Moving E-Size flat cabinets

Huntress · Jun 1, 2005

First off, I am not a structural engineer but a mechanical one. I have been given the task to have a large number of E-size flat file cabinets moved. They are filled and most are just stacked upon each other, three high. What I am wondering is there some sort of device made to stack three to four of these five drawer file cabinets on top of each other, then have a fork lift move them? I would like to band the files cabinets together before the move. Not sure on how far they will be moved as yet. My guess is that these files are just being kept for history purposes and will not be referenced. I know this is a big question and there is still a large amount of information needed. Someone else at one point in time needed to move some of these file cabinets, I don't want to reinvent the wheel on this.

unclesyd · Jun 2, 2005

Here is something like we, not me, used to move some file storage cabinets. I do know that there was a lot of work getting away from the walls and on several they chipped the floor tiles to get under a cabinet. They did use metal bands both to secure the drawers and made the initial move on some items. This was a fairly large undertaking on our part just to rearrange our drafting dept.
I think they budgeted about $2000 dollars for two days and spent close to $30,000 and took 3 weeks. I think we would have been better off removing the and drawers, but we didn’t.

You might want to look at digitizing or microfiche and store the originals.

http://www.usmarkerboard.com/markerboards-easels/page84.html

A note of advice moving standard filing cabinets is big contributor to office accidents.

Huntress · Jun 2, 2005

Unclesyd,

I agree, it would be a much less costly job to take out the drawers and move just the shells themselves, but who am I to tell these guys what is best? We are just storing these files, as they have been scanned already. We need the room where they are located to build another test lab. Thanks for the advice though.

unclesyd · Jun 2, 2005

I checked with the boys in the engineering drafting department about their offsite storage.
They are quite happy with the company that stores the files since the companies warehouse went for about 4 days after Hurricane Ivan last year without power. Evidently they were able to maintain some type of controlled atmosphere even without normal power. The company has since put in a generator capable of running at 50% of the design load on the climate control system to allow people access until full power is restored.

You might want to look at this option if space is at a premium

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