How to move a fridge without damaging it or your back.

1. Empty it, switch it off, and let it defrost

Start the day before. Eat or give away what is in the fridge, move anything left into an esky with ice bricks, and clear the freezer completely. Then unplug the fridge, prop both doors open, and put towels along the base with a shallow tray under the drain outlet if it has one.

Defrosting is not optional, and it is not quick. A freezer with a solid layer of ice can take several hours to clear, and some take overnight. Do not attack the ice with a knife or a screwdriver, because the walls and the coils behind them puncture easily. When the ice is gone, empty the drip tray, wipe the interior dry, and dry the seals so they do not stick or tear. A damp fridge shut up in transit also grows mould quickly in a Queensland summer.

2. Secure the doors, the shelves and the cord

Take out the glass shelves, the crisper drawers and the door bins, and carry them separately wrapped in a towel or a blanket. Loose glass inside a moving fridge is the most common way a working appliance gets destroyed.

Tape or strap the doors shut so they cannot swing open on a corner, using a strap around the body or removalist tape that will not lift the paint. Coil the power cord and tape it to the back of the unit, never leave it trailing where it can be stood on or caught in the trolley wheels. If the fridge has a water dispenser, drain the reservoir before it moves.

3. Measure the path, both ends of the job

Measure the fridge first: height, width, depth, and the depth again with the doors on if they are not coming off. Then walk the path with the tape and note every point it has to pass through:

• Every doorway on the route, measured between the door stops rather than the frame
• Hallway width at any corner, since a turn needs more room than a straight run
• Stairwell width and headroom, plus the landing at any half turn
• Lift car depth and door opening in an apartment building, and whether it needs booking
• The alcove or cabinetry gap at the new place, including clearance for airflow at the back

If a doorway is tighter than the fridge with its doors on, the doors usually come off. On most models that means unclipping the hinge covers and lifting the door up off the hinge pins, and it is worth photographing each step so it goes back together the same way. Take the handles off before the doors if they protrude. Lay a runner or flattened boxes over timber floors and tiles, because a trolley wheel loaded with a fridge marks both.

4. Trolley, straps and where hands go

A fridge is a two person lift. Full size units are heavy, top heavy once tilted, and the weight is not evenly spread, so a single person on one cannot control it on a slope or a step. Use an appliance trolley if you can get one: it has a long back plate and a strap that pins the fridge to the frame, which is what stops the unit walking off the trolley on a bump.

Tilt the fridge back onto the trolley rather than lifting it, slide the plate in from the side the hinges are on, then strap it before it moves at all. One person steers and takes the weight on the handles, the other stays on the downhill side, always below the fridge on stairs, guiding and blocking rather than carrying. Move one step at a time with a spoken count. Never lift a fridge by its doors or handles, use the body of the appliance, and keep fingers off the seal edges.

In the vehicle, put the fridge against a wall of the tray or the van, upright, and strap it top and bottom to anchor points. Blankets go between the fridge and anything hard. Fill the space in front of it so it cannot rock forward under braking.

5. Keep it upright, and what to do if you cannot

Upright is the right way to move a fridge. The compressor sits in an oil bath, and the sealed system is designed to run and travel the way it stands in your kitchen. Tip a fridge over and oil can migrate out of the compressor and into the refrigerant lines, which is the failure people mean when they say a fridge never worked again after a move.

Sometimes upright is not possible, in a station wagon or a low van or through a stair turn with no headroom. If a fridge has to be laid down, lay it on its side, not on its back or its front, and keep the compressor end low so oil stays where gravity holds it. Check the manual first, because a small number of manufacturers say not to lay their unit down at all. Keep the time on its side as short as you can, get it upright the moment it is out of the vehicle, and then treat standing time as compulsory.

6. Let it stand before you switch it back on

Once the fridge is in position and level, leave it standing upright and unplugged before you turn it on. A few hours is the common guidance, and a fridge that travelled on its side needs longer than one that stayed upright. Your manufacturer's manual sets the actual figure for your model and is the authority on it, so look that up rather than trusting a rule of thumb. If you cannot find the manual, search the model number on the manufacturer's site.

Before you plug it in, check the fridge is level and that the back has the clearance the manual asks for, and that the doors seal when you close them. When it does go on, it will run for a long stretch to pull the cabinet down to temperature. Leave the food out of it until the fridge compartment is actually cold, and expect the freezer to take longer again.

7. Water lines, ice makers and gas are a licensed job

A plumbed fridge, one with an ice maker or a chilled water dispenser fed from the mains, is not a do it yourself disconnection. Isolating the tap, disconnecting the line and connecting it again at the new place is a licensed plumber's work, and the same applies at the other end of the kitchen: gas appliances belong to a licensed gasfitter. Refrigerant is also regulated, so degassing a fridge is a job for a licensed technician, not something to attempt before a trip to the tip.

Book the plumber before the day of the move, not after. A fridge that is still plumbed in when the vehicle arrives holds up the whole job. PicUp haulers lift, transport and place appliances, and do not disconnect or reconnect plumbed or gas appliances or degas refrigerators.

Or hand the fridge to someone else

Everything above is doable with a mate, a trolley and an afternoon. It is also the sort of job where one wrong angle on a stair turn costs more than the move. PicUp runs the do it for me version: a two person hauler team, a vehicle sized to the appliance, trolleys and straps supplied, and a fixed price agreed before booking, across Brisbane, the Gold Coast, the Sunshine Coast and Northern Rivers NSW.

For an existing fridge going to a new house or a new room, see fridge removalists in Brisbane. If the fridge is brand new and sitting at a retailer or a warehouse, appliance delivery in Brisbane collects it and gets it into the kitchen, with the old one taken away in the same visit if you want. More moving guides are on the PicUp blog, and a fridge that is not worth keeping can go through junk removal.