Heavy Recliners?? - Montana Owners Club

adelmoll · 04-28-2005, 01:18 PM

As much as I love the recliners in our 2005 3475RL I am having a hard time with them. 1st, I can't move them myself and it is my duty to secure the inside before we travel. I do OK pulling them out when we get to our site but I sure would hate to have anybody watch me while I'm sitting on the floor and pulling with all my might. 2nd. There is no way we can both sit and recline at the same time. There is just not enough room. I already know we will have to get rid of one them

and I just know it will be mine

but that still leaves me with the challenge of putting the remaining one back in place when we travel. How do the rest of you handle it?

Helen

CountryGuy · 04-28-2005, 02:32 PM

Helen,

I don't have to move mine very far, and if my back is hurting, it surely is a bit of a chore. How do I move it, well, I grab the very bottom (ours has that round metal stand, poor description, but I think you will know what I mean) with one hand, the opposite arm of the chair with my other hand, and YANK! When my back is sore, I have been known to get down on my knees and shove it with my shoulder. When all else fails, I call Al??

I only have one recliner, unit only came with one. I did however, ditch two of the dining room chairs. They reside in the pole barn, and have since about day 4 of ownership. I find those to be heavy as well. We felt we could live without them and so we have.

Wondering aloud, has anyone ever tried to put some of those furniture movers on the chairs?? You know those things that are supposed to make the furniture SLIDE on your carpet???

Good luck with this problem.

Carol

tollmann · 04-28-2005, 03:00 PM

We turn the chairs sideways, back to back, and push on the arm of the chair. This way you are not fighting with the rocker and it slides quite easily. My wife has had two back surgeries and she can handle it when she has to. (They also pull out easier this way).

sreigle · 04-28-2005, 03:10 PM

Helen, you could always fall back on "Honey, would you come and help me?"

More seriously, is there some technique that makes it easier, like holding on opposite corners and doing a quick lift and shove?

We don't currently have a rear lounge model but our prior Montana did. We just shoved the recliners 90 degrees so they rode sideways.

tbhd · 04-28-2005, 03:13 PM

I've wrestled with the chairs also but they won. Now Dennis takes care of them before he takes care of the outside stuff.

DHenry · 04-28-2005, 03:20 PM

I turn them 90 degrees, grab the arm next to my legs, pull the arm towards my body, and use my knees to push the chair back. It still is a hard job but it does work with out hurting my back.

Iowafan · 04-28-2005, 03:26 PM

I've been forbidden to move them anymore. Glen has claimed that job. When I did move them, I would turn them sideways and grab the frame behind the skirt. I was usually sitting on the floor pushing with my legs. It isn't an easy task no matter what technique you use. I guess they are heavy so that they will travel securely.

fulltimedreamer · 04-28-2005, 04:17 PM

That is one of the reasons we remodeled our unit. We took one recliner out and mooved the other in to the slide where the sofa used to be and the sofa to where the "dining booth" used to be. We now have a dinette table with oak folding chairs in the rear bay window area of the coach. The recliner can now be tied down with straps right where it sits. I've had 5 major back surgeries and Debbie hated moving the recliners (and hated it even more when I would move them) so now we don't have to. Mama's happy ... I'm happy.

Maybe this is a change you might want to make.

Pictures of the changes:
http://www.geocities.com/fulltimedre...floorplan.html

http://www.geocities.com/fulltimedre...4/lam_flr.html

http://www.geocities.com/fulltimedre.../new_cabs.html

Montana Sky · 04-28-2005, 06:41 PM

Helen,
You can switch the sofa and recliners around. The sofa fits in the rear of my 3400RL with the slides closed, I would think the same would go for your 3475RL. By putting the chairs in the slide all you have to do is make sure they are back far enough so slide will close. Just another thought, plus this way you can keep both chairs. Enjoy your new coach.

Montana_1190 · 04-28-2005, 06:52 PM

Carol, one of the couples that we met at the rally in Texas did this very thing. For the life of me I can't remember their names at the moment. Anyway, he put a round piece of plywood on the bottom of the chair and then mounted those round discs for furniture moving to the plywood. Made his chair moving an easy task!

Ormee and Ginette · 04-29-2005, 02:19 AM

The more I look at the recliners the more I dislike them first of all they are the most un-comfortable chair I have ever sat in, just this past week Ginette and I went looking for new LazyBoy chairs but the price is very high... Secondly I agree that they are very heavey and awkward to move... Thirdly we find that the recliners do not stay in the recline position and you are always fighting them to lie back they always have the tendency to spring forward not like the LazyBoy chair... Just this past week we have moved the recliners to where the couch was and the couch is now in the back window, we will try this arrangement for awhile this of course does not help any of the above problems...

