It’s been a day and a half, but Haven has buildings! Again, they are fir-framed storage sheds once used to store grain. They are normally constructed on skids to make them easy to move.<\/p>\n
The guy who moves graineries, J, has done hundreds of these. In a best case scenario, which is about 95% of the time, he just winches the graineries up, slides a dolly onto the rear of the side skids, attaches a hitch to the middle skid, hooks the hitch up to his truck, and away he goes. Average time from arrival on site to departure: 20 minutes.<\/p>\n
My graineries were in the 5% that do not go smoothly.<\/p>\n
The smaller one, which will be a shed, was not attached to its skids. J and Charles were shocked since they had come out recently to scout out the buildings and this completely escaped them.<\/p>\n
Followed hours of trying to get the building attached securely to the skids, including a run back to Charles’ place for parts. We had arrived on site around 9:30 and didn’t get on the road with the first grainery till almost 1:30. I had complete faith in J by this point. He’s a bit of a loud mouth, but there was no cockiness here, just expertise.<\/p>\n
It was slow going through a pasture and up a rutty private road to a gravel road, and then it was smooth going all the way to Haven.<\/p>\n
When we got on site in the morning, I expected the buildings to be smaller than I remembered. They were bigger! I had this vision of Haven being completely crowded so I was relieved when the smaller building rolled into Haven and I saw that both would fit comfortably and still leave room for a clothesline, garden, guest RV parking spot, and Moya parking spot.<\/p>\n
I had originally planned to stick both buildings together, but tree stumps and overhead lines nixed that plan. The shed wound up at the southwest corner of the property, near the street. Right now, its opening is right on the street, but Charles will make me a door on the side and the existing hole will be covered.<\/p>\n
Having the first building in place, I could see where the other one would go and I hope it would be far enough south to clear my office window. My clothesline plans changed when I realised that instead of putting in posts, I could just string the clothesline between the two buildings!<\/p>\n
It took a bit of time to get the first grainery settled and reasonably parallel to the curb. We had something to drink and set off to get the other one.<\/p>\n
The larger grainery was on skids, but the middle skid, the one the hitch is supposed to attach to, was too wide! J got under there with a chainsaw and shaved the extra width off! After that, it was fairly quick going to get it loaded. I could tell that J and Charles fading fast.<\/p>\n
It was much slower going bringing the larger grainery back to Haven as it is much heavier. It was a bit of work to back it in because the ground is so soft. I was really disappointed when J dropped it the first time as it was right between the RV and the neighbour’s shed, meaning a very closed in view from the office window. But after repositioning his truck, he was able to get it back just far enough for me to be happy with the positioning.<\/p>\n
I don’t deserve any credit for all the hard work today. I documented the whole event and occasionally fetched parts, but mostly stayed out of the way. Charles and J are my heroes! I can’t believe how hard they worked today.<\/p>\n
J originally quoted me $500, but because of the extra time, he asked for another $200. He hadn’t expected me to have the $500 today, so he said the extra can wait until I see him on the wagon train in a couple of months. $700 to get these two buildings on site is a bargain! Remember, the buildings themselves cost me nothing!<\/p>\n
Charles and I started to work out a plan of attack for the buildings, but that will be the subject of a future post. They’re on site now and the rest can wait for a bit. The only thing I am going to try really hard for is to scrape the money to put a tin roof on them this year. We shall see.<\/p>\n
There is short video after the pictures.<\/p>\n\n\t\t