The ingredients required for a semi-successful bathtub installation are one absurdly heavy cast iron bathtub (awkwardly weighted with nice sharp edges), a hand truck, length of rope barely long enough to wrap around the tub to tie it to the hand truck (and while you're at it be sure to use the thinnest rope you can find). Do not have any spare ingredients whatsoever.
Also integral during the install is one steep set of stairs, messy home with hairpin turns, and a bathroom designed to hold one bathtub (maybe), sink (if you can call it that) and a toilet (the long kind that juts far into the room). If there is room for anything else (like people) then the room is too big and you should focus your efforts on something even more frustrating (like installing a kitchen sink or metal rain gutters.) Finally, you'll need no more than two people to lift the leviathan. Why on earth would you want to clutter the work area with more lifting power? Of course these two people to need be woefully under qualified physically – one being in his mid 60s the other weighing less than half what the tub weighs.
There you have it, the recipe for putting in your very own house weight. Let's get started!
First, begin your project by choosing rush hour traffic to pick up the tub. There's no better time to start a big lift like this than by sitting in traffic for an hour. It helps to clear the mind...of good thoughts and fill it with tension and angst. Somehow see if you can find a particularly bad traffic day. Say, Friday afternoon when road work is in full swing.
Next, find a store that will be packed with people who have a keen desire to step in front of your path. Go all the way to the back of the store where the bathtubs are. Find the one you want. Look for a cart to put it on. Walk over an isle or two because there's always a cart straggling nearby. Walk over a few more isles. Go to the front of the store. Keep looking in hopes one will appear by the barbecues and riding lawn mowers. Leave the store and head for the parking lot. Spot a cart right by where you parked. Mutter something under your breath as you grab the cart and walk all the way back to the back of the store enjoying the rhythmic thumping from the square wheel on said newly found cart.
Get your first taste at what it feels like to move a small car when you try to lower the tub onto the seemingly under-built cart. After avoiding devastating pinch danger maneuver the now much larger and heavier cart to the front of the store to pay for it. Watch the people gawk at your "prize" as they hesitantly shuffle to the side. As a side note, for a really neat experience choose only isles that have the most people (also with giant carts) and displays jutting into your path.
Mentally unravel the puzzle of just how you're going to get this thing into the house much less the bed of the truck. Try to force the visions of limb amputation from your thoughts. Consider yourself lucky if you get away with at least one thumb.
Once you pay the bill take your very own personal hell to the truck. Open the bed and lift one end onto the tailgate. Now heave the other end up and push the tub into the bed of the truck. Magic! This wasn't too bad. Maybe your project won't be so bad after all. Think again. Navigate the traffic that has somehow gotten worse back to the house where it will be installed. Back the truck down the driveway (scraping past the rose bushes along the way). Now let the fun begin.
Find the undersized hand truck and the small length of twine. Lower one end of the tub to the ground then stand it on one end. Now position the hand truck under the tub. Note how it seems too small for the job. Take the 'rope' and wrap it around the tub and 'secure' it to the hand truck. There, that ought to keep you safe when the load becomes unbalanced. Now you get your first feel at how clumsy this load feels when you try to tilt the hand truck back only to find it barely budges. After getting some help from your retiree helper you suddenly feel the whole weight of this thing as it presses into your arms. Fortunately the hand truck's handle will be so low that your arms will be fully extended while you try to lift it. Also a bonus is the thin crate that surrounds the tub. But the best part of all will be the slivers from this crate that will slowly get inserted into your skin!
Slowly back up toward the stairs. Get into position. Start counting to three in the hopes that your partner understands to lift on three. One. Two. Alright, two is a good number as you feel a sharp jab of the crate into your arms. Heave! Repeat about seven or eight times. So it doesn't feel like your getting off too easy increase the height of each successive step by an inch or two until the final step which will be about eleven inches tall. When you get to the top of the stairs notice how the floor bows a little.
Nicely done! You've made it into the house. Now to get to the bathroom which is at the end of a path of clutter and poorly placed furniture. Somehow you get past all that (with some 'gentle' coaxing of a sofa and chair). Let the hand truck tilt back upright once you've made it into the bathroom. Suddenly you'll feel the gravity of the situation sink in as you realize there's no possible way to lower this thing into place without dropping it and likely having it crash through the floor. Now for one of the best parts of this recipe, using one of the ingredients for a second duty. Remember that length of twine-like rope used to tie the tub to the hand truck? It's time to put that into service again. You will use this to lower the tub into place. Of course, you will use part of a stud in the wall as the pulley for the maneuver. Somehow you will begin to institute a new set of physics half way through the project. A rope that may have a tensile strength of 50 or 60 pounds will suddenly be able to support 300 pounds. It will also be able to withstand the sharp edges of the cast iron. Not only will the rope be significantly stronger than it should be but also the horizontal stud in the wall; the one that moves around easily when you put your hand on it. Obviously two small nails driven in only half way will hold a tub.
As you start to lower the tub to see if it will fit, feel that impressively immense weight dig into your shoulder. You won't have felt a weight like this before. It's heavy and awkward enough to confuse your brain. Surely this will be the heaviest thing, intended to be moved by humans, you will ever encounter. It will almost be like trying to comprehend the vastness of the universe. Just when you think you have it, it will overwhelm you.
If you possible try to install the tub right below a brand new window you installed days earlier. There's nothing quite like the combination of a mind blowingly heavy weight and a double pane glass window inches from each other. To protect the window nail up a piece of quarter inch plywood. That ought to hold a sharp and heavy corner away from the glass. Now to uncrate the tub and position it into place. Undo a few wire straps and pull away the wooden crate. Begin to slide and rotate the tub to a point where you can lower it into place. As you start to lower the tub it won't go down straight. Of course it won't because there are no complete edges for it to pivot on. There will be one flat side and then a rounded tub bottom. Naturally it will tip toward the window.
Now walk through the house searching for lengths of wood to act as levers secure in the knowledge that there will be absolutely no room to use those levers in the tiny bathroom. Treat this time as more of a means to avoid the inevitable: finger loss. Walk back to the bathroom with a couple boards a few feet long. Lean them against the wall and then lean yourself against the tub. Ponder your situation. As you ponder, feel the nice cold smooth surface of the tub. Run your fingers gently across the soft enamel finish all the way to the big rough gash on the corner. Feel it again in disbelief. Now have the entire project flash before your eyes as you realize that you're going to have to move this bitch out of the house and take it back to the store. Examine the nicely rusted gash knowing that you didn't cause it because of it's beautiful iron oxide patina. Marvel how this one small piece of the tub was the only part you couldn't see in the store because it was concealed by the wooden crate.
Reverse process.
Hopefully you are borrowing a truck that was recently repaired after being involved in a front end collision. Turn on the headlights which have somehow been wired to activate the windshield wipers. Try to deactivate the wipers by flicking switches, levers and knobs. The speed of the wipers will only increase with these vain attempts. Turn off the truck. At this point the headlights will switch on. Start the truck again. The wipers will have stopped but now each of the headlights will be two very different levels of brightness. Have yourself a good laugh to help ease the tenseness of the evening. Drive back to the store while having several people flash their lights at you. Enjoy the brightly lit tree tops courtesy of the poorly aimed headlights.
Arrive back at the store a good three or four hours after you were there last. Unload the tub from the truck back onto the cart that was right where you left it (by some miracle). You'll begin to get better at handling the colossus. Wheel it to the return counter in the store. Wait patiently in line behind the guy who is returning a half dozen or so 2 x 4s, a light fixture, moulding, a couple bags of pipe fittings (one of which was one fitting short), box of screws, half a roll of wallpaper, toilet seat, a fence post or two and a potted plant. Continue waiting for another thirty minutes as the person taking the returns laughs and giggles to cope with his complete lack of experience in this department. Notice how his slow deliberate motions will seem to take eight times longer than they really should. Wait to hear the sweet words, "There's no sku number on this, I'll have to call the lumber department." Minutes later the lumber department will pick up. The returns guy will try to describe a 1 inch by 2 inch piece of pine furring by calling it "a long thin piece of wood," there will be a pause, "it's yellowish." No doubt you will hear a faint burst of laughter coming from the lumber department. With no end in sight demand another person be dispatched to the returns department. Wait for another ten or fifteen minutes for someone to arrive. Continue delighting in the sight of some guy trying to return stuff he's had in his garage for months.
Once a second clerk arrives explain the situation and ask for a refund. After being informed there's not enough cash in the till wait another ten minutes for the manager to arrive and authorize store credit to be issued. Go to the back of the store (you'll know where to go this time) and pick out a new MUCH lighter steel tub. Have the slowest most cautious worker take it off the shelf for you. Open the box and examine the entire tub BEFORE you lift it even once. Load the tub back onto a new cart (which you had to go all the way back out to the parking lot to find) and purchase it with newly issued store credit.
Drive back to the house enjoying the flurry of high beam flashes from oncoming traffic. Unload the tub. You won't need the hand truck for this one. Easily lift it up the stairs and into the bathroom. Lower into position with little or now effort. Kick yourself for not doing this five hours ago. Stand back and remark to yourself how it looks and functions the exact same way as the heavy, clumsy, life-taking cast iron tub.
Congratulations! Now you can lie down and let your back decompress while wincing in pain.
-Braden
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