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ITEMS COVERED ON PREVIOUS PAGE
"4 COMMON ITEMS"
1) Sofa.
2) Dining Table
3) Dresser
4) A large rug
5) Recliner
6) Mechanical sofa
7) Hanging clothes
ITEMS COVERED ON THIS PAGE
"4b COMMON ITEMS 2"
8) Mattress
9) Washer & dryer
10) Refrigerator
11) Headboard & bed frame
12) Mechanical bed
13) Potted plants
14) Bicycles
15) Pole lamp
16) Roll-top desk
17) Computer desk
18) Glass coffee table
19) Large wall picture
20) Table lamp
21) Dresser Mirror
8) MATTRESSES
Make a show to the customer of washing your hands before handling their mattress, especially if it's a lady.
Do not take the mattress out of a source room without first putting it in a mattress bag or stretch-wrapping it.
If it's light enough you can just grab it by the mattress bag. Have the closed end lead the way, so any dragging pushes the bag on instead of off.
It also works OK to carry it slung in a moving blanket.
If you stretch-wrap it, you might want to add a handle for easy carrying, like shown in the picture.
Those darn orange straps pull at a bad angle, aren't comfortable, and aren't good for very heavy mattresses.
When you add the middle extension the angle is way better, but it's still not the best way for mattresses because you need easy adjustability for height for going over stairs.
A hump strap under works ok, but can tend to slip off if the mattress is floppy, heavy or going up stairs.
A mattress carrier strap is a good way for lighter mattresses, but less so if it's a very heavy mattress.
The black straps (Shoulder Dolly) makes it the easiest to lift very heavy things, but it wants to slip off mattress bottoms.
Especially when tackling stairs. And it is a little bit of a hassle to adjust the height as needed for different parts of the stairs.
But if you put a two foot long slit in your strap at the areas that go over the corners of mattresses, it grabs around & can't fall off. The slits do not reduce it's strength for use on other items. This is the best way for crazy heavy mattresses that are a real struggle.
Another really good option is to add a hump strap to each end of a mattress carrier, and carry the mattress with the hump strap slung over your shoulder and going down and across your back and under your opposite side armpit, with you holding the hump strap end downwards with your hand. This is a bit of a rock-climber technique. This puts the weight on your shoulder, it's instantaneously adjustable for height for the stairs, and there's no contraption to put or or take off or feed through a gadget, However, it doesn't support very heavy weights quite as easily as the black straps.
Body harness orange straps are a good alternative. A demonstration is shown in this next video, on a dresser, not a mattress, but it conveys the idea. These have the advantage over Black Straps of not having the big metal clip front and center that is a danger to the unit, but they are harder to adjust the height of the carry.
9) WASHING MACHINES & DRYERS
These guys can cause a lot of damage.
Here's a picture of the floor damage from a washing machine accident that cost $10,000 to repair.
That's why before moving a washing machine it's a mover rule to text the customer a liability disclaimer that says ...
"Dear Customer. This is your moving company. We are happy to unhook or hook up your washing machine, but only if you accept full and sole liability for any plumbing or water related damage that may result. You would also need to agree to run a short test drain cycle of your washing machine while watching it so you can shut it off at the first sign of any water leakage. If you agree to these conditions please respond with a "yes". Thanks!"
Look for the tablet icon on your text screen.
It looks like this. Click it.
Then you'll see this screen where you can keep this Liability Waver ready to enter into a text.
After you've gotten your disclaimer responded to with a "yes", photo-document any pre-existing damage, showing the background.
Then pull out and remove the dryer first, so that you can have the better room you need to work on the washer. Put the dryer hose and clips in the dryer so we don't forget to bring them. Tape the chord onto the back to get it out of the way.
Tilt the washer out a bit to give yourself some working room.
Usually the dryer hose is long enough to pull the dryer all the way out so you can get to the back side.
It's better to have a drill & bits to make quicker work of the screws.
Sometimes there's a water line too that needs to be detached.
Get a pan, or bucket from the garage, or a towel to get ready to handle a little leakage from the drain hose and water lines.
