Weigh the risks and rewards of moving a wood stove on your own
Some home appliances require a little oomph to move. But others require the strength and determination of a weightlifting competitor to relocate, and moving a wood stove falls into the second category.
While it’s not impossible to move a wood stove without professional help, you should weigh the risk of damaging your floors and your health. The safer option is to hire professional movers who have the experience and tools necessary to get the job done. However, if you’re determined to DIY a wood stove move, here's what you and your team need to know before attempting this task.
Whether you’re moving your wood-burning stove to another room or a new house, you’ll face two primary obstacles: the stove’s weight and size.
Weight: Wood stoves are often made from steel or cast iron and weigh hundreds of pounds. Even with help from friends, picking up one of these stoves is strenuous work.
Size: Similarly, wood-burning stoves are large and bulky, which makes them even more difficult to handle.
These factors mean you should take great care when moving a stove on your own to avoid damage to your stove and, most importantly, personal injury. If this seems like a lot to overcome, get in contact with a pro who has a team to help out.
Unless you have superhuman strength, it’s impossible to move a wood stove on your own. When it comes to moving heavy furniture, have your team in place and ready to lift, guide, and slide. Even if you’re not moving to a new house, you can hire movers to move heavy items in your home.
Additionally, there will be a good deal of pushing and sliding required to move your wood stove. Unless you don't mind carving some deep scratches into your flooring, you'll want to lay down sheets of plywood to protect it. The plywood provides a frictionless surface that allows you to slide the stove along to its new position, even if you aren't using a furniture dolly.
Wood stoves weigh as much as 800 pounds. To put that into perspective, a refrigerator weighs about 300 pounds. We strongly recommend hiring a pro who will have the appropriate equipment for this project.
Once you’ve recruited a few friends and gathered your tools, you can start the process of moving your wood stove. Here’s how.
This is one of those situations when yelling, "Coming through!" won't cut it. You’ll need to clear the way for your team of assistants so that nothing gets in the way while moving that heavy wood stove. Rearrange furniture, roll up area rugs, take doors off hinges, or whatever else you must do to get the wood stove to its next destination. In addition to clearing a path, ensure that any pets or small children are removed from the moving path.
Once you’ve cleared a moving path, cover it with sheets of plywood. Keep in mind that this step is only necessary if you aren’t using a dolly to move your wood stove. Measure the moving path ahead of time to ensure that you have enough plywood to provide a smooth, continuous path for the stove that will avoid damaging the floor.
You might be able to skip this part if you are moving the stove to another corner of the room. But if you are removing the stove from the house to put it onto a moving truck, you'll want to make it as light as possible. Use a screwdriver to take off the stove door and any pipes so that you don't have to worry about anything falling off or coming undone while you move it.
If the wood stove is going for a ride in a moving vehicle, wrap it with furniture blankets and straps. You're not only protecting the stove itself, but you're also protecting anything else around it in case it gets jostled in transit.
Finally, get everyone into position. If you are attempting to lift the stove onto a furniture dolly, it's helpful to have four people at each stove corner.
If you're using a furniture dolly, lift on a count of three to hoist the stove onto the dolly. Then, you can slowly roll it along, ensuring that the stove stays steady on the dolly. It's a good idea to have a person at each corner to guide the stove, particularly if you are moving it up or down ramps to get it into a moving truck.
If you are not using a furniture dolly, lift on a count of three to place the stove onto the plywood path. Then, push the stove along the plywood until it reaches its destination. You'll likely have to stop to readjust the plywood as you go, taking breaks to stretch and reposition.
Once the stove is in the right position, lift on the count of three to slide the dolly or plywood that's underneath it. Reverse the steps to remove the stove from the moving vehicle and into its next position.
Once your wood stove is set in its new destination, reassemble it by putting on any parts or accessories you removed earlier. Be sure to use a screwdriver to tighten the wood stove parts correctly.
If you need to set up a new chimney or venting system, call a local wood stove company to make sure it’s installed safely.
As you might expect, the further you have to move your wood-burning stove, the more challenging it will be. Here are some of the common places you might need to move a stove, along with how difficult it might be.
If you’re keeping your stove within the same room, you’re in luck—this is the easiest way to move a stove without professional help. You won’t have to put it on a dolly or wrap it in blankets. You and your friends can simply slide it along the plywood to relocate it to another part of the room.
Things get a bit more challenging if you’re moving the stove to a different room, but it’s still a fairly DIY-friendly task as long as you have assistance and don’t need to go up or down any stairs. In this case, you and your helpers could either lift the stove onto a dolly or push it along the plywood path.
Relocating your stove to a different floor of your home is significantly harder than moving it within the same room or floor. It can be difficult to fit four people and a heavy, bulky stove into a staircase at the same time. Plus, if anyone slips or mishandles the stove, more than one person could get seriously hurt. For these reasons, we recommend hiring professional movers when moving a stove between floors.
To move your stove to a different house, you’ll need to place it onto a dolly, wheel it outside, lift it into a moving truck, transport it, and unload it at its destination. Getting the stove into a vehicle can be extra complicated, especially if you need to push it up a loading ramp. If this sounds like a lot of work, that’s because it is. We suggest leaving this job to the pros.
Hiring professional movers to relocate a wood stove will cost anywhere between $25 and $50 per hour per mover. If moving your wood stove is part of your move, there may be an additional fee for large or bulky items tacked onto the total bill. However, you can also hire movers to transport single items.
While it’s possible to move a wood stove safely with the help of several other people, you risk hurting yourself and your flooring during the process. Since wood stoves are such heavy and hard-to-move items, it’s easier and safer to hire a team of professionals to tackle this job.
