I know this is slightly OT, but people here are the most likely to have hints and caveats:

The house I grew up in, which I now use as my office, sits at the front edge of our sloping lot. It sits on the 100-year flood plain, but is elevated just above the 500-year level (Hurricane Ivan was about three feet below the doors ill.) Because of the ever-increasing amount of rain each year, I want to move it back on the lot and raise it (at least) eight feet. Relatives have told me that it's impossible, but don't seem to have any good reasons.

Details:

It's a two-up, two-down balloon-frame coal mine row house. It has no real historic value to anyone else, even though it turned 90 this May. The chimney would need to be demolished, but that and a single plumbing connection are the only parts that would need removed. The kitchen floor needs new joists before we do anything; they were patched, badly, in the late 1970s when my parents thought the contractor was replacing them. There's an addition on the back the same width as the main structure that would serve as the new foundation (which is why I want to move it straight back.) The addition's slab and walls are very heavy...well, they were built by a coal mine mechanic whose idea of construction was to build everything to handle mine vibration and truck traffic, and he had planned to move the house back and over the addition when he put it on. There are no power lines or trees in the way, we own all of the property, and the part on which it would sit is above the 500-year plain even at ground level. It doesn't sound impossible to me. The minor legal technicality is that I have to unplug the temporary electrical connection, so it's a storage she'd rather than a house when it's relocated.

Thoughts? I hate to see repeated storms creeping ever closer. The big one in 1990 put water up over the doorsills, but it ran by so fast it didn't get in. If I manage the move, the back door will open straight out onto the old mine access road for much easier access.

Thanks in advance.

I've been involved in a few projects like this, and what you are suggesting isn't technically difficult. The plan might be to raise the house on needle beams and jack and crib the beams maintaining level until they are high enough to clear the higher foundation on to which you want to move it. Add beam extensions behind the beams on which the house rests so that they can carry the house back over the new foundation. Then, raise the house slightly above the beams and put heavy machinery skates between the house and beams. Roll the house back onto the beam extensions until it is over the foundation. remove the skates, lower the house on the beams, then remove the beams leaving the house on the foundation.

Alternatively, you can jack the house in its present location and build a higher foundation under it without moving it. this will raise the house above the flood with just the piers getting wet......or if you are brave you could build a waterproof basement in the new space, or a carport under the house. You would have to like stairs, though.

Good luck with your project.

Dave

Any competent house movers should be able to this. Since you don't have to worry about road permits or cutting the house up, it should be easy. Plus they would be insured and bonded in this kind of activity.

Around here, house moving is nearly nonexistent and the couple of places that do elevations charge something like $50K per foot of elevation because FEMA ordered so many houses raised or razed. I'm hoping there'll be a better estimate from the mobile home place, because they have the equipment for new installations and have been known to move trailers to new lots instead of junking them.

$50k per FOOT?!? I'll start Monday...

Dave's description is right on, and $400k to do what you want sounds quite high.

Seriously. If we were to sell our lot, and anyone actually bought it, we might get 50k for it with both houses. Apparently, they work the way medical billing does--quote FEMA some awful price, then take a fraction. Someone around here told me to call a certain mobile home place, because we'd have to rent the skates from them no matter what, and explain that FEMA is neither footing the bill nor loaning the money.

I've seen pictures of the Sam Shaw house in Moundsville moving up the hill on a bunch of logs pulled by three or four teams of horses. It can't be impossible to jack up a house and slide it straight back, and I can't believe it would really cost 50 grand per foot no matter what FEMA says. Putting a taller foundation under it where it is wouldn't help much, because most of the houses destroyed in 1990 were hit by other houses or by trailers thrown through the air. I'd sooner get as far back on the lot as possible AND as far up as possible, beyond the reach of that year's unprecedented high water. (5.5" of rain in 15 minutes here, over 10" in the same amount of time upstream.)

Railway content included--that flood in 1990 destroyed one of the few remaining OR&W stations. It was lived in, the family tried to save it at great expense (see above...) and it caught fire during restoration.

Becky:
I live here near the Jersey shore where the house moving business is booming as a result of Sandy, mostly with out of state house moving contractors. Several people we know have had their houses jacked up and seems to me the price is in the $130K range, but I suspect this is inflated a bit because its NJ and since some of the money is indeed insurance money. Out of this I would make two suggestions:

1) Google raising a house in NJ and see what companies come up, then look at where those companies come from. Again, many are out of state so some may be somewhat local to where your house is. I know several are from the Louisiana area for example.

