PDA

View Full Version : House Boat, Anyone?


Canoez
06-19-2008, 03:07 PM
http://media.komonews.com/images/080617_house_on_the_move.jpg

From KOMO:

HUNTS POINT, Wash. -- Tuesday was moving day for one huge home. The whole house began its big move to Canada.

The owners of the 30-year-old Scandinavian Tudor love their lot, but want to build their own home. So they sold the home to a house-moving company for a $1 and a donation to Habitat for Humanity.

The sale was simple, but moving the 3,300-square foot brick home and carriage house off a bog and onto a barge was not so simple.

"When you have a house that's this heavy - about 140 tons - and we're moving it with the brick in place, you have to make sure that everything is all hooked together right and the bricks are held in place. And that makes it particularly tough to do," said Jeff McCord with Nickel Bros. House Moving.

The house is headed to Vancouver Island, where its new owners live. The buyers say recycling the house easily save them $600,000, because they couldn't have built a home so big for what they paid.

And the sellers can rest assured the their former home is going to a good home. The home was built by a sailor and even has a chartroom. One of the new owners is a ferry captain who especially appreciates the nautical themes throughout the home.

"We have a great new house, more than we could have asked," said the new owner, Jennifer O'Farrell. "We're saving the landfill, saving trees."

The movers even used vegetable oil in the hydraulics in case something seeps into the water.

As for the sellers, they plan to build a Mediterranean villa.

TimH
06-19-2008, 03:46 PM
those guys keep moving bigger and bigger stufff.

SamSam
06-19-2008, 05:08 PM
those guys keep moving bigger and bigger stufff.

I wonder about someone carting off the USA.

goodbasil
06-21-2008, 12:13 AM
It was taken ashore today (friday) in Fanney Bay B.C.

boylesboats
06-21-2008, 12:19 AM
Now that is what I called "Big Moving Day"...

bamamick
06-21-2008, 01:11 AM
We were offered a beautiful old home on Government St. in Mobile for $1. All we had to do was move it. The problem was that to move it was difficult with all of the old oaks on Government St. There was only one spot available to move it without cutting up the house: a vacant lot just two or three spots down the street. The moving and set up were going to run the cost up to $75K once you restored everything, but the people who owned the lot would not sell it to us. These folks owned a small diner that specialized in breakfast, and their concern was that the house, which was basically three stories of old hardwood floors and interior paneling, with a stucco and wood sided exterior, would block people's view of the restaurant as they drove down the road. They were afraid it would negatively affect their business (which went broke within a very short time of this anyway).

In the end the house was stripped and demolished. The newspaper people made it sound as if the house's owner was the bad guy, but it really wasn't his fault. He tried and tried to find someone to take it. He tried to donate it to the city. In the end it just couldn't be worked out.

Mickey Lake