Why can I relate to this? How many refrigerators, stoves, washer and dryers have I hauled over the past 24 years since I bought my first rental? At least 13 each, as that’s how many units I have, but that’s just counting the first ones that went in. There’s been a bit of turnover since then. And then there’s our house, and…
This is the way to haul them, with a flatbed with a liftgate. I’ve taken to just tipping most of them in over the low tailgate of the Ford, on a protective drop cloth, and sliding them in. Easier than dollying them in on ramps, especially when I’m alone.
If I was to have a one-ton class truck, I’d rather have a dump bed though, as I’ve hauled a lot more loads of loose material than appliances. But then shoveling it is good exercise.
Yes, I’ve moved countless appliances myself, the Volvo wagons and the minivans were great using the tip and push method but the pickup has make things easier, the Subaru worked well too and of course the SUVs although their being higher off the ground makes it harder. My preferred method with the pickup is now to back into the driveway until the rear wheels are in the gutter which then (usually) makes the lowered tailgate be very close to the sidewalk level and it’s then easier to haul the appliance dolly over it and strap the whole assembly to the front of the bed.
That there’s an attractive truck for in-town use with the space to haul multiple appliances at once with that bed. And it’s red!
I tip fridges when I move them too, but always leave them upright and unplugged for 24 hours in the rental if possible. Supposedly that gives the compressor’s oil time to drain back into its rightful place and prevents the compressor from locking up. Could be an old wive’s tale but I do it because new fridges are expensive.
That ’65 is amazingly rust-free.
I just had to replace the water heater in my own house a couple of months ago. The energetic, cute young girl who pulled it down out of the steel told me that if I layed it down to transport it I needed to leave it standing up for 24hrs before turning it on. It wasn’t a heat pump model and I didn’t have the heart to tell her that didn’t apply to a gas, or electric water heater.
You are correct that you stand it up to ensure that the oil can drain back down to the compressor. I’m not so sure it applies to the newest units or not but definitely not a bad idea to observe since they aren’t cheap.
While there is a difference, I installed a new through-the-wall a/c unit in our sunroom last weekend. It said to leave it undisturbed for 2 hours before turning it on after installation.
I gave it 18 hours.
I’ve thought about buying a truck with a lift gate more than once, often when wresting with appliances.
I’ve been lucky in that for the duplexes I used to own and the house I’m currently working on have front porches that are at the right height so that the open tail gate is just a few inches or maybe a foot above it. So easy enough to use the hand truck to roll up to and place one side of the appliance on the tail gate and then just lift and slide it the rest of the way on.
The house I’m currently working on I’ve owned for 30 1/2 years, it was the second house I bought. It went into the rental pool about 13 years ago and to be honest I haven’t done much of anything to it since it was turned into a rental. The fridge is still the one we bought when we bought the house. The washer, dryer and dishwasher are from the mid 90’s. The range is from the early 00’s. Needless to say appliances are on the list as is the water heater, which was last replaced when I still lived there.
It is definitely interesting going through that house again as it was the first house I did a lot of major remodeling on and the first time I did so many different projects. So there is an interesting mix of nostalgia, remembering for example building the fence that I’m currently in the process of rebuilding. It is also a bit of frustration of how I did things the first time around when I wasn’t as skilled as I am now, or not thinking that it may be me redoing them again in 20-30 years.
It is also very interesting thinking that when I bought it in 1990 it was 34 years old and now it is 64 so I’m closing in on having owned it for half of its life and I’ve owned it for over half of my life.
The weird thing that happened concerning that house was 3 years ago when I was working with a client. A new listing popped up that met his requirements so I opened it up and it was “my” house, built ~5 miles away the year following the development my house is located in. I had to go and see it in person as it was pretty much untouched from new. It was like a time warp to when I bought my house with the same GE cook top and oven with the fancy push button everything, except in pink instead of turquoise like ours were. It still had the same knobs on the doors and cabinets, the original tub and tile ect.
