SAFEtey on the stairs
Can you give me a hand he said!!
I need to get a safe up a flight of steps into the office, 2 chaps lifted it into the back of a van so its' not that big he said...
Well not that big turned out out to be very big! also the flight of steps turned out to be 2 flights of stairs with a 180' landing half way.
After a quick look at the job we had some idea of what we needed so into the van and drove to a couple of places we know to pick up a bit of kit, a wheeled trolley and some ratchet straps is what we ended up with.
We manhandled the safe onto the trolley to get it along the side alley and into the front door of the building with a brief stop to remove the bottom plinth as it was full of rather smelly water.
We attached a ratchet strap round the safe then another strap led to the hand winch cable, the winch was attached to a 4x4 timber placed across the entrance to the loos.
With 2 planks on the stairs we started to winch. Slow but steady to the end of winch pull, wedge safe with 3rd timber plank while winch and strap were adjusted to get second bite then third.
At the top of the first flight was a narrow landing and straight ahead was a set of 3 step which we had to get the safe up so we could then stand it up to maneuver it along the landing to the second flight we had to climb. This was the most difficult part as we had no where to attach the winch so had to use a ratchet strap and pull a bit at a time.
After a struggle we got it stood up and were able to move it to the base of the second flight.
Due to lack of space we rocked the safe onto a 4x4 timber then a second so we could get it onto the first step and have enough room to lie it down for the final winch. This pull was easier as we now knew what we were doing and we could also place 
the winch further back due to another room further back. In the picture you can make out some timbers with the jack in the middle, this was a method of transfering some of the strain from one stud wall to another to stop the walls from pulling off the floor.After all that a well deserved cuppa, white and one please :)
