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In the Forum: Audio Discussions
In the Thread: To move audio equipment in another home.

Post Subject: DIY solutionPosted by jessie.dazzle on: 2/9/2010

I'll be optimistic, and say that I too will one day be moving. Here's how I plan to do it; this solution is obviously not for everyone:

The principle here is to not box or crate anything heavy, but to use the floor of the truck, wasting a lot of space, and making several trips.

1) Take 3 weeks off from work and schedule professional movers to move all normal household goods on the 3rd week.

2) Buy a bunch of pallets, several sheets of 2-3" thick insulation faom (the cheap blue stuff from Home Depot), a large roll of shrink wrap (transparent plastic wrap available at Costco) and soft shock-absorbing rubber mats; the sort that factory workers have under their feet (the ones with holes are best)

http://www.commercialmatsandrubber.com/Kitchen-Restaurant-Mats-c6.html
http://www.rubber-mats.co.uk/rubber_matting_uses.html

3) Lay rubber mats on pallets; they will protect, and do an amazing job of preventing heavy objects from sliding around (tested).

4) Load everything onto pallets; no stacking and no crowding of audio equipment on the pallets; horns go mouth down... Get friends or pay for help. If you don't have the space in your current house to put everything on pallets, do it in phases.

5) Rent a large truck with a power tailgate and a pallet jack... Plan on renting them for a week.

6) Line interior walls of truck with foam boards

7) Load pallets using power tailgate and pallet jack (if you don't have experience with this sort of thing, you may want to recruit experienced help, which should not be difficult). No stacking in the truck! Use only the floor, leaving space around the objects, using cut pieces of foam between pallets to block them in place. Again, the philosophy here is to avoid boxing or crating of anything heavy; you've rented the truck for a week and will be making several trips.

Somewhere back in step 4, you will have used the shrink wrap to protect objects from rubbing against the foam boards placed against the walls of the truck.

6) Reverse the process at the other end... This may be tricky, as the new place may not offer the ease of access of a ground floor that your current place has... In this case, unload all pallets to the garage, return the truck and get help moving the objects one by one, into the house.

There's nothing quite like pizza and beer to motivate help.

jd*

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