My last remaining rental I own I’ve had for 31 years and I did an extensive remodel on it in ’02. Almost 20 years later it needs it again. I’m much more experienced after 30 years of landlording and I too look at stuff I did back then, amazed at my naivete. Mine was build in ’31 and I found an old newspaper under the stair landing with an article headlined:
“Man tells police that gallon of whiskey found in his house was for wife’s rheumatism and nothing else”.
While 50 something me definitely has increased knowledge, skills and better tools, 20 something/30 something me definitely had the edge in stamina. I could start at 8 am, work until ~8 pm doing something like digging fence post holes, go to Home Depot to get supplies for the following day, get up and do it again without being stiff, sore or slow to get moving, day after day.
It’s might be a 20 series, the 30’s usually had rear leaf springs. I think I see the long control arms used on the coil spring suspension. No matter, always nice to see a clean old truck still working.
It’s a C30 as the badge plainly states and the clearly visible rear leaf springs attest.
If you click on an image, it pops up full size, making the details easier to make out.
In The Land That Rust Forgot™, trucks like this are infinitely rebuildable. Heck, if all you had was a bare frame and a solid cab, you could build this truck from scratch – I bet 85+% of the parts are available to do so.
What a great looking C30, with an honest get-work-done but don’t look trashy vibe. A semi-indestructible 292 could be providing the motivation. Who needs to spend $60,000 when this will do the job? Beautiful example.
I think I can see leaves. Although it must’ve been a SRW 30, unless front hubs were swapped.
Bob B knows that all the way up to heavies this era GM truck had a crappy wheel/hub arrangement, oddball tires too. None of which are simple to upgrade. The competition was way ahead on that point.
This owner apparently had enough and switched to aluminum. Bed-to-tire clearance doesn’t look ideal, and probably the hub and hardware fitup isn’t either. Still a great runabout.
Good lord.
I just let the lower classes move things about for me, I’m certainly not doing it.
And yes, I do tip the nice ones.
It’s good to see the old truck still working.
We were staying at my Grandmother’s house in July 1999 in a heat wave where it was actually hotter at her (un-airconditioned) home in Pennsylvania than our own in Texas. Well, I must have opened up the freezer door one too many times to get an ice cube but didn’t her 25 year old refrigerator give up and die (interestingly it was her first domestic refrigerator she ever owned…they lived on top of a mom/pop grocery store and used a part of the commercial refrigerator for their domestic use up until my Grandmother retired and closed the store, finally buying a refrigerator upstairs in her home).
We tried to buy her a replacement refrigerator but none of the stores would deliver in time for it to be there before we had to leave for our home, which was a several day drive, and I had a hard stop as I had to return from vacation by a certain date, but my Mother wouldn’t be comfortable leaving my Grandmother with no refrigerator…but my Aunt’s family had their own house in the same town which was usually rented (her parents deceased) that we had access to that had a refrigerator in it. So we called to rent a mover to move the refrigerator from Aunt’s family home to my Grandmother’s.
Waited all day for the guy to show up, pickup at Aunt’s went fine (he had a commercial box truck, maybe a Chevy, but I was too keyed up at the time to notice much). He had no dolly, so he wrapped a big tarp around the refrigerator and carried it up on his back (I offered to help carry it, but he declined). Apparently he was supposed to have a helper (with dolly) who never showed up…so he’s walking up steps, onto a narrow porch, trying to avoid porch swing, to get it into the house. I have visions of both him and refrigerator toppling over the side…but he finally gets it in the house…and we’re able to leave on our trip home the next day.
My Uncle was a bit perturbed that we took the initiative to do this, but he was out of the country (part of the reason we scheduled our vacation at that time, so my Grandmother wouldn’t be alone) and didn’t have a cellphone back then or internet access. He was planning to rent out the home and had to move the refrigerator back into it and buy a new one for my Grandmother anyhow…but in the long view, I think we did the right thing…a developer bought Aunt’s family home a few years later to tear it down to make room for the back end of an ugly Lowes they built in an adjoining shopping center.
Forgot to mention this happened on my Birthday…probably one of the most memorable (but least fun) of them.