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10/25/2006: "The Quest for the Woodstove: Part Two"

I can't believe we got it in the house!!!


Monday, we called a few friends to ask if they could come help us move the stove into the house. The nearly 800lb cast iron stove, on a pallet. Nate and I went to the local U-Haul and rented an appliance dolly. We tried to ignore the 500lb weight limit sticker. We got it home and thought out the best way to get the stove onto the dolly and into the house. We decided to jack it up, with the dolly strapped on, in an attempt to get it on the side that would fit through the door of the house.

We had just gotten it right side up on the dolly and realized that 800lbs does not balance nor wheel around easily. Nate said something about needing another set of hands, and we magically heard the sound of a car pulling into the drive. It was out good friend Chris Haller!


Chris happens to be an engineering student, as well as a good friend, great dance partner and all around terrific person. He politely brought up the idea of using some sort of dowel contraption to roll the bulky thing along. So Nate got out the chainsaw to lop the ends off of the overlarge fence posts while I went to get pizza and try to wrangle up a few other hands. (No luck). By the time I got back with the best pizza in the greater Corvallis area, the guys were preparing to take the stove up the ramp and into the house.
I called a pizza break, but after dinner we puzzled out the situation a bit more.

The guys secured a come-along to the stove at one end and a fence post at the other. The fence post was anchored to the house. Now the idea of using this creaky old house as an anchor point seemed like a really bad one to me, but it came off without a hitch. Soon the stove was inside and in the kitchen. My! did those floors creak as we wheeled it along.


Once inside we had to figure out how to get the legs onto the stove and the stove off of the pallet. The directions suggest laying the stove down on its side, attaching the legs and front plate, and then lifting it back into correct position. I’d like to see the people who wrote the directions try to lift it gently back into place.


Instead, we had some elaborate engineering with a jack, some cinder blocks, rolling logs and the pallet. It was amazing. I’m so impressed with the ingenuity of those guys.


About and hour and a half after getting it into the house we had it on all four legs and began exploring its many features. Since it was creeping well past bedtime, and we had worked Chris harder than we had intended to, we decided to call it a night before it was totally put together.

Next time…. The Chimney Dilemma. Our story continues…