The Brew Cabin

I've got 150 yards of York Stone to lay and have to move the peices which vary from 3' x 2' to 6'x3' all of it 4" thick. Is there a tool available that allows two men to pick up the slabs and lower into place without bending down too much?

There are various gadgets available, but they generally fall into one of two classes - vacuum lifting kit or scissor lifts.

For flag laying, the vacuum kit is probably them most efficient as it allows the flags to be placed directly. However, the efficiency of the vacuum varies according to the surface characteristics of the flags themselves.

Have a look at the Probst site and see what they have on offer. It gives you some idea of what's available, what sort of weights the various bits of kit can cope with, and you might be able to get something on hire for the duration of the contract.

Thanks very much for your help. I'll probably hire one of the machines, but the trouble is it's at the back of the house and we have to go through the garage to get there. However that's my problem and I know if I get the machine through it'll help with these monster slabs.

One of the smaller vacuum lifts is only 400mm wide or thereabouts - it can certainly fit in a wheelbarrow, so it should be easy enough to get around the back of the house.

Thanks, I'll contact the company and when I've used it I'll certainly let the site know how successful it was.

Fantastic site by the way.

Of course the other way to do it is with two scaffold poles and some binding straps. Don't cut the straps when you get bricks or blocks delivered, and use them in a loop under the flags and round the scaffolding poles. Once everything is in place, cut the strap and slide it out from under the flag.