"Can You Come Saw My House In Half?"

[Phorester]

Today I was in a remote part of my work area. Very rural, with a house only every few miles or so.  I went by one, now abandoned, that brought back this memory.......

Probably 25 years ago I got a call at my office from a lady that lived there at that time.  The house was an old farmhouse in the shape of a T, the top of the T being the front, the leg of the T extending out back.  This back part had not been used in years, she said.  She had closed the connecting door long ago when it had sprung leaks in the roof, never went in there anymore.

Well, it had been rotting for years.  But the front part was still good.   She called us because we were the forestry department so we must have chainsaws.  Since we were "the government", she wanted to know if 20 or 30 of us could come out for a free public service project for her that Saturday morning  and saw off the back of the house so the rot wouldn't spread into the "good" part of the house......... Said she wouldn't ask us to tear it down (How thoughtful.)  :, just wanted us to saw it off.

I found out later that she had been "referred" to us by the county fire marshal, who she had called first.  He thought it would be a great practical joke to sic her on us.  Turns out she was well known by the local rescue squad who had been there for several calls over the years. She lived by herself, but had mental problems (really??) and called him every so often with weird ideas like this. Always nice, able to take care of herself, just a tad off in her head.   She was so gracious with my denial of her request that I actually felt a little guilty.

Maybe I should have put this in the woodworking forum.........

[Okrafarmer]

You should have just said that you can do that kind of thing, just not for free. It would cost quite a bit.

[chain]

I saw a barn chain-sawed in half. All went well with at first as they lifted the front half with a wrecker and moved about 100'. But the other half, for whatever the reason, they forgot to brace-up...the first tug with the wrecker, it all came tumbling down, walls, loft, roof, everything. They did rebuild the barn though. Amusing.

[Magicman]

Smart lady to think about keeping the dreaded "house rot infection" from spreading to the rest of her home.   :  Maybe we should all have our homes vaccinated to prevent an epidemic outbreak.

[Al_Smith]

Strange as it might some once a disgrunted local person who lost half his property in a divorce settlement did in fact chainsaw a house into .On the diagnal no less .He also spent some time in the local cross bones hotel for his endeavers . The judge found no humor in it although I' m sure he rolled on the floor when he first heard it .:D

[Okrafarmer]

  That's an awful lot of nails, wires, and pipes to hit.

[Al_Smith]

I think the law took his saw away from him before he completed the job .I don't think he was reunited with his saw after his stay in the calaboose either .

[Brucer]

My doctor is having his house renovated.

I went by there a couple of months ago and one half of the house was literally gone. The only thing still spanning the whole width was the floor joists -- each one held in place with diagonal bracing. That looked really strange.

Later I noticed they had completely removed the old foundation walls on that side. Last week they had poured new footings and foundation walls and the floor joists were resting on the new wall.

I suspect their may be an issue with setbacks from the property lines. There is a local bylaw that says you don't have to meet the current setbacks if you are only renovating . Another bylaw says that to be considered a renovation, there must be at least one complete wall left standing, for the full height of the building.

I'm really curious to see if they tear down the other half when the new side is finished.

[Ianab]

Old houses are often picked up and transported by road here. If they are too big, they will actually be chainsawed in 1/2. 

Moved in 2 pieces, then joined back together again on new foundations.

Ian

[Okrafarmer]

They move them by road sometimes here too. It's a lot of permitting involved, sometimes these houses are well over 20 ft. wide and 16' or taller, which is over normal regs. Depending on size, it can  take a whole crew of guys going ahead and behind, getting traffic out of the way, taking down or lifting up power lines, phone lines, etc. Sometimes I just don't see how it is practical and profitable to do it.

[Cypressstump]

There really is a house down here that was 1/2'd via chainsaw due to a divorce gone sour. Apparently she did in fact get her 1/2 of the house...

I had often wondered about that house when I passed by, as it's oddly lopped off smack dab in the middle.

I'll get a picture to post, as it's an odd site to see and if the story I'm told is true,,,, very unique to boot.

[easymoney]

several years ago an uncle of mine had a house moved about 1/4 mile. it had to go across a creek and then up through a field. you could see the depressions in the field for years where it went. it was a single story house probably made mostly from mill run oak so no problem with it trying to come apart during it's travel.

[sandhills]

The neatest story I've heard about a house moving is from one of our landlords.  His mother grew up in this house and it was given to her as a wedding gift but they had to move it to a different location about a half mile away and this was done with a team of horses.  Anyhow they got it moved across the pasture which took a couple days with the team but they turned it a quarter turn before setting it back down in its new place and he said after that she never got her sense of direction back as long as she lived there, everything was off a bit.

[Okrafarmer]

 :D I guess in Nebraska you could move a house with a team of horses! Around here-- likely to be some hills involved!

[Jim_Rogers]

Many years ago, they moved a house from around the corner from me to a lot down the street.

The did it on a Sunday.

The got pass my place and got the house stuck between a rock and a hard place.
And had to back it up so that they could dig out the sides of the road to get through, which would take several days.

So they came to us and asked if they could park the house out front on a little stretch of road near our mailbox.
My mother said it was fine as it was a public road as long as they didn't block our mailboxes or driveways. So they parked the house between my driveway and my mother's.

While it was parked there, I saw this guy pull up in his pickup truck, reach up and unlock the door. He jump up onto the threshold and climbed into the house. He was in there for a short while. I was changing the storm window in the back screen door to a screen so I was standing there in the doorway watching.

Soon after he came out, reached up and relocked the door.

He saw me watching him, and came running over and up our driveway to tell me....

"I just had to feed the cat"..........

Jim Rogers

[JohnM]

I'm betting she wanted those troublesome 'deer crossing' signs moved too.  ;)