Anyone ever move a garage?

[south_paw]

Hi All,

My neighbor has a 2 car prefab garage that is only a few years old. He doesn't need it any longer. This garage would be perfect for my brother. He needs a new garage. The deal is, you take it down and its yours for free.. The good news is my neighbor and brother live a block away from each other.

One thing for sure is it will have to be disassembled to move it out from behind the house. It looks something like this,

My main concern is can it be disassembled without destroying it?

 

[7th Kahuna]

My main concern is can it be disassembled without destroying it?

I don't see why not. You said it was prefab, therefore it should be able to be broken down into those same pieces it arrived in. You might have to make some cuts to various trim pieces and probably replace or repair the roof. I'm guessing they would have installed prefab trusses and sheeted the roof onsite. Can you get any info on the original construction and how it was assembled on site? That's where I would start. The company that installed it might even be able to move it.

Alternatively you could lift it and roll it over to your yard.

 

[south_paw]

Thanks. We are going to look at it tomorrow and see how it was assembled. My neighbor said that it was built in 4 hours so I guess it was delivered in 2 main sections and fastened together.

 

[7th Kahuna]

We had a 10 x 12 prefab shed delivered earlier this year. It consisted of 4 walls, a pile of roof trusses, roof sheeting, flashing, roofing, trim pieces, and a door. They just stood up the walls and started nailing. It would be very simple to take apart again.

With a larger structure, they may have brought the roof partially assembled. No matter what, with the proper motivation you should be able to move it and make any repairs for far less than the cost of starting over. I certainly would be willing to go for it.

 

[Higgins]

How about moving intact, if it's only a block away?

AL

 

[Higgins]

Sorry, misread the original thread!

Yes, a friend just moved a 14 x 22 shed barn!

Put in all sorts of cross braces, used a tractor to lift it and cribbed the ends, then backed his lowboy trailer under it. Waited till the weekend, the Sun 5 AM, he went a couple miles down RT47 to his house!

Now hes waiting for the ground to dry out a little so he can move it to its final resting spot!

With something that wide, you may want to see what a professional mover wouds want to relocate it! The biggest issue is trees over the road, along with any power / phone lines!

AL

 

[south_paw]

Found this cool video on youtube that gives me some insight on how it's done. Gotta say it's ingenious. I hope the one we look at tomorrow is built this way.

 

[7th Kahuna]

That video is pretty cool. Made sense that they would deliver it in larger pieces but the hinged roof I wasn't expecting. I wonder if the interior wing walls dividing the two halves of the garage came out once it was fully assembled? I would hope so. Good luck tomorrow.

 

[HTGTS350]

I was involved in moving a 600x250ft workshop, big job, took nearly 2 years from start to finish. Something small like that one should be quite easy if you are careful and mark all the parts for reassembly.

 

[CNGsaves]

Found this cool video on youtube that gives me some insight on how it's done. Gotta say it's ingenious. I hope the one we look at tomorrow is built this way.

Great video to show remarkable construction and skill at setting those halves of garage. The airbag trailer that goes up and down . . AND . . . left to right is awesome.

The hinged roof is way too cool.

Given the excellent construction of the pre-fab garage pieces, I would say Go For It on moving such a short distance.

Take lots of pics and build a GJ thread . . . we want to see pics !!

 

[jkwilson]

My late father-in-law moved a garage by backing his flatbed truck inside, jacking up the garage, placing beams across the truck bed and anchoring them to the garage. Dropped the jacks and drove to the new site and reversed the process onto his new footer.

 

[volaredon]

Sorry, misread the original thread!

Yes, a friend just moved a 14 x 22 shed barn!

Put in all sorts of cross braces, used a tractor to lift it and cribbed the ends, then backed his lowboy trailer under it. Waited till the weekend, the Sun 5 AM, he went a couple miles down RT47 to his house!

Now hes waiting for the ground to dry out a little so he can move it to its final resting spot!

With something that wide, you may want to see what a professional mover wouds want to relocate it! The biggest issue is trees over the road, along with any power / phone lines!

AL

yup I have helped out on similar projects before.
You will need a small army but if you have some good iron pipe, you can set the walls on this and roll the garage down the road (you did say its only a block) but you'll need people at each corner and plenty of pieces of pipe and as you roll it off of a piece of pipe, take that piece back up front for the garage to roll onto, and repeat the process til you get it where its going...

 

[ssentt]

My late father-in-law moved a garage by backing his flatbed truck inside, jacking up the garage, placing beams across the truck bed and anchoring them to the garage. Dropped the jacks and drove to the new site and reversed the process onto his new footer.

Seen similiar type move but done with a flatbed semi trailer and lots of bracing.

 

[Deltarat]

I moved a 40x40 pole barn by backing a 36' metal sided trailer under it and put I beams across the top and jacked it up under the plates and lifted it. Moved it about 10 miles and set it back up.

 

[Playwme]

One thing for sure is it will have to be disassembled to move it out from behind the house.

Good to see that respondents actually read the question before answering it.

Don't see why it couldn't be dissasembled easily, depending on construction. I pull down a couple a year. Ours are generally a steel and timber frame clad in galvanised or colour bond sheeting that's held on with screws so they come apart pretty easy. A double garage I can pull down in about 6 hrs by myself, and fit it all on a small truck with a 15x7 foot flat tray.

If yours was prefab then it should be even easier. You may have to rig up a rack on the side of a truck (think glass rack on a glaziers truck) to move each wall as a full unit. Because you're dealing with larger pieces you may require more hands to move bits into position. The heaviest parts of my tear downs are usually the doors and every other piece weighs less than 50 pounds.