Moving a 2,500 lb safe

Nissan11

Nissan11

Well-Known Member
Joined
Nov 29, 2005
Location
Marston, NC
I need some ideas for getting a safe I just bought into my house. I did a ton of research before purchasing this safe but after calculating the weight it turns out its about 600lbs heavier than I thought. The total weight is about 2500 lbs.

The safe is in the back of my enclosed trailer where it almost went through the floor while attempting to move on a pallet jack. I didn't think about how weak the plywood floor is with such huge gaps between the supports.
Anyway, I have access to a backhoe with forks and should be able to get it out of the trailer and onto the concrete porch but I don't know what to do from there. I called a few localish movers who do not want to move anything this heavy. A safe store in greensboro quoted me $900 to make the 1.5 hr drive and that is more than I spent on the safe.
From the concrete porch there is about a 6" step to get through the door. Once the safe is through the door I just want to slide it along the wall about 20ft and there it will live, sitting as close to the block foundation as possible. The floor is hardwood and I am pretty sure it can handle the weight, but let me know if anyone disagrees.
I've researched a lot of forums where people moved safes but they were all half the weight of this one or less. A popular idea seems to be golf balls or pipe rollers but I've not found anyone who used rollers under a safe over 1000 lbs.
Right now my only idea is to build a platform on the porch, set the safe on it then slide it in by pushing it with the backhoe bucket. If that works and the safe clears the door I do not know how to move it perpendicular to the door opening and get it to its resting place. Any ideas?
 

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Platform/ramp and then foam/felt furniture moved pads?
 
*disclaimer-I do not have guns or a safe

I saw a safe delivered once and they had a motorized hand truck that climbed stairs. They used a big piece of pvc (sch 40-80 i dont know the difference) to clear the threshold then had about 6 pieces of hdpe with rubber on the bottom to use as tracks to slide it to its location. Ymmv
 
With regard to moving it, I would caution you to move it on its side where tipping over is less of a possibility, that thing will injure and kill quickly, unfortunately then you have to figure out how to stand it up inside.
Next on the debby downer list is, I would not put that on the floor without a plate that spreads the load across twice as many floor joists as the existing footprint of the safe, and I would probably still sister the joists below AND add support posts.

If it were me, I would pay a pro. or sell it after the sticker shock.....or put it in the garage on a slab.
 
I've moved several large safes like that one, and several ATM machines. We always used steel roller pipes layed on plywood to protect the floor. Long pry bars, steel shims of varying thicknesses. Some pieces of 2x4 and 4x4 wood for cribbing when raising it up or down. Take it slow, and have a couple people to help keep it stable while moving it. Leverage is key with this, not really brute strength.

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If i had a Mosler or Diebold TL30 safe, I wouldn't put it in my house for fear of the floor joists breaking or the floor sagging in that area. That's a really concentrated load.

With that said, I've moved a metric shit ton of things with a come along, pipes, and a few pry bars. If i were in your shoes, I'd buy about a half dozen 2x6x12s. I'd cut 2 of em up into 3ft lengths and stack em by the door (make em longer if the backhoe won't reach far enough to sit it right by the door). Then I'd take 2 full length 2x6s and screw em to the top. Crossing the door jamb and getting you about 8ft into the house. Then id take the remaining 2 and cut a 1-2ft taper in the end to roll it off. Or plan to leave it on 2x6s and just have some cut the right length in the right position at the end for its final resting place.

Once all that was ready, id set the safe on rollers on the cribbed platform. ~1" diameter tubing should work well, 4 pieces minimum so you always have 2 under it, more is better, and larger is better, but larger is also hard to get off at its final resting place, so i think 1" is a good number.

At this point you can probably push it by hand. If extra umph is needed to get over the threshold, there's a backhoe ;) You can steer it by angling the rollers. Take your time, and if the floor starts to collapse, make sure the camera is rolling. :D
 
I used 3/4 plywood, 4x4, 2x’s 6x6’s, couple pieces of 1/8” steel plate and a ton of 3/4” pvc pipe to move my safe.

The 3/4 pvc pipe is cheap and rolled easy on the plywood/steel. Cut to 2’ lengths.

Used blocks for cribbing and plywood and steel to make the step/ transitions easier.

Long pry bars and 2x4s as leverage to “push” it.

X10 on reinforcing the floor.

The weight per sqft of the safe is exponentially greater than normal construction practices.
 
Last safe I helped move the most difficult part was getting it through the doorway. We had to build a ramp to get it up about a 5" difference in the porch and the threshold. we used pipe as rollers to traverse this obstacle. Inside the doorway, we laid down OSB, and the rollers inside had to be going opposite of the ones we used to get it inside. The OSB was to protect his hardwood flooring. (which it did). We then used the pipe rollers to get it to where it was to go. Pulling it across wasn't easy, there wasn't enough room to get enough guys to be able to pull it. So we took out a floor register and accessed the floor trusses in his basement as a anchor. Then used a ratchet strap to pull it a little at a time till we got it to where it was to go. Where it was to go, we used smaller cuts of OSB to so we could get it out once in place. We rolled it back and forth at the end to get the rollers out. And it was in place. His floor looked a lot like yours in the pics. after about 6 months or so, he had to jack up his floor and re-enforce it. So You may want to do that first. YMMV. His safe was supposed to be around 2K.
 
