A Radiator Party

Question: How do you get 3700 pounds of cast iron out of your house in under 2 hours?

Answer: Invite eight of your friends and have a radiator party!

Every room in our house has had a radiator sitting in it for almost 100 years now. With the boiler removed last summer and the new geothermal HVAC system installed this September, we've had some massive chunks of cast iron sitting around our house doing nothing but reminding us that we need to get them outta here.

Honestly, I've been a bit intimidated by the thought of removing the radiators. I mean, it's one thing to strap a 200 pound refrigerator to an appliance dolly and move it to a different spot. I've actually done that by myself before. But these radiators -- they were in a whole different league.

My first reality check came when I realized that the radiator in the living room would have to be moved so the HVAC crew could cut holes in the floor for the new forced-air registers. I had a four-wheel dolly already, but went ahead and bought another one since the radiator was so long. I was thinking perhaps I could lift one end onto one of the dollies, then lift the other end onto the other dolly. Yeah, right. When I realized that I couldn't even scoot one end of the radiator, I knew I was up against a real challenge. Fortunately, through the heroic efforts of my wife's car jack and several short sections of lumber, I was able to eventually get the behemoth hoisted onto the dollies so I could roll it around a little (after cutting away some carpet, of course). The whole time I was working on getting the radiator jacked up onto the dollies, I could hear that phrase from TV playing over and over again inside my head: "Please, ladies and gentlemen....do not try this at home".

Somewhere along the way, the inspiration came to me that I should host a "men's breakfast" as a way of getting the job done. Most guys will show up to an event if there is the promise of food, so I figured it was worth a try! Besides, my wife has something built into her DNA that expresses appreciation through cooking (which she does very well), so the food-for-labor bribe seemed a good fit. It took me a few weeks to come up with a list of gullible good friends that I thought might be interested in helping, but I eventually got all of them called, emailed, or Facebooked. I even called one of my neighbors a couple of doors down and asked if he would mind being a stand-by extra set of hands in case we found ourselves just a little short of brawn.

With one buddy calling in sick at the last moment, we ended up with nine guys. And boy, did we ever need all nine of us. We started with the monster radiator in the living room -- the largest one in the house. I'm estimating that it weighed somewhere around the 900 pound range. Ugh! I had bought some furniture-moving straps and fabricated some makeshift handles out of u-bolts and large dowel rods. With four guys on each side of the radiator and straps slung underneath we gave it our first heave-ho to see what we were getting ourselves into. "One, two, three, LIFT!" It was at that moment that we experienced a concurrent revelation: This Sucker Is Stinking Heavy.

We took a few baby steps forward, probably about 5 feet, then sat it down to rest. One more time: "One, two, three, LIFT!". Another few feet forward, then down it went again on the floor so we could gather our strength again. This went on a couple more times, and we finally found ourselves outside the front door, looking down the porch steps. A few ideas were exchanged about the best approach, but in the end, we just grunted, groaned, and let gravity help us get Big Bertha down to the sidewalk. Just twenty more feet to go until we would have it at the back of the trailer. At this point, someone offered the brilliant-and-back-saving idea, "Can we just drag it from here?" And so we did. I would continue with the details of how we lifted the crazy thing up onto the trailer, but honestly, it's a bit of a blur in my memory. All I remember was a lot of grunting, intermingled with copious amounts of groaning. But we got it onto the trailer. Exhausted and already sweating, I thought to myself, "Oh good, only FIVE more to go!"

Thankfully, the rest of the radiators weighed a mere 400 to 600 pounds. Umm, piece of cake.

Now that we had the biggest radiator out of the way, we sort of split up into teams, with four or five guys to a radiator. At some point while I was upstairs with some guys, one of my buddies asked my wife if we had any other dollies. She took him down to the basement and showed him our appliance dolly. This stroke of genius became the thing that probably saved us some herniated disks, if not actual lives and other miscellanous appendages.

The last two radiators were the ones from upstairs. This particular portion of the Radiator Party was an adventure, let me tell you. To understandably describe the way that we actually accomplished getting them down the stairs would take way too many words. Perhaps we could have snapped a picture of the procedure, but I don't think there was room on the staircase for the camera. I myself have only a vague recollection of arms, legs, cast iron, straps, and a few distorted faces. At that point, I think most of us had abandoned the fear of straining or breaking some bodily part. This was because we had each become distracted by the all-too-real possibility of somehow getting crossways with one of those straps and thereby ending up with The World's Largest Wedgie.

Having started shortly after 8:30, we loaded the last radiator onto the trailer at 10:10. OH MY GOSH, THE SCRAP YARD CLOSES IN TWENTY MINUTES!! A couple of us jumped into our vehicles and raced off to the scrap yard while the rest of the crew sat down to a well-deserved breakfast. In honor of my wife's feverish cooking, I just have to mention that the menu included: Southern-style breakfast casserole, bacon, country potatoes, blueberry muffins, pumpkin bread, chopped fresh fruit, milk, juice, and coffee. Oh, and Ibuprofen. I'm not kidding.

This was the last one to be loaded onto the
trailer (in the background) before we
headed off to the scrap yard.

Meanwhile, at the scrap yard, we pulled the trailer onto the scales and then down into the scrap area. A huge claw plucked the radiators from the trailer like they were marshmallows, then flung them onto a pile of junk cars, pipe, and engine blocks. When we pulled back onto the scales to get the tare weight, we understood while we were all so bushed. Between the six radiators we had removed, the total weight was 3700 pounds. WOWSERS! With the higher price of scrap iron these days, we brought home $351. Nice!

Only one day later, my shoulders are really sore. I can't imagine how much they are going to hurt tomorrow --- seems like the second day is always the worst. Oh well, it was a fun party, and it made me realize what a fantastic bunch of friends I have. Maybe we'll have another party when I rent the jackhammer to take out the old driveway. Sound like fun, guys? Guys? Helloooo? Anyone there? Hello? [sound of crickets chirping...]


Postscript: It is interesting what you'll find under a radiator that hasn't been moved in a century, give or take a few years. The space under the radiator in our bedroom yielded quite a treasure trove:

• pacifier
• chapstick
• crochet hook
• 5 pencils
• 1 pen
• 1 Q-Tip (extra long variety)
• toothpick
• 9 crayons (somewhat melted as you might guess)
• a plastic number "4"

Sadly, the 1915 gold coins I was hoping for were nowhere to be found......