Ormee and Ginette · 04-29-2005, 02:24 AM

Forgot to mention in the above post that we also chenged the rectangular dining table to a 32 inch circular table... It came with two 12 inch leaves which we insert when we have company over for a meal, this arrangement has given us more room in the dining/living room slideout area... We are now considering changing the dining chairs that came with the unit and purchasing the chairs that come with the table...

vickir · 04-29-2005, 05:00 AM

I believe it was John Bozarth (JLBOZ60) who put the wood and slide things on their recliners. You might ask him how he did it.

RADHAZJOE · 04-29-2005, 09:56 AM

Hi all

We did not take the recliners that came with the 3400RL. They were toooo heavy and way tooo small for me. Also, an ugly grren color. Lazyboy sells oversize recliners that way about 70% as much and already have teflon gliders. And ours, the backs slide off so you can get them in and out of the 5er door. Also, popping the backs off makes them much lighter to move. We are going to try switching the recliners and couch as well.

Another word about colors. We have the sand color scheme and the dinette chairs also were ugly green. We had them recovered in a tan and burgandy patterns. Look as good in the 5er as the originals.

sreigle · 04-29-2005, 01:02 PM

We wanted to decline the recliner (just one in the 3295RK) but our dealer said we had to take at least the base one. So that one that came with the Montana went to auction when we sold the house and we bought a lazyboy, like Radhazjoe. We also have put all but one of the dining chairs in our kids' basement and bought new dining chairs. The chair we kept is used at the computer desk. We also added an end table next to the lazyboy and one of those swing-up coffee tables from Camping World. Vicki uses that for her laptop as well as the normal things one does with a coffee table. We didn't go with the lazyboy for ease of movement as much as for comfort.

adelmoll · 04-29-2005, 02:09 PM

Thanks everyone. We tried changing the couch and the recliners but the couch is too deep for the slides to close. We had it pushed right up to the back windows and still had about two inches of the arms in the way of the slides and even more to the cushions. No way can we change positions. Tried again to sit in the recliners but can't swivel without hitting the shades. Can't use both foot rests at the same time and there is no way we can recline without pulling the chair out to the middle of the living room floor. Guess we'll table this for a couple of days while we give it some more thought.

CountryGuy · 04-29-2005, 02:12 PM

adelmoll

It has been AGES since we looked at furniture, so not sure they still make these, or if they would fit, but what about those recliners that used to be called wall huggers???

Have faith, you will come up with a PERFECT solution soon!

Montana_1190 · 04-29-2005, 08:09 PM

Yep, Vicki is right, it is John Bozarth (JLBOZ60)who put the discs on his recliners. Thanks Vicki!

Roman4 · 04-30-2005, 06:58 AM

Adelmoll:
Apparently the change to LaZBoy is a common solution to this problem. We made that change for two reasons: 1) Keystone's recliner selection struck us as the most uncomfortable recliners we had ever experienced. 2) The swivel feature seemed to endanger the screens and day/night curtains on the side and rear windows.

We changed to wall-hugger LaZBoys which we find to be much more comfortable and more space-efficient (they are also slightly narrower than the originals, allowing the slides to close without wearing on the chair arms). We also find them to be easier to move than the swivel recliners. We find the non-swivel feature to be an advantage, as it seems to me to help preserve our windows & screens. The only disadvantage to the wall-huggers is that they don't rock, but only recline.

When we made the change recently, LaZBoy was having a "trade-in" promotion of some sort, allowing $150 credit for each of the old recliners. In reality, they didn't actually want to take possession of the old reliners, but instead asked us to donate them to the Salvation Army. We were happy to do that and to be rid of the uncomfortable things.

Roman4
2005 Montana 3475RL
2005 Ford F-350 PSD

adelmoll · 04-30-2005, 02:59 PM

Roman4- Thanks so much for your response. Having the same model as ours I know you went through the same things as we did. We went shopping for replacements this morning but Not to a Lazy Boy
Dealer so we can't speak for them but in the furniture stores we went to we found EVERYTHING on the floor to be at least as big or bigger then what we already have. DH mentioned that there was 6 prongs (spikes or tits or something ) on the bottom of the recliners that I knew nothing about. We then went to Linens and Things and found some of those moving things. They were too big so we valcroed them in and put them on the bottoms. WOW. I CAN MOVE THEM. One problem solved. Next I looked at where everything was hitting and decited that we didn't need a coffee table that big so put the end table sideways instead of the coffee table and put a super table DH had made several years ago in place of the table between the chairs. The one he made was not as deep but it also has a shelf and two doors so is great for storage. The difference in the depth makes it much easier to swivel without hitting anything. We stored the lamp and then decited to store the one screwed down in the bedroom as we had other things we wanted to put there and right now we don't think we need that much light. As you can see, we storedthem cuz we don't want to get rid of anything right away. We'll see how we feel in a few weeks. To all of the rest of you, I will try to post pictures soon but I want to feel things out for a little while. Thanks so much.

Helen

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