I moved 8 pins one at a time in a single day before. With a truck, you'll be fine.

Just use plenty of plastic wrap, packing blankets, cardboard, pool noodles, bubble wrap, and straps.

Good luck and enjoy the new place

Bubble wrap and Beer.

No drinking while driving of course, but maybe you do things different up North.

Congratulations on the new Homestead!

Pay a few more guys to help. Either pay with cash, Pizza, beer- whatever it takes to make things go more quickly and hopefully easier on you. Congrats on the new home

Hire a moving company. Instead of losing friends I just hired a few guys to move 15 pins downstairs to my new gameroom. I wrapped them all up before hand and sat back while they did all the heavy lifting. Even got them to help me set them up. Best decision I could have ever made.

Sell all the pins....cheap.

LOL! Good One!

I moved 9 pins and 1 arcade last year. Don't envey you. Beer - lots of beer. Good luck!

You can limit what they do. That sounds like a price for a comprehensive move.

If you just ask them to move out games and furniture that has already been prepped/wrapped for moving, that would probably only be a few hundred bucks.

"Moving my game room in three weeks, any tips??"

Don't drop anything.

Step one = Buy a bunch of beer.
Step two = Hire movers
Step three = Drink beer and watch mover.

https://pinside.com/pinball/forum/topic/moving-with-your-pins#post-4273767

Start with preparing all the games. Get one person to help you Remove balls, secure backbox, remove all legs, wrap the legs with the bolts. Do that to all the machines, then get the rest of the guys and the truck. The first step may take you a whole day.

TTT things take time

Good luck with the move!

Take your time and have them all wrapped up and ready to take them into the truck. Put each game’s bolts, balls, and keys into their own bag that’s labeled. Label all the legs. Put the bags into a box so you have all the stuff in one spot. Make sure and strap the games to the inside walls of the truck.

Get a couple big ass rolls of shrink wrap to wrap the games up.

Having all this help, you’ll be done in a couple hours.

Arcades I don’t have much advice, but with the extra help should be relatively easy assuming walkouts at both houses.

Your basement should look like this before your friends even show up.

3BADFB1A-2F8A-4D1B-9E0F-D359ED1FDBE9 (resized).jpeg

The lift gate truck is the best idea. We moved 15 pins from various collector houses to our public event at the local library last year and that's what we did. Prepped everything the day before so it was ready to go. 3 of us got 15 moved out and into the event in a few hours. Not sure what size you got, but we managed 2 pins per lift. It made a huge difference compared to a uhaul ramp.

Good Luck!

I’ve used Pinball Armor now sold by Stern with good results. Probably not necessary if you are careful, but covers the entire machine.

I’ll be doing this too. I’ve got 12 games, a couple of slot machines, and a flight of steps.

I was originally going to bite the bullet and buy an escalera, but I can’t justify the cost (yet). I’ll probably rent one, rent a big truck, and go the ForceFlow route.

Let us know how you make out! Good luck on your endeavor!

Wife and I just did the same thing,but,our moving co.charged us $500. to move my 8 pins! Just make sure you keep all your pinball stuff,tools,all together while you do move! Congrats on getting new digs!! Us too,Good luck,have fun.B safe!!!!

What about one of those dolly lifts with wheels?

Oh boy. That is definitely going to suck. Hopefully no 90 degree turns then.

So go in pairs. One pair get a game out and into the truck. Next team tags in and does the next one while first two rest. Keep alternating. Add 100 beers to the equation and it will be done in no time !

Ugggg - God speed....good luck bro. Those turns are a bioch.....

You didn’t factor this in when you were choosing houses?!? Man. We passed on every single house that didn’t have a walkout.

Maybe rent an escalera?
If your friends have moved a game before and are still in for the task, you have great friends.

Right on. Opposite situation out our way. Walkouts are a plenty and just as cheap as other homes. Sounds like you have some awesome things planned. Exciting.

New house,thinking about a plane= pay the movers.

Take lots of pictures. No wait, that's supposed to be for a Playfield swap...

Hire movers. I just moved my house including 11 pins. Movers were awesome. They didn’t even use the Dolly’s on the stairs, they just carried them! New basement had 90 degree turn, no problem for them. Whole thing cost me under $1K. Best move ever.

They referred to Road Show as “big mama” and Black Hole as “big blue”, but still carried them both! Impressive. No damage to pins or walls.
Couldn’t recommend Two Men and a Truck more.

Jeff

Buy pinball armor if it is still made. That stuff is the shit!

Great thread. I'm moving (i.e. The moving company will move for me) to a new house in the morning. Bunch of junk and 3 pins. I was going to wrap them up but leave the legs on, is that asking for trouble? (They'll have to be taken to a basement, 14 stairs outside the house)

Take the legs off. It takes a few more minutes but trying to move these games with the legs on especially with stairs is too much. Those legs are more then likely going to hit the ground and you start worrying about cabinet damage at that point. Take the extra 10 mins on each game.

Rent an Escalara or only move 2/day. If you have time on your side, why try and kill yourself in 12hours?

If I were closer I would bring the beer.

Go on uhaul.com and hire hourly movers to load a truck for you, and hire more to unload the truck for you.

They are usually only like $80/hr for two guys.

I borrowed an open trailer and moved about 8 one day and the same the next day. Only a 15 minute drive. Used different friend helpers on each day.

Lots of good advice already in this thread. I'll add to pre-measure the clearance of your doorways and pack the pins accordingly to avoid damage. I had to pass thru a doorway where with to door off the hinges, storm door fully open and latch removed, only a couple inches of clearance, so we wrapped the folded down heads with cardboard to prevent scuffing when passing thru the doorway.

We used a dolly (hand truck actually) to move the pins around, and a lift table is nice but not essential when putting the legs back on.

Best of luck!

Interesting thread. Interesting in the ways pinball adds to the economy with moving supplies and expenses involved.

Glad everything worked out and you have your back in one piece so you can still stand and play.