September 29, 2017 | Good to Know

Know thy elevator is  little play on words from the Ancient Greek aphorism “know thyself” who many have argued over the centuries is the most integral element to happiness. But here I am hijacking it for my own purposes!

With the huge boom in condo living here in Toronto people are making the transition from house living to condo living. Moving into a house is pretty straight forward but condo moving despite hurdles can be as well. The key is to know the measurements of the condo building elevator! Eyeballing whether your sofa, framed mirror or baby grand piano (ok, maybe we can just assume that this one isn’t going in!) will fit is missing the key step of actually measuring the space.

The most important measurements are the height of the elevator (not the door frame) and the ceiling height of the hallways. There are exceptions if you are taking something very wide through the space, so be aware.

I recently came across a situation where someone eyeballed their Montauk sofa thinking it would move nicely into their new condo…turns out the elevator height was 88 inches high, the sofa is 95 inches from end to end! Needless to say panic ensued. Movers stood around waiting for direction… as to where the store the sofa until either an alternate mode into the condo unit was assessed or before the wonderful sofa was given a new home.

In the end the sofa would fit into into the stairwell, fortunately the condo unit is only on the 4th floor…which is doable withe 3 movers. Imagine a 10th floor, or higher? The cost of a Montauk sofa could make that someone cry if it wasn’t able to go into their space!

Know thy elevator, friends.

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