Moving my dad's shed. (Advice? Roll on pipes? Furniture dollies?)

[basjoos]

The sledge frame will add an additional 100lbs or so to that weight. A 2 ton winch ought to handle it although you can get hand winches up to 4 tons for about the same price. The higher the capacity of the winch, the easier it will be to crank when moving your load.

[Xist]

Okay! I finally finished the semester and drove up to my parents'. That trip did not go as I had planned at all! My dad wanted me to do computer stuff first, which took a couple of days, and then I could not get the shed to move!

Dad's laptop crashed and after taking it to a few different places and spending a couple hundred attempting to repair it, he ordered a new one, and I got it up and running again, but spending two day trying to get win7 to scan to .PDF, especially using his automatic document scanner was a pain, and in the end, I just copied the program from his xp PC!

The front of the shed is sitting on cinder blocks and pieces of lumber, but the back is sitting on dirt, so that 4x4 is probably partially rotted. I used my car jack to lift the front to put it on a runner, but I spent a few hours digging out the back so that I could fit a runner down there. I did not feel like digging out the back just to be able to attach a cross-member, so I put the second one in front, forming a triangle.

However, I grossly underestimated the stress on the joints; I put two fence screws into each corner and the end that did not have the diagonal piece against it came loose before the shed even moved, so when I go back up, I am going to screw a block right in front of that side, see if I can get longer screws, and use several in each corner.

One problem was that, hoping to save a little money, I planned on using Dad's steel digging bar, but but without a sledgehammer, it just was not going into the ground. Also, the winch was supposed to clip onto something, it would not fit around the bar, so I took off the gates, parked Chorizo, and used my baby as an anchor.

How do you fix tire ruts in a lawn? My parents are very upset!

Also, what type of stake would be strong enough? I need to go ahead and purchase a sledgehammer, don't I?

[DIMS]

This guys is a bad ass using simplicity at its core.
The Forgotten Technology



http://http://youtu.be/pCvx5gSnfW4

[P-hack]

looking at the pic, I thought he was going to pressurize the shed and "hovercraft" it across the yard

[Xist]

How well does he explain his techniques? It kind of seems that he wants you to purchase his disc in order to understand.

[Xist]

I managed to pull one side of the shed 1”. I bought a sledge hammer and drove the steel digging bar 2’ into the ground at a 45°. I winched it until the bar was nearly vertical when the winch broke. Dad kept saying that we needed rollers, so I tried setting up rollers, but tried to save money, and only wasted time and money. I buried a 4x4 post behind the side that did not move, arranged the thirty cinder blocks and two bags of gravel on top, and used my car jack to move it all of 3”.

I dug out the post and put it and the four others next to the middle of the shed, put the cinder blocks and gravel on top, and then the 600 lbs of concrete mix. I do not know if I managed to move the shed, although I extended the spare tire jack a few inches, without pushing a thousand pounds of building materials through the fence.

There came a point when I could not get my jack to move further and I had difficulty retracting it. I moved it back and forth and it finally seems normal, I had worried about having broken it, and then I finally thought “Hey! Dad has a truck! That spare tire jack would work way better!”

For some reason, only one side moved, so I moved the jack as far as I felt I could towards the other side, and it pushed the shed off of the blocks. I spent an hour or two trying to fix that in the dark, but that is the current state, the shed is sitting on whatever happened to stay under it, rotated significantly, and I do not have any idea how to push it back.

I am really out of time. I start school in just over one week and I have a three-day drill in the field next weekend.

[Xist]

[Greenes 18-in H x 3-in L Ez Trim Fence Post and Rail System Border Fence]

Sixty cents each. I wish that I had realized they were this cheap! I spent the same amount on three two-foot sections of ABS and a pipe cutter, thinking they would support the shed's weight.

This is six dollars that I wish that I spent a week or two ago!

