Leif's taxonomy of heft
Some things are heavy, some are less heavy, and some are way off the scale. In the course of lifting—or attempting to lift—a variety of things to facilitate our lives here in the woods, my mind has kept itself occupied by classifying objects by their difficulty in being lifted.
Unremarkable §
Most things we might interact with on a daily basis are pretty unremarkable in terms of heft. These are things that our bodies are pretty well used to dealing with frequently. Examples of things in this category are:
- clothing
- cup of tea
- phone
Noticeable §
Some things are, while not really heavy, at least noticeable when we want to pick them up and move them around. Examples in this category:
- 20 pound propane tank (empty)
- 55 gallon plastic drum (empty)
- 8" concrete masonry block
- < 4 year-old
- shovel
- chainsaw with < 36" bar
- 8’ long 2x4
Walkable §
The next level up is objects that are heavy to lift, but still capable of being carried around by a person, at least for a short distance. I’ve been pushing myself here to expand this category, and have honestly been a little surprised in discovering where the boundary lies between this category and the next one. Examples:
- 20 pound propane tank (full)
- 16" concrete masonry block
- sheet of plywood
- 4-10 year-old
- chainsaw with > 36" bar
- 5 gallon bucket of water
- 17’ long 2x6
- 2 14’ logging chains – makes me feel like one of the ghosts in A Christmas Carol
- 400 Watt solar panel
- bicycle
Liftable §
Some things are a bit too heavy to carry around, so I’ve been calling these things “liftable.” They’re things that you could conceivably lift up, for example, to load into a car.
- french door
- 5 gallon bucket of sand / gravel
- pottery wheel
- e-bike
- small tree
Requires Leverage §
Now we’re getting to things that start to depart from the chart of what’s possible for my scrawny human body to move around. Still, I’ve been learning that if something is too heavy to lift, it often yields to properly placed mechanical advantage! For example, a 2x4 wedged under a heavy log will often provide enough leverage to roll or even move one end of the log around. Also in this category are things that are too heavy to lift entirely, but which are shaped in such a way to make it feasible to lift just one end while leaving the other on the ground.
- medium tree
- 6’ square picture window – a dolly is a great provider of mechanical advantage
- picnic table
- 15’ long 6"x8" milled pine beam
- 20’ long 3x10
- 1000 gallon plastic water tank (empty)
Requires Machinery §
Then there are things that are really inconceivably heavy from the perspective of a single human. In this category are objects that are so heavy they would crush any body parts that made their way between them and the ground.
- tiny house on wheels – jacks are insufficient here!
- 25’ long 8"x12" milled douglas fir beam
- large tree