Turn off the water valves, cut the zip ties, and drain the drain hose.
Use some pliers to unscrew the water lines from both ends. Put hose water lines inside the machine.
Either remove the drain hose and put it in the machine, or Duct tape it to the back of the machine along with the electric cord. It's better to not tape it to the top of the machine, just because of tape issues.
Put the securing bolts in place, if the customer can find theirs. If the customer can't find their bolts, get a verbal disclaimer for any problems happening with the drum.
Check the dimensions of the washer to see which way is narrower, and hand-truck the machine the narrowest way. Make sure your hand-truck has padding.
Or if you have too tight of a turn to have room for a hand-truck, slide it on a blanket around the tight corner.
If the water spickets are dripping or leaking any water, put a hose cap on it, and inform the customer that their valves won't shut off completely.
Make sure that only like size or larger flat boxes, preferably not extra heavy, go on the top of the machines. It's better if you add an entire folded blanket or two on top if the surfaces have any curve to them.
HANDTRUCKING A WASHING MACHINE, DRYER OR REFRIGERATION REQUIRES TWO MEN, A SECOND MAN STABLIIZING AND PROTECTING FRONT CORNERS, ESPECIALLY OVER STAIRS AND RAMP
ALUMINUM TAPE
VENT CRIMPER
REPLACE WASHERS if they're deeply indented.
IF WALL PLUG WRONG PRONG #
OFFER PRONG CORD
OR SWAP CORDS
INSTALL
PIG TAIL
Best way to move washer's & dryers out and into their holding bays is to pivot them on a corner, alternating in couple inch movements to work them out and in. This greatly reduces the chance of the legs damaging the floor.
When you move the washer and dryer, which one do you take out and put back in first? The answer is that if the dryer air vent hose is long enough, move the dryer out first, and put it back in last. That's because the dryer is much lighter, and so easier to move in and out in the more difficult removal and entry order. However, if the dryer air vent hose is not long enough to do it in this order, take the washer out first and put
If hot and cold is not marked on installation spigots, hook up one water hose on a random spigot, put the other end in the drain outlet, turn the water on and see if it's the hot or the cold.
When the air vent and water hoses are taken off, put them back in the machines they go to right after you take these things off the machines, so they can't be forgotten or left behind.
10) REFRIGERATORS
If the refrigerator has a water line to the ice maker and water dispenser, you need to text the customer a WATER DAMAGE LIABIITY DISCLAIMER that says ...
"Dear Customer. This is your moving company. We are happy to unhook or hook up the house water line to your refrigerator, but only if you accept full and sole liability for any plumbing or water related damage that may result to your house, now and in the future. If you agree to this condition, and agree to release us from all liability related to water damage to your house, please respond with a "yes". Thanks!"
And actually go to the customer and tell them you just now sent them this text that you need to have them read and respond to.
Rather than type this text out from scratch, you can either call Phil and have him text this Disclaimer to you or the customer, or you can pull this text up from your phone "clip board".
When you open a text to the person you want to send the text to, you should see this symbol. When you tap it, it will bring up the pre-made text selections that you have saved in your "Pinned" texts.
When you tap the desired selection, it will populate that text into the text message area, without you having to type it out. It might look like this next picture.
Once the customer responds to this text with a "yes", you can begin working on the refrigerator.
First, make sure the fridge is empty or situated with things inside that aren't going to roll around and break.
Document pre-existing damage of both the refrigerator and the walls & floor.
Then screw in the fridge levelers located in the front bottom corners of the fridge so the fridge front wheels can roll.
Then screw in the bolts that extend down the back wheels.
Sometimes these "back wheel bolts" are way out front, but sometimes they're tucked in and a little hidden like this.
You should only need a few revolutions of the back-wheel-bolt to get sufficient wheel drop. Don't screw it in so far it jams like this.
Sometimes, the front wheels are broken, missing, or are bent up inside so that they aren't down far enough for the front to roll.
Also, the lean of the fridge can create a situation like this, making the fridge seem like it's front end is anchored to the floor or frame housing, but it is not anchored.
