How To Move A Foosball Table – Everything You Need To Know To Avoid Hurting Yourself Or Damaging The Table
Sometimes you might realize that your foosball table is in the wrong place and that you do not know how to move a foosball table. And you just stand there and look at that thing thinking what now? Well, you are at the right place to find all the answers you need. The first thing you should do is take a deep breath and remember that it didn’t just magically appear where it is.
Guide
1) Things to take into consideration beforehand
Before you can start moving your table, you have to figure out a couple of things. The very first thing you should keep in mind is that the most crucial thing is the “table” part in its name. And approach moving a foosball table the way you would any other piece of furniture.
What you should be very mindful of? The two most important things are the weight of the table and the route from where it is to where you want it to be.
- Weight – Foosball tables come in many sizes, which means that they can weigh somewhere in a very big range. The smallest ones, tabletop design, weigh usually just a few pounds and you can just pick them up and carry them wherever. Full-size tables can weigh anywhere between 100 and 400 pounds. Depending on its weight, you will have to disassemble it or not.
- Route – How you will move your table depends also on through which space you will be moving it. It’s not the same if you have to move it just through single doors wide enough to pass, or up some stairs and around narrow corners.
2) Preparing to move the table
Before you start moving your table, you need to figure out how you can move it and in which state you can do it. And it is done by checking the route you will use and how heavy the table is.
- Figuring out where a table can pass is very simple when you think about the route as a series of passages and corners that connect each other.
Passages are very simple to figure out. They only have to be wider than the width of the table. On regulation-size tables, the width is 30 inches, but with rods, it goes up to around 47.5 inches.
Corners may look a bit more complex to figure the minimum width but are actually very simple. Without boring you to death with math and formulas, if the width of the corner is equal to or less than the sum of the width of the table plus half of its length, it will get stuck. Trust me, math is solid. You need at least a few extra inches to pass without damaging the walls.
- Weight is the biggest issue that decides whether you can move a table assembled or you need to disassemble it. What you need to figure out is whether it is too heavy for you and another person to move it. And it’s simple, just try to pick one side of the table with one arm. If it is not too much strain, you can carry it a distance, if you can with both arms, better not move it further than around the room.
These things will tell you whether you must disassemble it or not.
3) Dissassemble the table
If you have figured out how to transport a foosball table, it could be that you will need to disassemble it. And it is not smart to just start pulling it apart, you should know how to take apart a foosball table.
- First thing to do is to remove the rods. Rods can be telescopic or not, with molded or removable men, but they all disassemble in practically the same way. First, you need to remove the handles. Some handles are held in place with a small screw, which you must remove first. Then, you need to hold the rod with one hand and pull and twist the handle with the other until it’s removed. Next, you need to remove rod bearings bushings/covers by unscrewing them. Screws can be very soft and easy to strip, and you must use a proper screwdriver. Most often they are Pozidriv type, and Philips screwdriver will ruin them. Now you can simply pull it to one side to clear one side panel, and then raise adobe the edge and pull in the other direction to remove it completely.
- Once you have removed the rods, you can flip the foosball table on its narrower side to remove the legs. Legs are assembled either with three bolts to the side panel or with two to the bottom of the cabinet, in which case flipping it upside down will make them inaccessible. Either way, you just need to unscrew them.
Once you have removed the legs, the foosball table is disassembled enough to be moved anywhere you like.
4) Reassemble the table
Reassembling the foosball table after moving it into its new place boils down to going backward what you did when disassembling it.
- First, you need to set the cabinet on its narrower side, to install the legs. And then set it upright.
- Now you can install the rods. You do this by pushing them through holes from the inside of the cabinet, first one and then the other side. If they are telescopic rods, always the first is the end on which handles are mounted because the other end usually has half of the bushing molded on it and can’t be pushed far enough. Then you need to just put back bushings and screw them back in. And always use a proper screwdriver. These screws can be either Philips or more often Pozidriv, which look similar but the wrong type of screwdriver will strip them.
Conclusion
Sometimes you might decide that your foosball table has to make a trip from its current home to a new one. Changing home or just changing which one is your game room. But, to avoid damage to the table, walls and other furniture, and avoid injuring yourself; you should know how to move a foosball table.
The first thing you must figure out is whether your table can pass everywhere. Corners can be critical, and they must be wider than the width plus half of the table’s length. Then the weight, tables can weigh between 100 and 400 pounds, and two people maybe can’t carry it. So you might need to disassemble it.
