Picking Up and Moving (the House)

By Ann Cameron Siegal
Special to The Washington Post
Saturday, April 28, 2007

Anne Marie Gingher and her husband, Anthony Frederick, were preparing to fix up their tiny bungalow in Baltimore County when they fell in love with an old house slated for demolition.

"Wouldn't it be nice if we could move that house and attach it to ours?" said Frederick, a local musician.

The stained-glass windows they admired on previous trips past the 1908 foursquare had already been removed, but after getting permission to explore inside, they found original mahogany woodwork, most of which had never been painted, in pristine condition. The high ceilings, pocket doors, transom windows, beveled glass, oak floors, cast-iron bathroom fixtures and original slate roof were all in character with their own house, built in 1913. Clapboard siding was hidden under asbestos shingles.

Gingher spent the next two years researching how to move a house. "I didn't have a clue," she said, laughing at the naivete of the first question she asked: "Can I just have it unplugged and plug it back in?"

She talked to architects, engineers, land surveyors, utility workers and county zoning officials. She met the Gry family, who lived next door to the house she wanted to move.

The house, built by the Grys' relatives almost a century ago, had been vacant for years.

Vivian Gry's stories of family gatherings infused the property with a personality. Gingher was hooked.

Sizing Up the Benefits

At first it seems that emotion and a preservation streak, not financial practicality, motivate house moves. Although Gingher bought the 63-ton house for a pittance -- $5,000 -- the cost to jack it up and move it the quarter-mile to her lot was about $35,000.

Building a new foundation and dealing with permits, overhead utilities and insurance added $100,000. Still to come are the costs of attaching the two houses, remodeling, bringing plumbing and electrical systems up to code, and then landscaping.

In all, the project will cost more than $300,000. However, Gingher and Frederick will quadruple the size of their 950-square-foot home and gain architectural features that are hard to duplicate today.

Houses are moved for many reasons, including subdividing a land parcel or getting out of the way of development.

And sometimes the house doesn't have to be moved far -- sometimes it just needs to be raised a bit because it's in a flood plain or because the owners need more headroom in the basement.

Lewis Beardsley, at 6 feet 1 inch, found the 5-foot-6 beams in the basement of his 1920s Arlington farmhouse too much of a head-bumper. But raising a small frame house three feet can cost $16,000 to $25,000.

Add some more for masonry, Beardsley said, and "for $25,000 to $30,000, you're back to an unfinished basement, but now with eight-foot headroom."

For Beardsley, preserving the streetscape in Westover, one of Arlington's oldest neighborhoods, was worth the cost. "Too often people think newer is better," he said, pointing out that when people tear down houses, they not only chip away at the personality of the original community but also lose the stories that convey with older homes.

"You can't re-create authenticity," he said.

Soon he will have a 21st-century basement while maintaining the home's original look above. "And with the house set higher," he said, "you can get bigger windows and more light, making a basement more like a ground floor."

Erik and Patricia VandeMeulebroecke had similar thoughts. They needed more room for their family of five but didn't want an addition jutting out behind their 1922 Arlington bungalow.

"We want it to still look like a small house," Patricia VandeMeulebroecke said.

From Here to There

Whether moving or raising a house, the preparation is basically the same.

Everything has to be cleaned out of the basement or from under the crawl space. Utilities are disconnected. Adjacent plants or trees may need to be removed. Surprisingly, furniture often remains in the house.

A system of steel beams and hydraulic jacks is put in place to lift the house off its foundation. If the house is just being raised, wooden cribs made of 6-by-6 stacked beams support it while foundation walls are built up.

Once Jason Ayers of Ayers House Movers in Fredericksburg had everything set to raise the VandeMeulebroecke house, a remote switch started a hydraulic jacking system that lifted the structure 14 inches in 30 seconds. There was no creaking or groaning.

"There's definitely some poetry in it," Erik VandeMeulebroecke said.

Bill Patram, who moved 2,160 structures in 38 years running his own business, illustrates the care involved in moving a house with stories of how his crew would occasionally leave open soda cans on the floor. Once the house was relocated, they would find their drinks intact.

Patram, retired since 1990 but still sharing his experience with others, learned to move houses at age 11 by hand-cranking capstan winches while sitting on an inverted bucket in the back of a truck. Technology has changed the process considerably since then.

