Moving the Trailer...

Clear the way, we're coming through...

It was a heart stopping moment when the trailer fell of its blocks; then it came to a grinding halt.

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How it all began; moving the trailer...

Our property is lovely - I can't lie.  It's on a rocky slope with cliffs behind to the north, facing south so that it always has lots of light, even in the winter.

Sadly, here in British Columbia and probably lots of other places, the only way that most of us can afford a piece of acreage is to also buy a ratty old trailer so that we only need to come up with a down payment of 5%. 

Acreage without a house on it requires a much larger down payment, which generally puts it out of reach of many.  Hence, the ugly and soul sucking mobile homes.

Because this one had reached the end of it's sad and miserable life, was infested with mold, mice and a million and one other problems, it's not worth handing that along to a new owner, so we went ahead and dragged it out of the way of our project. 

Having the existing septic, water supply and electricity handy made this all doable; having to relocate all the services would have held up the whole thing, probably for years - we just don't have time to waste.

Here's the story in pictures of how we went about this;

What a beauty - not...It's time for the mobile home to go...
Dragging it off the blocks was the easy part with a skidder...All went well until the blocks underneath got jammed...
...but that was as far as he could tow it...A structure that crumbles under the slightest stress is no good...
Time to call in reinforcements - the big wheel loaderReinforcements arrive in the shape of a big wheel loader...
Ahh, that's better - two machines are better than one...Two machines are always better than one...
A few more dents won't matter...Brute force was required to move this hunk o' junk along...
Notice how close the back end is to the Mercantile shack...A little close to the power shack here...
A close call, but now it's past - the rest was easy......but it made it by without too much heart failure.

Now the trailer is parked in the driveway, waiting to be dismantled for scrap.

You may be wondering what we did with all our stuff - some was moved into sheds, like Bliss, and the Mercantile is serving as our cook shack.  Other things are stored in the Eggporeum, and Glory Be the root cellar. Lots of things are still inside the trailer, waiting for us to retrieve them from the mice.

What's next? Site preparation, of course!

Later; in the end, the trailer was completely demolished and anything that could be salvaged, was.  Including the roofing that went on as siding, and even the 17" siding which was used under the mudroom.



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