Washing machine up first floor maisonette (no lifts)

seatbeltnoob

Hello, we're renting a property and it has kirtchen appliances already supplied. But they're really old and inadequate. We have 2 young children and the 6kg load size just isn't cutting it for us. Plus it's really old and seems to take far too long to wash clothes.

Asked landlord and he's not interested in buying an upgrade for the place, and says they will only replace broken appliances (with an equiavalent anyway).

I dont want to invest money in a brand new washing machine for a property that we might be asked to leave in 6 months.

I'm thinking of buyign a second had one, you get decently new ones for less than £100, sometimes less if you buy it in auction. But they're heavy things - not suitable for a single person load into a car or carry up stairs.

I know that there are bricks attached to the top and front of the drum to keep it stable. Does anyone know how much of the overall weight the concrete bricks take up? I am thinking of dismanttling the washing machine and taking the bricks off to make it a little bit more lighter to load into the car, and carry it up stairs..

FreeBear

The concrete block(s) found in most washing machines weigh 25-30Kg. To get them out, you have to virtually dismantle the whole machine. Far from easy !

I have moved a heavy & large fridge up a set of stairs in the past. Strapped to a sack barrow, and with the assistance of a burly helper, we managed it. Although, the 90° turn at the top was <ahem> interesting... Not a task to attempt on your own.

shiraz99

Might something like this help - Stair Climbing Truck 150kg | Sack Trucks | Screwfix.com

Bendy_House

SBN, are you planning to have two W/Ms in your flat? If yes, wow. If not, you'd better make sure the replacement is at least as good/new as the current one, and ideally that the LL doesn't notice.

Can you remove these brick weights? Yes. Will it help? Yes. Will it be hard to do? I dunno - I suspect it might be quite easy on some machines. However, it's unlikely to be something you can do outside the seller's home, so you'd need to get it back to your place first, and have space to do it there.

I tried to trace a leak recently in a Serie 6 Bosch, and access from the bottom (usually open on W/Ms) was compromised by a large plastic panel which, when finally unscrewed, was still attached to the machine with weird cables - I suspect it's a leak tray (ironically not doing its job...), but a very unwelcome extra hassle.

Personally, I'd just do a few more washes... :-)

GDB2222

There was talk of replacing the concrete blocks with water tanks that can be filled once the machine is in place, but that’s for the future.

 I dismantled an old machine, so I could dispose of it single handed. The blocks were the single heaviest component, but it was still rather heavy after I had removed:-

The lid
The door
The motor 
The wiring loom
The drum

I have had washing machines delivered up two flights of stairs. It just takes two extremely strong people and an awful lot of grunting.  

It’s clearly going to be a problem, also, if you dispose of your landlord’s washing machine. It may even be theft, although I don’t think that the police would be very interested. It’s clearly not fair to him to throw out a working machine and replace it with some clunker, of unknown origin, that you picked up at an auction.

rob7475

I've had to move washing machines up and down stairs before. It's very do-able. To help, you could hire a stair climbing trolley from your local tool hire place.

If you buy new - most companies will take it up stairs as long as you pre warn them about it.

Martin_the_Unjust

https://www.stanleyhandling.co.uk/hire-powered-stair-climber-hire-or-buy-wheelchair-stair-climber/

other hire places are available 

GDB2222

rob7475 said:

I've had to move washing machines up and down stairs before. It's very do-able. To help, you could hire a stair climbing trolley from your local tool hire place.

If you buy new - most companies will take it up stairs as long as you pre warn them about it.

Did you hire a powered stair climber? I see that HSS will provide one for a very reasonable £240 for the first day’s hire. 

https://www.hss.com/hire/p/powered-stair-climber-battery

Section62

seatbeltnoob said:

I know that there are bricks attached to the top and front of the drum to keep it stable. Does anyone know how much of the overall weight the concrete bricks take up? I am thinking of dismanttling the washing machine and taking the bricks off to make it a little bit more lighter to load into the car, and carry it up stairs..

Removing the bricks does make a significant difference and the top one is relatively easy to unscrew (you may need a large-size Torx key) but depending on the make/model removing the top one may be constrained by a metal bar attached to the casing which sits above the drum and gives the machine's casing rigidity at the top (the top panel is largely cosmetic rather than structural).

I had that with one machine, and the only way of removing the top brick was to have a second (strong) person to push down on the drum to give more clearance while the other one lifts the brick out.  If you have two strong people available then the need to take the bricks out is less.....

If the motor is easy to access and remove then that is another significant contributor to the overall weight, as per GDB2222's post, and removing the door not only reduces weight, it also makes available a useful hand-hold for carrying.

rob7475

GDB2222 said:

rob7475 said:

I've had to move washing machines up and down stairs before. It's very do-able. To help, you could hire a stair climbing trolley from your local tool hire place.

If you buy new - most companies will take it up stairs as long as you pre warn them about it.

Did you hire a powered stair climber? I see that HSS will provide one for a very reasonable £240 for the first day’s hire. 

https://www.hss.com/hire/p/powered-stair-climber-battery

I've used both a normal sack cart and a stair climbing trolley. It wasn't a powered one and cost me about £15 from my local place (most local tool hire places are much cheaper than HSS).

GDB2222

Does the trolley with the three wheel arrangement each side help much, compared to a normal trolley? You still need to pull most of the weight of the machine up each stair.