When done right, moving a house is a well-orchestrated process involving multiple mobilizations. For Gingher's move, done in the middle of the night to limit traffic disruption, teams of workers from telephone, power and electric companies labored in coordination with those from the highway and police departments -- clearing the way as the house, perched on dollies and airplane tires, was pulled slowly along by a Mack truck.

Workers removed stoplights, lifted mailboxes and shut down the 13,000-volt power lines that paralleled the route. They traded occasional calls of "Okay?" and "Got it!"

Moving crews worked alongside the house as it was underway, adjusting the hydraulic dollies to keep everything level.

As the house passed, other crews put everything back in order.

Although it's preferable to have the new foundation ready before moving a house, Gingher's house was backed onto its new site and jacked up to allow for digging the foundation later -- a far more costly process, but it worked better for her.

No Detail Too Small

Before you call a house mover, have a clear understanding of what you want to do. It's impossible for a mover to estimate costs without knowing a lot about the house, route and site. "Do your homework" is the unanimous advice from the experts.

Steve Dziuba of Dziuba Building Movers in Millerton, Pa., said that by getting as much information upfront as possible, he can determine whether the move will be cost-effective.

First, think about the house itself. Gather blueprints and photos. Before touching the building, contractors will need to know where main posts and beams are and what additions have been built.

Some questions you should be prepared to answer:

· Are you moving a 52-ton bungalow or an 800-ton stone house? Are porches or chimneys involved?

· Are you moving the house down the street or scooting it over on the same lot? Or are you just raising the house to gain more headroom in the basement?

· What kind of foundation do you have? Is there a crawl space? How much maneuvering room is there around the house?

Next, look at the route the house will be moved along, whether you own the proposed lot or are thinking of purchasing one. "We can move anything," said Jerry Matyiko of Expert House Movers of Maryland, the company that moved the Cape Hatteras lighthouse in North Carolina. "But there's not a thing we can do if it won't fit."

"Realistically," Ayers said, "you can take a house as far as the road will let you."

That's not far in the congested Eastern corridor because there are so many obstacles. Ninety percent of local moves are within two miles. However, even ranch houses won't always fit under overpasses. "It really comes down to measurements," Ayers said.

Some other points to consider:

· If the house is moving beyond the current property line, the straightest route might not work. Remember, you have to add at least four feet in height for the wheels and beams under the house.

· Are there trees, fire hydrants, mailboxes, stoplights, bridges, overpasses or overhead utility lines along the way? If so, you will have to deal with the corresponding agencies or property owners.

· What jurisdictions govern the roads to be used? There may be restrictions on when structural moves can take place. Some jurisdictions limit moves to nighttime hours or prohibit moves on weekends.

· Tall houses and live wires don't mix, but utility companies don't like cutting off service to customers. Gabe Matyiko of Expert House Movers said the cost for the same amount of wires and distance can be vastly different because of what goes through the lines. Are the power lines main feeders to businesses or schools, or do they serve a few rural houses?

Gingher cut the costs of dealing with overhead power lines from $62,000 to $14,000 when she found out that couplings could be used to shut off power to sections of the route instead of having to raise the lines on extension poles to get 10 feet of clearance.

Be patient. House moving is not something to be rushed. Many factors can affect the timeline, such as weather and ground conditions.

"Time constraints make things more difficult," Gabe Matyiko said.

Sorting out the route and coordinating the agencies that need to be involved is the time-consuming part. Once crews start putting equipment in place, a 150-ton stone-and-brick house on a tight lot in Arlington might take 10 days to move, whereas a wood-frame structure could be sitting on its new spot in three days. It took only two days to raise each of the Arlington houses.

A House Reborn

When Gingher gathered with neighbors in the middle of a chilly March night to watch as the house made its way along the two-lane residential street to its new location, emotions were running high.

Vivian Gry said, "It's like a death in the family," as she watched the house making a slow turn off the land it had occupied for almost 100 years.

For Gingher, though, the process was "like giving birth" -- big dreams tempered only by momentary trepidation about the process.

After a moment of silence, the two agreed that it actually was a rejuvenation for the house. Once remodeling begins, the Grys will return the original stained-glass windows and chandeliers to Gingher so the house will again be complete.

Gingher hopes to have everything finished by Thanksgiving, so all can gather to celebrate. "We feel like we're saving something valuable," she said.

For information on how to find a house mover, see the Web site of the International Association of Structural Movers,http://www.iasm.org.