Are you moving? Planning to repaint the kitchen and get that theme you’ve been eyeing on YouTube? Or you are probably just reorganizing your kitchen.
Moving kitchen appliances, especially the heavy ones, may be something to put to mind if you don’t want to start worrying about your floor too. You may actually be reading this because you probably damaged your floor once and wouldn’t want the same experience this time round.
When moving your fridge or dishwasher or any other appliance that you would consider heavy, you may scrape, scratch or damage your floor permanently.
And these are not the kind of scratches you can wipe them clear with a wet cloth. They are deep scrapes that anyone who would come to your kitchen would be sure to use that as a conversation starter.
Anyway, enough with the chatting. These are a few tips you will probably consider next time you want to move that cooker or fridge.
Avoid pivoting the appliance
This might be your first attempt to move that appliance but truth be told, pivoting your appliance on one side causes floor damage. Especially if it isn’t balanced at the first lift.
Just get enough people to help carry it up without pivoting it to one side to avoid any rips on your vinyl floor (If that’s your floor type).
Take measurements before hand
Sometimes your appliances may need you to remove/unhinge your door in order to create more space for them to pass through. So don’t just start moving your appliances without knowing first if they will fit through doorway.
You may even need to get them through another bigger frame such as a gliding glass door. Once you have those measurements then you can move them.
Clean your floor
This may seem to be quite obvious but trust me it isn’t. This is because your first thought might be how that cooker is going to be go to that corner in your kitchen.
Dirty surfaces have particles of various materials, depending on what previously stained the floors. Friction between these particles and the appliances occurs while moving the appliances in turn causing those ugly scratches you have been avoiding the whole time.
Use floor protection
This may sound like extra costs but trust me, this will be required immensely.
Some people decide to take the shortcut and use cardboard which aren’t as effective really because they also cause friction while the appliances are being moved on them.
The floor protectors also save y’all from too much work on carrying the appliances and having to pause to get everyone in the same direction.
The best ones to choose from are either to use your old carpet or runners which are rug-like and used in hallways and galley kitchens.
Places that use runners are usually narrow like a doorway or stairways. If you want the best protection invest in good temporary flooring just for the moving of the appliances.
This is the most effective since you use actual flooring that some people even use for their permanent flooring decoration. You could use the vinyl wood plank flooring for the temporary flooring.
Use plastic floor guards
This especially works for short-distance moving. For example you may want to be using an appliance at another side of the kitchen or you just want to clean under and behind your appliance. How does this work really?
- Place the plastic guards in front of the appliance making sure they are near the appliance for easy moving.
- Lift the appliance and place it on the guards. Remember do not pivot the appliance.
- Make sure all the appliances legs are resting on the guards especially the back ones to avoid dropping the appliance on the floor.
- Connect the guard guides to help move the appliance like on a rail or a moving path.
- Carefully move the appliance without pushing it forcefully till it reaches your desired position.
Relatively you could use a thick carpet then put ply wood on top of it and use the ply wood as a floor guide. Make sure the carpet won’t cause friction on the floor because it will cease working for the cause. Again, even at this be careful not to pivot the thing.
Also, if you want to go all fancy, you could get the AIR-SLED appliance mover which uses air to move appliance. How? Well you could watch how that works here. The are on the higher price side but totally worth it.
Prepare the appliances
I know we already covered getting the appliances measurements but when we say prepare the appliances, it means making them suitable for moving in simpler terms.
For example, you will not decide to move the cooker when you are still baking a cake or move a fridge whilst food in there. For all appliances make sure to disconnect the power and remove any removable parts of the appliance that may fall while moving them.
Ask for help
It may seem that moving a dishwasher would not be too much hassle but it wouldn’t hurt to ask for help to make the moving easy. You could ask your able family members or even hire people to do that for you for an extra cost.
Hiring would actually be great because they would know how to do that easily putting in mind not to destroy your floor.
In conclusion, I know this article was mostly to protect the floors but do not forget to also look out for the appliance. Make sure it is protected as much.
You could do this by putting moving blankets around the appliance according to its size. You could even use rope or strong tape to secure the blankets. Make sure to know all your options on what you could use to protect that floor and the appliances beforehand.
It will save you some coins!