And the front bottom outside edge of the fridge can sometimes be flat on the ground, which would scrape badly if you slid it forward.
If the front edge is down flat on the floor, the solution is to lift it off the ground while pulling back like this. You can hook onto the hinge brackets with your straps.
Here you can see the front edge lifted of the ground as the fridge is pulled out.
In these pictures, the fridge doors are off. But you really don't need to take the doors off just to move it out of its hole. In fact, the fridge doors can be opened and used like wheelbarrow handles to lift the front end of the fridge and pull the fridge out. Only take the fridge doors off if they need to come off to go out the door of the house.
Once the fridge is pulled out just far enough for you to get to the water line in back, stop pulling the fridge out before putting bad pressure on the water line.
Then look for the valve to shut off the water line, often under the kitchen sink.
Or in a valve box in the garage or laundry room.
Looking like this.
Usually the water line is in back, like this. When you start to unscrew it, do it slowly because your guess as to which water valve shuts this off might be wrong. So if water starts squirting out, you can just tighten the nuts back up and look for a different valve to shut off.
These water line connection points usually have two adjacent nuts that need to be turned in opposite directions with two wrenches.
Another common water line connection point is directly on the back side of the fridge, looking like this.
But sometimes, the detachment point of the water line runs under the fridge and is actually connected near the front, like this.
For a higher-end move, or when it's too tight for a doorway, take the refrigerator handles off. They are released by loosening some small hex heads under the handles.
With refrigerators, there is an increased risk of sideways tip hazard, and a larger than normal hazard risk of the two outside corners running into walls, so moving the fridge should really only be done with a second person using their hands to protect and stabilize the front corners, when going through hazard areas.
Keep in mind that a regular hand-truck can be used, but these are not as stable as an appliance hand-truck, so only use a regular hand-truck accepting the liability for the increased risk, and hold the fridge at a lower height making it easer to go through low doorways.
If it's too tight at the house doorway, consider taking the house door off its hinges.
If the fridge edges are at risk of contacting the door frame, you can have a crewman hold a sheet of cardboard at the contact areas.
Refrigerators should be transported standing up. If they are laid down on their side or back, they should be left standing upright for at least 24 hourse before being plugged in. This is to allow the coolant in the lines to have any air bubbles in them rise back into an OK place. Otherwise, the air bubbles can go into the wrong place and greatly decrease the ability of the refrigerator to refrigerate permanently.
If you do install the refrigerator at the other end, remember to crank the back wheels back up, so that the back end of the fridge will anchor and not roll.
11) HEADBOARD AND BED FRAME
How to pad-wrap a headboard is covered in Course #2: PAD-WRAPPING.
This section covers how to handle the headboard and frame.
Pad-wrapping a headboard, especially if it's a really big one, is one of the most cumbersome and least "perfected" operations normally done by movers.
Since headboards are moved on most every residence move, I suggest you lay two blankets our on the floor, lined up exactly on top of each other, then sew or hot-melt-glue three of the edges together making an envelope. Put some Velcro on the open end.
That way you just drop the blanket envelope down over the headboard, velcro the open end, and you're done. On jobs where you don't need a headboard cover, you still have a double thick blanket to use. Just think of all the tape, time and needless work that will save you.
HOW RAILS ARE HELD ON
SO KNOCK UP
UNSCREW CROSS SLATS
LAY SLATS ON EACH OTHER MARRIED, ON TOP OF BLANKET, THEN ROLLED UP IN THE BLANKET.
OR STRETCH-WRAPPED IF FABRIC
STANDING UP ON END IS USUALL THE BEST WAY TO GO. OFTEN A GOOD SPOT IS TO THE SIDES OF THE TIE-OFF WALL, TO THE SIDES OF THE MATTRESS & BOXSPRING.
OFTEN, STANDING RAILS NEED A SEPERATE TIE OFF, WITH SMALL ROPE.
THE FOOTBOARD IS OFTEN BEST PLACED UP AGAINST THE HEADBOARD, WITH THE HEADBOARD USED AS THE SURFACE OF ANOTHER TIE OFF WALL.
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