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

From what I have seen, the best way to move a shed is to lift it and place rollers or large PVC pipes underneath, but I do not know how well that would work with the 2x4s and 4x4s underneath.

What if I rented furniture dollies and put one under each corner? I only need to move the shed eighteen inches, in order to finish the fence that I started last summer.

How big is it? What kind of surface is it sitting on?

2x4's, a truck, and some chain. Slide a board under each end, screw a board to the ends of the "sleds" to connect them, fasten the chain to the same ends of the "sleds", pull on chain.

There are some variables to consider, dimensions, weight, empty shed?, soil type, wet or dry...

I would guess about three meters a side and it is on dirt. The front is on concrete blocks and the back is on dirt. I started leveling out the ground underneath.

We cannot get a truck through the gate, although dad has one. He has talked about renting an ATV and he suggested getting four floor jacks.

I managed to pry up part of an apartment building enough with a long 2x12 to get new floor joists in place with an assistant. I'm sure you can build out the foundation another 18 inches (cinder blocks) and lever the thing over with a few 2x4s and maybe some help. Though I would probably just make it part of the fence.

We bought cinder blocks almost a year ago. I do not think that putting the back of it on dirt was a very good idea. It is not up against the fence, it is at most two feet away. I had suggested only building the fence up to the shed, but Dad did not like the idea.

Will you please explain "Levering it over?"

applying leverage sideways. If you can move it with a truck, you can move it with a lever, only slower. If you can't actually get the lever between the shack and the ground, then you can lever on the end of a rope tied around it. Make a hole in the ground and a notch in the lever fairly close to the ground and shorten the rope as you go.

Lever - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia class 2 for the rope thing.

This isn't exactly a pyramid here :)

Pyramids, didn't the Egyptians have unpaid labor? Oh, wait, so does Dad...

Dad paid me for everything up to this point, but I plan on paying to finish it, as well as insulate their garage. Who's a good boy? :)

Pull the shed with a lever? :) I had not thought of that. Good bragging rights "I moved this thing by myself! No truck, no crane, no team of laborers, just my muscles and my brain!"

Mostly brain... :)

I had planned on using my floor jack to raise each corner slightly more than the height of the cinder blocks, throw the rollers in there, and then pull it over 4.83271103e-17 light years. I just worry about the base being uneven and interfering with the rollers. Also, what in the world would I do with rollers afterward? :) If I rented furniture dollies, I would just take them back to U-Haul, although I wonder how well small wheels would work in dirt.

Could you use a winch? Manual ones are usually $50-75.

Small wheels will sink and turn into anchors, bad idea

gonna need a pic to understand what the deal is with the cinder blocks though. Can they be removed/relocated in situ?

If your rollers are made of firewood, well, you know what to do with them ;) Though I would see how it drags first.

Right, I did not expect the dirt to be ideal for wheels. I need to get back up there before I will really know what I am doing, I would just like to plan this the best that I can, although I claim that not failing school is a priority... :)

I just had an idea that I wanted to run by wiser minds.

Harbor Freight has two-ton winches starting at $18.99, but the only trees in their backyard are runts. I would not know where to anchor it.

I do not burn much here in Arizona and I have tried to stay away from fire since burning down my apartment.

or move the fence back another 18 inches, see if the neighbor notices :D

I just think that it is weird that I am building a wooden fence in front of a chain-link fence, making the yard three feet narrower, but my neighbors would have had my autistic brother wandering into their yard since last summer.

One other approach might be to build the new fence on the same line as the old one, and just remove the old one as you go, leaving a flap of chain link to screw to the new one when it is time to take a break. Or some other similar derivative. Maybe next time :)

Well, it is a wooden fence, it will not last forever. Dad had me purchase pine stringers, although I bought pressure-treated posts. I bought a gallon of Thompson Seal, which Dad insisted that we did not need, although I did not use it, so, depending on how much sunlight a section receives, it has faded proportionately.

However, I would rather re-use the same posts in the same post holes. :)

then you can move the shed back :D , jk, your a good son by any measure!

Build a sledge under your shed, that is the way I move structures around my farm, especially where the ground is too rough or soft for rollers to work. And you don't have to worry about having to keep feeding rollers under the front end or the structure rolling out of control on a slope. Cut two 4x4's or 2x4's (depending on the building's weight) to a length 1 foot longer than the side of your building and then cut one end at an angle. Jack up one side of the shed at a time, slide a 4x4 or 2x4 under it with the ends protruding equally out from under the building and with the angled end facing the direction you want to move the shed. Position them under the side wall of the shed and lower the shed onto the board. Repeat for the other side of the shed. These will be the 2 sledge runners. Cut two 2x4's to the width of the building and attach one to the front and one to the back of the protruding runners on the outside of the shed so the shed is now boxed front and back by the cross 2x4's and the weight is supported by the 2 runners. Drive a nail into the center of the flat (back) end of each runner, then take a rope (or chain) and wrap it around the shed with the rope resting on the 2 nails so when you pull, the pulling force will be pulling on the back of the runners. You can also add a pair of nails at the front outside end of each runner to keep the rope positioned at the runner level as you pull. Especially if you are moving a flimsy walled metal shed, you'll want to keep any lateral force of the rope centered on the runners rather than riding up and squeezing in the walls of the shed. At this point I would hook it up to a tractor, truck, or winch and move it. In your case, since you are going a short distance and don't have a tree or heavy object to attach your winch to, drive one or 2 tee posts deeply into the ground and attach your winch to the post(s) close to the ground level and use that to pull from.

