One house: Ready to move!

The last phase of our building project, scheduled maybe at the end of October, suddenly began in the last two days.  After some hard work on the part of three guys yesterday and today, our old house is up on steel beams and ready to move to its next location.

Here's how it all began.  On Wednesday they brought in a trailer with two LONG beams, some shorter beams, a couple of big stacks of large railroad tie-sized timbers, a bunch of cement blocks, a bobcat and all their tools.

First they removed anything from the basement that would be in their way.  Luckily we had removed everything we could move or wanted.  They removed the decks away from both doors so the entire foundation was exposed.

In all the time I've thought about this happening, I always wondered how they would separate the house from the foundation.  I pictured them with some giant sawzall, going around the whole house.  Nope, that's NOT how they do it!  Instead they smash away the whole foundation in sections, all while shoring it up from the basement floor with stacks of those railroad ties in key spots to support the house.

Here's the bobcat with a jackhammer bit on the front.  I can say because I saw it with my own eyes that he was able to smash through the 1980's cement blocks supporting the 1980 addition a whole lot easier than the rest of the foundation--an almost-foot thick wall made in 1925 out of rocks held together with cement.  Pictures of that coming later...

Once they got enough of the foundation removed, they slid these huge beams under each side of the house.  There was a lot of measuring going on to get those beams in just the right spot.

Here are the beams coming out of the back of the house.  There are still some portions of the foundation left to hold up the house in some spots.

And that's about how it was left yesterday.  Today when I strolled over (nosy rosy!), I saw that they had about 4 house jacks set up under the house on top of those railroad tie stacks.  Turns out they had already jacked up the house 4 inches on the one side.  One of the guys was cleaning off these plates about a foot square in size.  Those plates were going to be placed under those beams so the beams could S-L-I-D-E forward and off the basement foundation.

But first they had to remove my Dad's flagpole and one cedar tree.

Then one of the guys connected the winch cable to the house from the bobcat which would be doing the pulling.  There was another larger truck to the left of the bobcat to give more weight to that end of the operation.

They slid it forward about 6-8 feet at a time, and then moved the railroad ties from the back of the house up to the front so they could move it some more.  See the stacks of timbers stacked on the basement floor?

Moving timbers.  Notice where the side deck in now.  Just a little more to go.

Here are the stacks of timbers after it was completely off the foundation.

And here it is, all ready to get put on wheels.  We don't know when that day will be.  There are permits to get and Xcel Energy has be available to manage power lines as the house goes under them.  The person getting the house is very excited so that makes it all worthwhile!

And here are some of those rock foundation walls.  Our friends here in town are building a house with walls like this now in 2014.  These were from 1925.  I can just imagine all those "Larson boys" working hard to make these walls.  I'm glad someone else will be able to enjoy this house into the future.