Moving a Pole Building

This last weekend I moved a small pole building. It was built for pigs by my Dad and I about 18 years ago. It was no longer in a convenient place for pig raising. This was the second building we have successfully moved, and I thought the operation was interesting enough to give some pointers. My lovely and talented wife made the slide show. The basic technique is to raise the poles with a jack, cut the poles, then nail treated boards on all sides to connect them. The boards act as skids, and remain in place. The building survived a 100 foot trip, and is now completely portable. It is however, now about 3 more inches out of square, but the pigs do not seem particularly upset by this.

Dig generously around the poles, especially if the building is not on level ground.

When raising the building with the jack, be patient, listen for creaks.

I insert bricks to slowly raise the building on each side, then use the jack to go higher. Insert the bricks where they will not interfere with positioning the planks to connect the poles.

Be generous with nails, braces and anything to stabilize the building. It is especially important when bracing shed roof buildings to tie into the roof.