2) If you do find a few companies that come from your neck of the woods, wait a year or two as the work here in NJ should be about done by then At that point some of these guys may be desperate for work as they head back home and give you a much better price.

One word of caution. We have had several houses collapse as part of the raising or lowering process including one down the street from my house. No one has been hurt which seems to be a miracle, but you do have to be cautious in such an effort. Even the pros screw up once in a while.

J.R. May
Wall, NJ

(somewhat off topic) This situation reminded me of a story from here in the Los Angeles area about a house move that had to cross the Santa Fe line between LA and Pasadena. This was in 1980 and the movers arranged with the railway for a "work window" when no trains would be going through the grade crossing. Unfortunately, the move took longer than expected, and it would appear that the crew was so wrapped up in their project that they neglected to notify ATSF of their delay. Well, along comes a freight train and there went the house, quickly reduced to kindling wood and scrap lumber. According to the oral tradition, the engineer on the diesel that "made contact" with the ill-fated dwelling was thereafter nicknamed "homewrecker".

Any structure can be moved, if you're willing to pay. Folks down in Florida just moved the Cape San Blas lighthouse from the the Cape to Port St. Joe. Rather than take the cast iron lighthouse apart, they simply tipped it on it's side and put it on a special tractor rig.

Biggest structure I've ever seen moved was the Cape Hatteras Lighthouse. International Chimney Corp moved it 1,500 feet inland over a period of about two weeks. They're the specialists that get usually get the call when a lighthouse has to be moved due to erosion. Probably one of their most difficult moves was the Block Island Southeast Light-tower and keeper's quarters are connected brick structures and were endangered by erosion that accelerated. That move was accelerated due to increased erosion after a storm-they barely had enough space around the structure to safely position their equipment.

Putting a taller foundation would work to protect from flooding as long as you fortify it by placing riprap to protect it from floating debris. Airborne debris is nearly impossible to protect from.

Years ago in Auburn, WA a house was being moved when it was hit by a train. The usual finger pointing ensued "We checked the schedule!" followed by "We don't run on a schedule!" I think it may have been an Amtrak extra for a football game. All of that was pretty much the standard stuff.

Two things stood out as humorous.

1) Somehow, in the midst of the large pile of rubble, was a totally intact porcelain toilet. Those things crack if you look at them funny when you're installing them, how did it survive?

2) The city building inspector promptly showed up and "Red Tagged" the building. "DO NOT OCCUPY". Never mind that if you were larger than a squirrel, you really couldn't find anything to occupy in that pile of sticks.

I know a lot of us here are also interested in marine preservation. Some of my favorite photos are of the sidewheeler 'Ticonderoga' being inched across the Rutland main on it's way to to the Shelburne Museum. The Rutland was very aware of the move, which did hold up traffic for a bit; Alco RS-3 meets sidewheeler at grade.

Ships and houses are two different animals. I doubt that the RS-3 would have fared well if it had hit the ship as ships often have large, relatively immobile pieces of machinery within, such as engines and boilers. Houses are mostly empty space.

I've moved a few and still have dolly's, jacks and the truck but, the beams have long gone to rot and I don't think you want to come this far to get them but I'm not using them, it just takes time patience and a lot of chains. It's just a lot of digging and prep wrk, but if there is no time limit I'm sure you could do it.

Thanks, all. There's no huge rainstorm in the immediate future and I'm spending the time right now getting rid of junk, getting husband to take a look at the joists to see how many we need to replace, marking and clearing behind the house, etc. Ideally, we can run the plans past an architect we know, do most of the foundation work ourselves and get a decent deal on the actual moving (we have jacks from where we had to do foundation work on our own house.) I was pretty sure it wasn't impossible, just not the done thing in our area any more because everybody wants a new McMansion.

Every time one of the big banana choppers goes overhead with more oil well supplies, I'm tempted to see what they'd take for a brief stopover during their deadhead moves :) Some of the wellheads are in such remote areas that it's cheaper for the drillers to hire airborne lift companies than try to haul some of the parts. One place flew all of its electric poles over to their site rather than take them over the hairpin turn on US 250 in Moundsville. It was cheaper to have a flagman stop traffic for a few seconds when a flight went over than it was to close the road for half a day.

I did not mean to imply that the Rutland RS-3 was going to hit the 'Ti', far from it! That move was well coordinated, with excellent communication between the railroad and the movers. I just brought it up because of the uniqueness of the move, a ship going roughly two miles over land, including over an active railroad mainline. I'm also well aware of what is below deck on more than a few ships, including the 'Ti'.