[Xist]

I bought those rollers, but did not try to use them. I do not know what college-educated genius thought that it was a good idea to have drill right before finals, but I was up until 04 finishing Statistics homework and doing a quiz. I need to do one more assignment and I have finals from Monday until Thursday. The only good thing about having drill this weekend is that I can visit my parents after school ends and help them with projects. Mom pointed out after my last visit I only did what Dad asked me to, not anything that she wanted.

I spent much of my time trying to keep his computers and printers working, which he needs for his small business, although I keep asking them why they have several different printers.

Apparently, Dad never wants to go to a different room to print.

I do not know that I will try to move the shed any more. Dad was upset that I kept removing dirt from under the shed, but that was made it nearly impossible to move! Mom has been trying to build a raised garden, but she has not been able to do very much there, while I added a large amount of dirt, it was just the dead Arizona soil that hardly grows anything, while she was purchasing potting soil.

When I finish my finals, I am going to call local supermarkets, talk to the produce managers, and ask for old fruits and vegetables for composting. I do not know how much I will be able to get, but hopefully that will improve the soil. I am currently thinking that I will raise up the shed and put it on an additional layer of cinder blocks, to make it easier to pull out the dirt underneath.

The dirt is soft, a hoe worked pretty well, just slowly. I think that I will purchase them a wheelbarrow, which would have been very useful many times!

Like for moving dirt a short distance...

I just do not know that I want to purchase another winch once I would actually be able to use it!

[Xist]

For some reason this was a terribly difficult thread to find. The consequence of having finals directly following drill was that I did poorly at both and failed my urinalysis for prescribed ADHD drugs. I got in big trouble six months later when the results came back, although I brought in my prescription the next day. I was still in trouble for months, but why would I care?

I guess the only good thing that happened that year was that I did not need to go to the field a couple of times. That was supposed to be a punishment!

I moved the shed and put a bunch of extra cinder blocks under it, which was fine, until I used it as an office when coronavirus started. I looked into putting in insulation and drywall, but didn't try to make it happen until my sister camped in the backyard with her kids. I tried to set up the shed as a cabin for them, but hopefully if this were a cabin with insulation, drywall, and HVAC they are more likely to visit.

After I moved the shed I built a garden box for Mom, which is starting to decompose. I helped Mom and Dad with various projects, went home to get ready for annual training, and Dad passed away.

I miss the old codger. No offense, Dad.

I had some hard months. I don't know how I would compare it with 2020, but I haven't lost any friends or family.

I couldn't find those 18" fenceposts on-line, so I tried to find this thread, and nothing worked, including "Moving shed," so I needed to go back through my old posts.

I have created many new threads.

Lowe's doesn't sell those fenceposts anymore, although at least I found the old page, so I know for sure. I cannot find anything similar there, but Home Depot has 6" x 8' fence posts. There are smaller ones, too, but they are 4' long, and more than half as much.

Many people talk about using pipes as rollers, but how long does it need to be? It seems like everyone says 4' or longer. The round fenceposts are $12.98, 2' lengths of 4" ABS are $9.31, and 2' lengths of PVC are $12.84.

Has PVC always been more expensive than ABS?

I don't know if 2' of plastic pipe would be adequate, but I am confident that 2' of 6" wide wood would be, although if I used four whole posts I wouldn't need to adjust them as much.

1/2" metal pipe costs about as much as ABS and 3/4" metal pipe costs about as much as PVC. I drove our digger bar into the ground, so tomorrow I need to:

1. Buy 4 posts.
2. Jack up each corner of the shed.
3. Take 2x6es out of the shed and lay them down under each corner.
4. Slide a post under each corner and lower it back down.
5. Loop my big cargo strap and my tow strap; run them around the shed, and attach that with a good cargo strap to the digging bar.
6. Crank, man, crank!

[Maybe I won't leave it on the rollers]

[freebeard]

Weren't there other threads on the subject since? Is it back to this because you're going to move it instead of, say, build a fire pit?

What are the odds a strap around the shed will disassemble it instead of moving it?