Moving a garage

[acer66]

Hi,
I did a search and nothing came up so here is my question.
We have a ~20x20 detached garage with two bays, one bay has gravel in it and the other broken concrete.
It sits on a strip foundation which more or less gone but the garage itself is in great shape.
My idea was to cut the garage of the strip foundation, 4x4`s are going into the strip foundation right now,
raise the garage poor new foundation and raise the new final height of the garage
with 2 or 3 rows of cinder blocks on top of the slap.

While that seems doable it might make more sense to move the garage and but back into place later.

Has anyone done that or has a suggestion how to do it or is it a not so smart idea?

If it matters I would also need to do some re-framing because I want to loose most of the inner wall and replace the 2 small gates with a big door and a man door.

All the utilities need to be redone anyway.

Thank you

 

[rkevins]

have you talked to a house moveing company? they could have a way to move it or how to jack and crib it up

 

[Zeke]

Actually there are several threads here about raising a structure. Try some different terms.

What is the construction, wood siding, stucco?

Most say to bolt a ledger board on the inside, outside or both and just push it up enough to do the work. Of course you'll need some jacks.

 

[acer66]

Sorry, I worded it not clear, rasing is not an issue for me, I just did that with our barn.
I was wondering how tricky is to move it, the outside is tar shingles, roof and walls.
I might be totally out there because I was thinking something like, raise the garage, put some reinforcement in there so it can rest on my buddies flat bed truck and just move it out of the way.

 

[bigbubba]

Sorry, I worded it not clear, rasing is not an issue for me, I just did that with our barn.
I was wondering how tricky is to move it, the outside is tar shingles, roof and walls.
I might be totally out there because I was thinking something like, raise the garage, put some reinforcement in there so it can rest on my buddies flat bed truck and just move it out of the way.

If his truck has a long enough bed it should work,But i want some pictures of it when you do it! Should be a comical sight! Good luck and keep us posted.

 

[bikeralan]

Bolt some crossmembers ( prob 3 or 4) from wall to wall just a shade lower than the trailer, raise it up back trailer in and lower slowly.
Just take your time and move slow.
Alan

 

[NUTTSGT]

Your thinking is inlinewith what could be used as one method. Many times a dump truck is used to raise the garage and move it away.

 

[acer66]

If his truck has a long enough bed it should work,But i want some pictures of it when you do it! Should be a comical sight! Good luck and keep us posted.

I still have to figure out if that is really possible but
I do not want to damage my buddies truck.
I am really in an early stage trying to figure out what might be the easiest way to do the slap and foundation.
Most of the work is going to be done me except the concrete slap.
I just do not end up on a fail thread

 

[KEH]

There is a lot of weight in the building as described. Don't know what kind of trailer would handle it, unless it's a low boy semitrailer.

KEH

 

[acer66]

Bolt some crossmembers ( prob 3 or 4) from wall to wall just a shade lower than the trailer, raise it up back trailer in and lower slowly.
Just take your time and move slow.
Alan

This what I had roughly in mind.

Your thinking is inlinewith what could be used as one method. Many times a dump truck is used to raise the garage and move it away.

Cool, seems it's time to get the tape measure out.

 

[BD1]

Can you jack it up and use pipe rollers to move it out of way ??

Fasten horizontal 2x10's to inside of stud walls. Get I beams to go from

wall to wall that will be cut to fit below 2x10's. Jack up I beams up against

2x10's until at trailer height. Back trailer underneath.

 

[Sureshot]

I would try to support some of the roof weight directly onto the truck. I have seen them moved with the bottom of the rafters sitting on top a truck box and the walls hanging from the roof.

It would depend on what equipment you have available and how the garage is built, finished, and the height of the ceiling.

 

[kbs2244]

If you are comfortable with the lifting part, that is all I would do.
No sense making it harder than it has to be.

 

[ihredo4]

Bolt some crossmembers ( prob 3 or 4) from wall to wall just a shade lower than the trailer, raise it up back trailer in and lower slowly.
Just take your time and move slow.
Alan

Add some verticle members to tie these crossmembers to the roof trusses also. We moved a 12x22 garage about 10 miles that way.

Good Luck and pictures would be nice. Heck since your not leaving your property it would be a pice of cake.

 

[acer66]

If you are comfortable with the lifting part, that is all I would do.
No sense making it harder than it has to be.

That`s what I wanted to do in the beginning but than I thought moving the garage out of the way might make things easier.


I will take a bunch of pics no matter how I am going to do it.

 

[Zeke]

If you are comfortable with the lifting part, that is all I would do.
No sense making it harder than it has to be.

Exactly. And I thought the OP said he could go either way but wanted to know the best way.

Well, it's two different operations — lifting and moving, and needs additional equipment to move not to mention driving back over the newly constructed stem walls.

 

[spclk]

20+ years ago it was common to move garages, I know because I had this done when my neighbor built a bigger garage and gave the old one to me.

I hired a company that specialized in moving 1 & 1.5 car garages, but the work is the same. There are two parts to this story - what we expected and what happened.

I'll start with the former, as that describes the method typically used. What we thought would show up that day was a guy with a pickup truck, a flatbed trailer, a bunch of guys and some jacks - as well as a bunch of beams (2x8 or 2x10) of the appropriate length to fasten between the walls which would then be jacked up in concert to a height where the trailer would be backed underneath. Then the jacks would be lowered to rest the beams on the trailer and he would drive over to my house.

That's the usual method and I've seen it done many times - but that's not what happened on this day

One guy shows up with a truck and a tubular trailer - the trailer has a hydraulic pump and a number of rams pointing in a number of directions, vertical, horizontal, probably 12-16 circuits (rams) in all. He runs these rams out until he's nearly in contact with the studs in the walls, there's a little crook in the end of the ram which he pushes into the stud and then nails through the metal into the stud, securing like this all the way around the garage; 2-3 rams in each side, 3 in the back and 2 in the front.

He then proceeds to lift the garage off the ground and maneuver it to his hearts delight. When it comes to getting it around the house, where it was a little tight, he can slide it left/right/up/down, even tilt if necessary. So, an hour after he shows up, the old garage has been moved to my house. By One Guy.

One of the neighbors said, "At least Jesse James had a gun". To which I responded, "Here's a man who designed a machine to do the work of 4 men. So, he's got quite a few thousand dollars in his rig, far more than the normal garage mover does, but he never has to pay for hired help. And, he does the work in less than half the time". That's a FINE use of intelligence and capital!

So, after all of that (maybe tl;dr) - yes you can get it moved relatively easy, but only if the opening is all the way across -- having two doors and a pillar between them will make for a substantially more interesting move.

 

[bikeralan]

We bought a house and pole barn 36x40 from a local guy that moves houses.
Both were moved about 45 miles.
They cut the poles flush with bottom of skirtboards, put it on cribbing and I put in a block foundation and plates, looks like it has been there all along.
The house came in 2 pieces 24x24 and 24x40, I did the foundation for that also.
A lot of hard work but got a nice shop and house for about 30,000.
Alan