World Help Training Center - A Convertible Community

Well I am not one that enjoys just part of the story so here is the conclusion of the building moving project. If you followed the youtube videos (more located on youtube at: http://www.youtube.com/user/TheOpenToolbox) you saw 4 brave men, 3 tow trucks, 2 buildings and 1 amazed me! The WHTC site is approximately 15 miles away so the caravan of tow trucks make the trek onsite. I drove up the road about 1/4 mile (well it's probably not that far, but it feels like it), parked and ran back down the road to guide the trucks up. I was met by the tow truck (with nothing in tow). They had come up the road to survey the land. By this time they were shaking their heads. The road is dirt, and about 12 feet wide. We decide to go for broke and send for the first smaller building. After holding our breath, it made it to the top and was deposited. The concern was for the large building. Twelve foot road, 12 foot building. See the problem? Because of the height of the building on top of the truck, there was great concern for the not-too-big but overhanging pine trees that formed a canopy over the road. The decision was made to try to move the building as far up the road as possible without causing damage...BACKWARDS for fear that the  building could not go all they way up, and they didn't want the wrecker stuck with no way out. So backwards we started. About 20 yards up the road we realized we were going to need to do some cutting. We stood there wishing we had a chainsaw. Then I realized, there was an ax in the building. So one brave professional leaped the 6 feet off the ground into the building to retrieve it.

Slowly, slowly, slowly they backed the building up as we cut and dragged trees out of the way. To everyone's surprise we made it to the top of the road with only minor damage. One window screen was torn and one corner of the trim was slightly bent. But success! Two buildings, and an ax are now onsite at WHTC.

Stay tuned for the next project. We will be building hexayurts and drilling a well next! