Holy Hell, I cannot believe there is a forum thread dedicated to relocating these dinosaurs.
I have a KV-36XBR400 (In the Blue Corner, weighing in at a lean 254lbs) that was purchased new in 2000 by my brother. $2,200 for a 36" TV, back then. I think they priced,,, and sold them by the pound after moving it out of his place, 7 years ago. I'll bet you can't guess who was the proud but, muscularly challenged, recipient of his 7 year old hand-me-down. Bingo!
Well the fun part started when 3 other guys and myself made our way to my 2nd story loft apartment. Complete with a switch-back, 8 stairs per floor, 16 total, narrow stair-case, with even tighter turning radius on the switch-back.
I had full intentions of strapping it to a hand-truck with large diameter and wide rubber wheels for the trip up the stairs. While myself and one other guy were positioning my (existing) cabinet for placement, I heard a loud grunt, echoing from the stairwell. My friend and I both looked at one another and said, "Oh ____, I think those two poor dudes downstairs are trying to manhandle this Monster by themselves. We both broke for the staircase and found these two poor B_______'s about 2 stairs into the fist 8 before the switch-back, and fading fast. The poor dude on the downward end must have been supporting about 252.5lbs and gravity working against him. Now we had 3 guys on the up-hill-side of the Boulder, and 1 poor SOB downstream, and he was like a Bull-Dog and would not let go, and insisted we grabbed onto anything we could and pull like Hell. Once we got to the switch-back, we could at least find room to get one other guy downwind to keep Goliath company, but no-way in Hell was there room to set it down, due to the narrow staircase. Somehow we survived the next 8 steps and the XBR found (permanent) placement on my existing cabinet.
Every-time I turn that XBR on, I am absolutely amazed at the picture quality of this now, 14 year old plus SONY television. Life has been good, up til now. Two weeks ago, I had a Electrician come over to bid a job of adding a couple appliance outlets in the garage.
The Circuit Breaker labeling in this AC panel has always had me guessing at best, and this time was no exception. Even the licensed Electrician was challenged. After a few paths up and own the panel he got frustrated, and said, Is everything off in your loft. And I said yes, but still plugged in, let m e go unplug my TV before you hit the Master Breaker. He said, Oh, you should be fine, so long as they're not on. I cringed and said, well OK..... But when he switched the power back on, and I tried my XBR, I had audio, but unfortunately no video. I have spent two weeks in a salvage mode, calling SONY and everybody this side of Tokyo, and economically it's a $700.00 repair... minimum, and I still just have a 14 year old TV.
So, now I get the wonderful experience of moving this T-Rex back down that dreaded stairway and to it's final resting spot.
But, this time I have a plan. I am going to turn this baby 90 degrees on it's side, put a moving blanket on the screen, strap the screen side of the TV to my hand truck with a couple 2in belt straps. So, when the hand-truck is tilted back, all that dead weight of the thick glass and CRT will be directly over the two (large diameter) wheels of the cart. I think this will be a 2 man job. One guy on the handles of the cart, and one down-wind to just steady the behemoth as we take one step at a time down the 16 steps.
On paper this sounds like a piece of cake. I am trying to be optimistic, at best. We'll see how reality comes into play.
PS My one question is, Should this Electrician bear any responsibility here of this mess, as I did ask him if I should unplug anything first, and his famous last words were, you'll be fine....