The Best Instructions to Move Heavy Furniture By Yourself
Wouldn’t it be great if every time you move in you had professional help to get the job done quickly and easily? While it may be ideal, there will likely come a time when you find yourself moving around without the help of professionals, and that includes having to move heavy furniture on your own.
Now keep in mind that moving heavy furniture on your own doesn’t mean you’re actually completely alone, just that you don’t have professional movers to help you. A person will not be able to carry a sofa up or down the stairs, or load a moving truck with all the contents of their house, including heavy items. But the differences between enlisting the help of a moving company and doing a DIY move with your partner, friends, or family are pretty stark, and you’ll want to have a plan for when it comes time to remove heavy furniture. of his old house and in the new one.
For our purposes, let’s assume you’re not a bodybuilder or in a position to carry heavy loads (if you were, you probably wouldn’t be here reading this), and let’s get into the gist of how to do it. Move heavy furniture without the professionals at your side.
Evaluate and make a plan
When it comes to moving heavy furniture, the goal is to be as efficient as possible. Take inventory of each heavy item that needs to be loaded onto the moving truck, and then find out what needs to be loaded, when and where. Heavy items generally go towards the back of the truck bed and around the sides to help balance the load and keep all your belongings safe. That means you’ll probably be doing the heavy lifting early on and then filling in the gaps with lighter boxes and smaller pieces of furniture.
Prioritize the order in which you will tackle each piece of furniture, noting again that the largest and heaviest items go first. Although creating a plan of attack may seem like just one more step on a never-ending to-do list, it will save you the time and effort it would take later to rearrange all that heavy furniture on the truck.
Assemble your equipment
You’re not the first to have to figure out how to move heavy furniture yourself, and that’s good news because it means there are some great innovations for those who move yourself. These items can be purchased or rented, so decide if you’re only going to use them once or if you might like them for future moves.
This is what you will need to move heavy furniture yourself:
Mobile straps
Also called “lifting straps” or “furniture straps,” these handy devices work to transfer some of the weight from your back and arms when you lift a heavy object to make it much easier to handle. They are adjustable, so be sure to adapt them to the size of the furniture you will be lifting and to the size of your own body.
Furniture sliders
These are a must have for moving heavy furniture on your own. Furniture glides are usually made of single or multi-part plastic and are placed under each leg or corner of the furniture you are moving to help it slide easily across the floor, even on the carpet. They work by creating an easily movable barrier between the item and the floor, reducing friction that can make it difficult to move heavy furniture and mitigating the risk of damage to your wood, tile, or carpet.
Furniture trolley
There are two types of furniture dollies that will come in handy when moving furniture, although you can probably get away with just having one type on hand. The first is a square four-wheel platform, with or without a push handle. The other is a two-wheel hand truck, which has a smaller footprint than the square four-wheel platform, but helps distribute weight vertically, making it ideal for tall items. Secure items to dolly with additional rope or straps before beginning to push.
Divide the furniture into its smallest parts
The more you can break down each heavy furniture item, the better. That means removing all removable parts, including cushions, knobs, legs, drawers, etc. to move them separately, as well as take apart things like bed sections and frames. If at any point you have to remove screws or other small parts to do this, be sure to put the small materials for each item in a bag and label it so you know what all those pieces are for.
Follow proper lifting techniques
As you can probably glean from the list of necessary equipment, you will want to slide, push and drag heavy furniture much more than you lift. This puts considerably less stress on your body and makes the whole task that much easier. However, when you hit a ladder or it is time to load the item onto the truck, dragging and sliding it is not enough.
Safety should always come first, so before lifting, make sure you are informed on how to do it correctly.
Bend according to your needs, not your waist
The most important thing to remember when lifting heavy furniture is to carry the weight on your legs, not your back. To adjust the weight correctly, squat down at the knees for the initial lift instead of squatting. This will put most of the volume on your arms and legs when you get up, and not on your back.
Carry items close to your body
Whenever possible, carry heavy furniture close to your body, not far from it. This accomplishes a few things, including helping your body balance and getting your upper arms and shoulders involved in the task (a much better alternative to forearms).
Do not turn your body while lifting or carrying
Keep your body as still as possible while lifting and walking with heavy furniture, as turning or other rapid movements can cause injury. For those times when you need to twist or twist, let your hips lead and then follow with your feet rather than the other way around.
Another safety tip you shouldn’t ignore: make sure you can always see where you are going. It can be difficult when there is a closet blocking your view, but you should never completely blind where you are going. And because your body tends to go where your eyes go, keep your head looking forward, not looking down.
Up and down stairs
Having to move heavy furniture up or down adds another layer of complexity to an already arduous task, but there won’t always be a way around it. To move heavy furniture up the stairs, you will have to work with a partner; this is not something you want to try on your own. Carry the item high and low, which means the person furthest down the stairs carries the item from its bottom surface and the person highest up the stairs carries the item from its top surface. Go very slow, with the person below setting the pace.
Looks are deceiving. If an item is heavy but small, you may still want to put two people at work and go down the stairs slowly and deliberately using the top-down method. As always, it is not worth risking a serious injury just to get something done a few minutes faster. Take your time and don’t rush your work.
Also have a down load plan
You won’t be safe until each item is not only unpacked from the moving truck, but also placed in the right place in your new home. For that reason, just as you made a plan and prioritized how you were going to get everything out of your old house, do the same regarding how you are going to unload everything. That way, you save yourself the hassle of moving heavy furniture from the truck home only to have to move it again. However, to save time, you can wait until everything is downloaded before starting to put each piece of furniture back together.
Does having to move heavy furniture just sound like too much work? It need not be. Use our moving company to get those heavy items off your hands and get the job done quickly.
