A friend of mine wants to build a Sobon shed, but also be able to make it portable. He probably only needs to move it once. What would be a good way to do this? I am thinking of making the long sills into skids, and then lifting it up onto it's new foundation and cutting off the excess sill that is outside the shed after the move. But I am not sure how the frame will tolerate being towed around. The reason it will need to be moved is that when they clear more property they will want the shed at the new location. Any ideas would be appreciated.

Dave

We moved a school house with skids and I think if you had a decent road (flat) it should tow fine. If it doesn't have knee braces at the bottom of the wall add some tempories. the longer the better. also make sure your skids are braced diagonally as well. While your notion of using the buildings sills could work it won't give you much ground clearance. The school we moved we installed new sills . Jacked the building. Inserted 2 30' skid timbers with a steel draw bar and had the skids diagonally braced inside. We had a large tractor pulling a small dozer pushing and about 20 yokels giving advice. It now rests in Ledyard NY, near Ithaca

Dave,

definitely plenty of bracing in all directions--walls and floor

Adding skids instead of using the sill as skids gives you more clearance and it won't ruin the sills dragging them around.

I have seen at a local sawmill, he did something similar but not a timber frame. He built the shed on skids and when he needed to move it he used some old steel pipe for rollers and just pushed it with his loader. Rolling is probably easier on the structure than draging it.

I think we'll probably make a drag sled out of timbers and put the building on it to move it. We have a Cat D-6 on site. Thanks for the input.

Dave

I moved a cottage a year ago spring and it was a wet site but I had my 555d backhoe on site and we used pipe rollers for that one. We laid a gravel road and using the sled arrangement I discribe earlier and laid 2x8 planks for track. It worked well but was a little slow. I used the same 30' sled beams we used at the school house. That was a mile and a half and it did chew em up a bit.

Move it in the winter. Level and pack the way you want to go, snow is cheap. Of course you traction power will have to have chains and I would expect you would want to snub the building if you go down any slopes.
Have you though about using a temporary roof and siding so you could just disassemble it and move it in pieces?
Bob

I don't know how long this building is going to have to be in the first location before it gets moved, but I'll ask next time I'm out thier way. I am thinking moving it whole is going to be the best way. We could make an I-beam sled and pull it on that. I don't think the Cat is going to have any trouble moving it though. Thanks for the input.

Dave