Moving portable buildings

[cstocks]

KYFarmer,

It rained for about an hour today so it is looking doubtful that a truck will be able to get on the lot by Wed or Thur since more rain is forecast for tonight and tomorrow. I guess Iwill find out when the time comes if my tractor will pull the buildings or not. Fly Rodr has a tractor just like mine and he stated in his post that he moved an 8x12 building with no problems. That is encouraging even though the buildings I need to move are both bigger. Time will tell...

 

[MossRoad]

Put heavy cross braces between the skids front and rear. Getting them loose from the ground will be the hardest part. You might want to get them out of their ruts while it is dry. Get them up on some pipe or 2X lumber now. And a dab of grease on the skids will help "greasing the skids" so to speak. Once you get them moving, you shouldn't have aproblem, unless, like others have stated, they dig in.

 

[KYFARMER]

Cstock, if you are used to tractor operation just ignore what I am saying. I do not want you to fell like I am talking down to you.
When you hook onto the buildings, hook as close as you can in order to pull up on the runners. Also avoid sharp turns as they will cause additional stress on the runners. If you have some larger runners that you could put under the building by jacking them up, it may make them easier to pull.
Let us know.

 

[cstocks]

No, KYFarmer I didn't feel that you were talking down to me... I hope I didn't sound defensive. I was just being philosophical. Either my tractor will pull the buildings or it won't... hopefully it will./w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I am no tractor pro... have about 130 hours on this tractor and about that many on my first tractor before I got rid of it. That is why I am asking for advice and suggestions. I appreciate your advice and everyone elses too.

I will have to make one turn but hopefully it won't be too sharp. The buildings are sitting on the front of the lot with a bayou about 50 ft. to the left, Trinity bay directly behind and a fence about 50 ft. to the other side. I plan on hooking on the the first building on the bayou side and swinging as wide as I possibly can without getting too close to the edge of the bayou. Once I make that one swing I will be able to pull it toward the front far corner of the lot at a much more gradual angle. The second building will follow the first one so I will have much more room to swing it around.

I think it is good advice to brace between the skids and I will do that before I make a move. I have several lengths of logging chain that I can use to pull with or I can also borrow some cables from work if I decide to go that route. There is a 90% rain for tomorrow so looks like I better get my game plan together to get this done Wed. morning.

Thanks again to everyone for your help.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Chris,

Now that it's rained again, I have another idea for you. I think you could probably do this job with a winch, the truck, your tractor and a snatch block without ever going onto the ground with the truck or your tractor.

Run the winch cable from the truck to load. Attach a snatch block to the cable and run chain from it to your tractor. Look at the run of cable from the snatch block to the load and position your tractor at the same angle from that line as your truck forming a 'Y' with the truck and tractor at the top points of it.

When your load reaches the snatch block release tension on the line and remove the snatch block. Now all you have is the line from the winch on the truck to the load. Simply pull it to the truck and up onto the bed. Viola' No tire tracks at all. Just slide marks on the wet grass from your skids. /w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif

Pretty cool, huh? /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif I hope I explained this well enough to be understandable. I swear it's almost easier to set up and do than to explain in print. /w3tcompact/icons/hmm.gif Anyhow, I hope this helps. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[cstocks]

If I understand what you are saying you mean a setup like the quick sketch I drew in the attachment? If so, you can see that due to the location of the truck and the building, even though the lot is not to scale, that the angle would be very sharp to pull against the building. The truck would have to be positoned so in order to stay off the lot and on hard ground so I am not sure how I could do it this way. Am I understanding this right? I guess I could position the tractor on the other side of the lot but that is the low side and might not be an improvement.

 

[cstocks]

Let's try that again...

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

First of all... Neat sketch! If I could have done that I'd have saved a lot of typing. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Secondly, it's a very accurate depiction of what I was trying to describe. I was thinking the building was at a 90 degree angle from where it sits. From what I now see, I'd probably jack up the building and put some rollers under it at a 45 degree angle between where it sits and where you would pull it to assist with that first sharp turn then proceed as described. The bigger the rollers the better. Good luck. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Rowski]

Don't forget to block the wheels on the tractor. Also don't let anyone sit on or near the tractor. If the cable lets go from the building it going right at the tractor. As mentioned the static friction will be tremendous but once moving it will be a lot less.

You may want to try to pull the building in the direction that thee skids point, to help remove the static friction. I don't know if you situation will allow this.

 

[cstocks]

Thanks Gary but the sketch was as easy as using a snatch block and a long cable to move a building!/w3tcompact/icons/wink.gif

Or... I could position the tractor about 2/3 of the way down the lot and reduce the angle that the building would be pulled from. Might take two tries...