Thread: Weatherboard house relocation

Hi guys,

I'd like to ask if anyone has experience of moving a house from one location to another?

We live in a beautiful 1930s weatherboard house in Sydney (see photo attached).

The origianl owner worked at a timber yard and the house is made of the most gorgeous hardwood, possibly jarrah. The cladding, frames and some floorbaords are this hardwood.

We are renting and the current owners want to knock down the house and build their own new house. They will demolish the house. It seems criminal to loose such a beautiful house so we want to save it by moving it to a block of land.

It's a tricky problem mainly becuase of the access to the house which is down a narrow lane. One house mover said it was just too narrow to get the semi down.

Some other options are:

1 - Knock down the house so it can be put flat onto the trailer then rebuild at the other end

2 - Salvage as much of the wood as possible and build a new house using as much of the wood as possible.

I'd like to ask if you have any other thoughts? Any previous experience of moving a house, any recommendations for who to talk to? Any advice on stripping the cladding more easily? Pointers to a more appropriate forum if this is not the right one? Any thoughts at all would be very welcome.

I'm very gald to have found this forum and I hope that someone can point us in the right direction. We really do want to save the house.

Thanks, Alison and Stephen

Look in the yellow pages under house relocation services!!

It's a job for specialists, and they will tell you what can and can't be done. It's pretty common to cut a house and move it in two or three pieces, but it's not work for the faint hearted, or for those that don't know what they are doing.

The experts have jacking and tilting trailers so they can actually raise the load over obstacles, or get it under power lines (mostly).

Get a quote too!

Most shire councils are pretty particular about relocation houses because so many of them are owner builders destined to end in heartache, so don't expect an easy run with approvals, and expend to pay a substantial bond refundable on completion.

Having said that, it's as common in Qld as Victorians towing caravans, and you can certainly end up with a house for a lot less than the cost of building one from scratch.

good luck

P

Alison and StephenYou are contemplating doing the right thing but lots of things will seem to work against you.

I used to do work on house lifting trailers and service trucks for a QLD mob and attended quite a few sites where houses were being moved. Midges advice is good and its definetley not for the faint hearted when somebody gets a chainsaw and cuts your house in half:eek: .

The problem with recycled timber in new structural work is that most builders will refuse to use it; a) because of the law b) they can't stand the liability. Having said that recycled timber is widley used in non-structural items such as window frames, plinths, mouldings, sills, floorboards etc. The real hard yards are having the time and equipment to carefully demolish a house, de-nail, sort stack store and transport the timber.

Timber recyclers may be interested in the project. These are firms who put together a team of gorrillas with circular saws and crow bars to reclaim "most" of the useable timber from old buildings.

Time will be your enemy and don't underestimate the amount of work involved. House relocation is your best option.

Cheers and good luck.

Hello, The comments above are spot on, the only things I would add are to get FIRM exact quotes, the drive away no more to pay kind. Detail the stump/footings type , if stairs etc are to be reinststed.

You probably dont have heritage listing problems, but site access for the equipment and route access are #1 considerations. The power, train, each local council area you pass through will all have an imput. You also have to gain approval to put the house on your site & that will probably bring a set of conditions and a bond. Photos and a plan are required here.

The house will possibly have to be cut and the roof removed. Thats no great problem, a good removalist can put it back as good as new. It can be a worthwhile way to get a good home at a discount price, best of luck, Bill