Basjoos! I think that I got that! :)

I just do not understand the part about wrapping the rope around nails on the back of the runners. Do I want to make a U-shape with the rope, from the back corners, around and to the front?

Thanks so much! :)

You make a long loop of rope that runs from your pull/tow point in front of the sledge and wraps around the sides and back of the sledge frame. The rope just rests on the nails. The nails are there to hold the loose rope in position so it doesn't drop to the ground until you can get the tow tension put on the rope to hold it in position. The idea is to put all of your tow tension on the sledge frame and not on the building the frame is carrying.

According to Home Depot, an 8x12-foot wooden shed weighs 1128 pounds. Of course, runners on dirt have a fair amount of friction. How strong of a winch do I need?

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.

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?

Wally knows how to move huge things by himself.
 

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

http://i6.photobucket.com/albums/y23...ps2372b567.jpg

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

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

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

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.

http://images.lowes.com/product/conv...44000668lg.jpg
[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!

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!

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]

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?

Timelapse video, please!

What's a digging bar?

For some reason I picture you doing something like this sunken Honda rescue from Russia ...


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=c0_oKHARhXw


Skip ahead to 33 seconds. :)


But that would require you have a spare tree trunk to use as a lever, which would obviate the search for cheap posts to use as rollers.

This thread is just about moving it.

I built the fire pit! :)It didn't before! :)

I figured that I would make a video explaining my setup and then showing me pulling it 4 feet.

As far as I know, the only picture that I have of it is my brother helping me tighten my power steering belt:
https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1607534368
Crazy Russian hackers! :D

That was a tree trunk in the ice?

I would love to try that, but I already drove in the digging bar, and I would rather not buy anything extra right now, but what about driving in some rebar 20' from where I want the shed to be, putting a metal wheelbarrow wheel on it, and tying a 16' long 2x4 to it?

Were it I:

www.offroaders.com/winch-tech/winching-techniques-how-to-dig-a-dead-man-anchor

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...1&d=1607547645
I modified the diagram to show my version of Basjoos's suggestion, but my laptop froze, in that charming way that it does, so I am back on my desktop. I will upload the image after I finish this post--assuming my laptop has defrosted.

One of the things that I appreciate about my current supervisor is that when I mentioned a client meeting goals during a quarter she told me to send her new ones and she would change them. This morning she asked about one of my client's goals and I responded that he has met all of his goals and needs new ones. I would write new ones after I took care of something for my brother. I got home and got on my laptop to make new goals, but she said that we were close to the new quarter; just add them then.

It may be a month before I write the new progress report. I don't want him languishing!

That was why I was using the slower computer that periodically freezes.

I needed to rent a sod cutter!
 

https://ecomodder.com/forum/attachme...5&d=1607817227
I am almost there! I just need to dig up the rest of the grass on the side of the shed, all of the grass on the front, make sure the two sides are level (at least in the front), jack up three more sides, roll the logs underneath, find my tow strap and giant cargo strap, figure out how to wrap them around the shed so that they don't fall down (temporary nails are an option), and then pull it over.
I may need to move the shed an extra foot to the side, level the ground on that side, and then move it back.
How do I dig under a shed?! :)

I would go back out right now and try to use the mattock without destroying the grass. My feet are sore from using the shovel [with cross-trainers and hard Arizonan dirt].

The only boots that Boot Barn has in my size are $234 combat boots.
The JC Penny's near me doesn't exist on their website.
Cal Ranch has boots starting at $80.
Sportsman's Warehouse has boots starting at $55.
Tractor Supply has boots starting at $68.

$60 or more seems like more than I want to spend for something that I will only use occasionally.

Then again, the sod cutter would cost $68 for 4 hours, which is the minimum, I would need to rent a truck to get it home, and how long would I need to cut maybe 20 square feet?

I would go back out and get as far as I can before it is dark, but my brother asked for Subway, and if I follow through quickly it should encourage him to communicate.

I use matlocks for clearing sod, and also use safety shoes which include metal arch supports. Where did your combat boots go? Mine lasted 20 years

It will take you longer to unload, start and reload sod cutter than 20 sq ft.

I don't have any idea!

We were supposed to receive the new uniforms, without the useless digital pattern, when we deployed. They issued us cheap low brown boots that we were authorized to wear with our current uniform, but I hardly wore them.

Now I wear a size 13, but those are only 11s.

There a few things more expensive than cheap shoes / boots. I have to wear steel toes at work and the company reimbursement is $80 per year. The $80 steel toe shoes and boots they carry in the mobile store that comes to the plant don't last even a year. After a couple of tries with cheap boots I

My current boots are Danner Bull Run Moc Toe

https://s7d3.scene7.com/is/image/LaC...pdp/15564_alt1

Last year I had them resoled at the factory after 4 years.

My Danner Acadia boot I bought in 1992 lasted until last year with minimal care. The liner finally came apart and I didn't want to pay the price of new boots to have them "recrafted". (Danner speak for taking them apart and replacing everything except the leather outer)

I hear you, but even cheap boots might last the rest of my life.

One hopes you're thinking of occasional use?

I got a good-fitting pair of Brahma insulated camo boots at Goodwill. I forget, but my usual price point is $8, I might have paid more. The leather laces failed so I need to replace them. As much as I've worn them they will last the rest of my natural life.

When I worked in construction I wore Danner boots. It took 45 minutes each evening to scrape and wash the mud off and give them a fresh coat of bear grease. Most comfortable were the $250 Tony Lamas I wore when I worked at Symantec.