Moving the Original House

When we decided to build a new house on our same lot, we knew we’d need to take down the house that was on it – which was a little sad since the structure of the house was in decent condition. Nonetheless, we included the demo costs in our build budget. When we met with the builder to go through final numbers, he asked how we felt about seeing if someone would want to move the house off the lot to help save our demo costs. The thought of that had never crossed our minds. Do people really do that? It was certainly a good option to look into.

Our builder connected us with a real estate investor who came to check out the house to see if it would be something he’d be interested in and if he thought it would work to move it. After a quick look, the investor was very interested in taking the main floor of our walkout rambler home. The investor had a few inspectors come out to check out the house to validate it was structurally sound to be moved and travel on the road, and a contractor to do the fixes after the house was moved. Then, the structural mover came out to work out the plans for moving it. Meanwhile, the investor poured a foundation on a lot he owned for the house to sit on after it was moved.

Pictures from before the house movers started.

In order to move the house, they first cut holes in the sides of the house that were opposite of the way the floor joists ran. Then, they slid large beams all the way through every few feet. They stacked railroad ties in a square in four spots to hold up the house.

After that, they started separating the basement from the main floor. When that was done, they started to raise the house slowly with jacks. Once they got it just high enough, they would slide in another layer of railroad ties.

They did this over and over until it was high enough for them to load it onto a trailer. The tricky part with our driveway is it slopes and there is a power line to deal with too, so they had to raise it more than they typically would in order to get it on the trailer.

Once they got the house on the trailer, they had people UNDER the trailer to make sure nothing dragged since our road is narrow, and another person on the roof to lift the power lines and to trim trees so the house would fit down our narrow road.

It was a tight fit, but she made it through all the trees! Huge thanks to our neighbors for capturing some of the moving photos for us!

In total, the process to prep the house to be lifted, the lifting, and moving the house took 3 days. The house is now used as a rental property in Howard Lake, MN. We are so happy our builder suggested this as an option to not only lower our demo costs, but also to save materials from unnecessarily going into landfills.