To reduce an equipment cost of the whole work for arranging a preheating device for charging material and to enable extension of the preheating device for charging material to the existing work, in a preheating method for changing material and a device therefor of an arc furnace used to melting of metallic material and refining of molten metal.

A shifting device 3 for shifting a material vessel 1 for preheating the charging material features that the material vessel 1 can be shifted not only horizontally, but also vertically. At the time of charging the material, the material vessel 1 is set to a material charging position at the lower part from the charging position 32 into the arc furnace, and the charging material is charged into the material vessel 1 by using a charging bucket 8, etc., hung down with a crane 9. Therefore, a lift of the crane 9 in the work can be made low in comparison with the conventional device.