Garage, dehumidifier, bolt down, and done.

If I ever build, my gun and reloading will be a lined room adjacent to parking and access from a steel door way with no threshold.
 
Pipes work well moving plus the weight is spread out. Most residential wood structure floors are designed for 40 lbs per square foot so you need about 64 square ft to spread weight evenly or a stronger floor
 
I'd call a local safe retailer. Around here they charge by the hour to move one.
I know a guy...who had them move a safe for him. From their van in the driveway into a secure spot in his house. Including bolting to the slab, was like $150.
They had a hand truck with an electric lift motor that would allow it to climb stairs. Pretty trick.
 
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I'd happily pay that but as I said, the cheapest quote I've gotten to move from the porch to inside the house is $900. Where was this company located?
 
shelby27604 said:
With regard to moving it, I would caution you to move it on its side where tipping over is less of a possibility, that thing will injure and kill quickly, unfortunately then you have to figure out how to stand it up inside.
Next on the debby downer list is, I would not put that on the floor without a plate that spreads the load across twice as many floor joists as the existing footprint of the safe, and I would probably still sister the joists below AND add support posts.

If it were me, I would pay a pro. or sell it after the sticker shock.....or put it in the garage on a slab.
Click to expand...

This corner is where I'd like to put the safe. It is directly over the concrere slab in the basement. If I just run some beams from the concrete slab to the joists should that be sufficient to hold the weight?
 

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upnover said:
Last safe I helped move the most difficult part was getting it through the doorway. We had to build a ramp to get it up about a 5" difference in the porch and the threshold. we used pipe as rollers to traverse this obstacle. Inside the doorway, we laid down OSB, and the rollers inside had to be going opposite of the ones we used to get it inside. The OSB was to protect his hardwood flooring. (which it did). We then used the pipe rollers to get it to where it was to go. Pulling it across wasn't easy, there wasn't enough room to get enough guys to be able to pull it. So we took out a floor register and accessed the floor trusses in his basement as a anchor. Then used a ratchet strap to pull it a little at a time till we got it to where it was to go. Where it was to go, we used smaller cuts of OSB to so we could get it out once in place. We rolled it back and forth at the end to get the rollers out. And it was in place. His floor looked a lot like yours in the pics. after about 6 months or so, he had to jack up his floor and re-enforce it. So You may want to do that first. YMMV. His safe was supposed to be around 2K.
Click to expand...

How did you transfer the safe from the rollers going one direction to the other?
 
Nissan11 said:
This corner is where I'd like to put the safe. It is directly over the concrere slab in the basement. If I just run some beams from the concrete slab to the joists should that be sufficient to hold the weight?
Click to expand...

Can you confirm the joist depth and on center spacing? What is the footprint of the safe? Is it point loading at the corners or flat?

You also need to consider the weight of the safe fully loaded, I imagine this won't be full of feathers. You might add another 1,000 with guns and ammo if you fill it up.

You might be able to make it work, but it will likely damage your floor, and might lead to some foundation damage.
 
shelby27604 said:
Can you confirm the joist depth and on center spacing? What is the footprint of the safe? Is it point loading at the corners or flat?

You also need to consider the weight of the safe fully loaded, I imagine this won't be full of feathers. You might add another 1,000 with guns and ammo if you fill it up.

You might be able to make it work, but it will likely damage your floor, and might lead to some foundation damage.
Click to expand...

Joist spacing is 11.5" and joist depth is 7 1/4" ish. The platform of the safe is 25.5 x 27.5 and is flat.
 
2x8's, even at 12" O.C. are not going to carry that load, thinking it through, you also need to take into account the span of the joists from where you start moving this to where it ends up, if it is a long, unsupported span your floor could buckle during the moving process. Best case you span 3 joists, worst case you straddle 2.

I can check some span tables on Monday, but you are looking at 1,000psf load (full safe) on floors that were probably designed for a 50psf load.
 
shelby27604 said:
2x8's, even at 12" O.C. are not going to carry that load, thinking it through, you also need to take into account the span of the joists from where you start moving this to where it ends up, if it is a long, unsupported span your floor could buckle during the moving process. Best case you span 3 joists, worst case you straddle 2.

I can check some span tables on Monday, but you are looking at 1,000psf load (full safe) on floors that were probably designed for a 50psf load.
Click to expand...

This is where I wanted to go with the safe. From the door to the corner where the bookshelf is. The joists run left to right. Is there anything I can do to reinforce the 2x8s to support the short journey adequately? I am willing to add joists, bridge them to each other, add 4x4 or 6x6 posts every few feet the whole way...
 

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Nissan11 said:
How did you transfer the safe from the rollers going one direction to the other?
Click to expand...

We rolled into the doorway with the first set. Then we had I think 3 real close together, so as when we rolled it up, it came down on them in about the middle of the safe. then basically wiggled it into the right direction, added some of the pipes to the end of the direction, and finally got it lined up and was able to let the ones that were diagonal feed off the back side. we had room at this point for multiple guys to do some man handling.
 
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