loading often becomes misunderstood. The
Uniform Building Code requires that as a minimum, floors be designed to support the dead
load of the floor and the required live load. For an office building, the live load is usually a
uniform load of 50 pounds per square foot (PSF) over the entire tributary floor area for a
framing member or a 2,000 pound load placed upon any 2 1/2 x 2 1/2 foot square
space.

And for a residential explanation:

https://www.hunker.com/1340081...-floor-load-capacity

quote:

In the example, the floor area of the room is approximately 112 square feet. With an evenly distributed live load of 30 psf, which the tables show the floor is able to support, the total weight on the floor would be about 3,360 pounds.

But as an attorney once told me to say, I am not a professional engineer. If you question the load capacity of your structure you should seek the advice of a certified structural engineer.

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
Yeah I would be very worried...
Genetically speaking the live load of a floor is 40 pounds per square foot although that will vary depending on the location, construction method etc.

If your safe is 2ft by 3 ft that would mean the weight should be (2x3x40) 240 pounds...

I know that people routinely exceed that but there it is!

I am not an engineer and am horrible at math but 40 lbs per square foot is all my floors are designed to handle?
I weigh 250 pounds and when standing up right likely occupy 1 square foot.

What am I missing here?

If I had put my safe on the 2nd floor, it would now be on the first floor.
I went into my crawl space and bolstered the flooring joists. I poured a small pad and put some concrete blocks under a beam that I attached to the floor joists to spread the weight out.

quote:

Originally posted by Black92LX:

quote:

Originally posted by smlsig:
Yeah I would be very worried...
Genetically speaking the live load of a floor is 40 pounds per square foot although that will vary depending on the location, construction method etc.

If your safe is 2ft by 3 ft that would mean the weight should be (2x3x40) 240 pounds...

I know that people routinely exceed that but there it is!

I am not an engineer and am horrible at math but 40 lbs per square foot is all my floors are designed to handle?
I weigh 250 pounds and when standing up right likely occupy 1 square foot.

What am I missing here?

You’re not missing anything. I didn’t want to get into a long diatribe about it but in short a relatively small (and yes 250# is small in this discussion) point load is designed into the equation. The problem is when a substantial point load is placed on the floor and the floor wasn’t designed for it the individual joist or truss is not designed to handle that.

I do agree with our resident safe expert that if you are considering anything like the OP’s safe to get a structural engineered involved before you do anything stupid. The general comments gave the false impression (at least to me) that these kind of loads are fine when in fact they are definitely not...

Hire a professional. It’s well worth the money.

When I lived in Washington, the Distribution Center I managed had a service team for installing coolers and other equipment you would find in a convenience store. I wanted one guy to be able to safely move a fridge, or open air cooler. Being that those are only 400 lbs or so, this was overkill, but it kept the team safe.

Rated for 1600 lbs, and has 4 wheels to it sits back and you don’t have to balance it. These things are pretty awesome. I know it certainly made the work a lot easier.

https://dutro.com/product/1888...nding-machine-truck/

Great Day in the Morning ! That thing is a monster ! . The one that I used also has a second set of wheels , it made hopping refrigerators up and over thresholds a dream . I wonder if it is half again as much as the Harper ? ( I thought I'd seen everything )

I saw the Coke guys putting in a new vending machine, a while back.

They looked the same as the two pictured above , but!
the two that they had, had hydraulic jacks on them.

they put one dolly on each side if the pop machine and then wiggled the lip under each side and strapped them both together.

then they pumped the jack up and it raised the machine up about 5 inches.

similar to using piano dolly's.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8ErxHgUMLWU

quote:

They looked the same as the two pictured above , but! the two that they had, had hydraulic jacks on them.

This is a very old photo, but probably the best I have access to at the moment that describes what you are talking about. They have their place, but it's one of my least favorite pieces of equipment. With the castors gravity will always steer them downhill. Another quick fun fact is that this particular photo (minus the lettering) has been stolen and used worldwide by other companies advertising safe moving services.




As far as stairs and gun safes go, this is what I use. In this case I'm poking fun at the fact that the machine weighs more than the "safe" I have on it.

well if you do move it make sure you shut and lock the door, dam near killed my brother and myself taking one inside our house going up 5 steps door flung open and it got real crazy there for about 10 seconds.

Let us know how this turns out. I think the consensus here is to hire a professional. Too many issues.

I would imagine that professional safe movers would also cover any damages to the floor, walls etc. incurred while moving the safe. (Please correct me if I am wrong on this)

quote:

I would imagine that professional safe movers would also cover any damages to the floor, walls etc. incurred while moving the safe. (Please correct me if I am wrong on this)

We were once at a sporting goods store and the manager was telling us about their great system. Their maintenance guy moved the safes they sold, which worked out well. According to him any holes put into walls could be instantly repaired by their delivery guy.

My guy Eric looks at him and says that we have a pretty good system ourselves. The manager asked how we handled it, and he explained that we don't put holes in walls, and therefore no repairs are necessary.

Unfortunately there are some professionals better than others. The real guys shouldn't cause any damage, and should something go sideways are completely insured. If they show up in a personally owned pick up truck with an appliance dolly, they're likely not the outfit you should be using.

^^^
Thanks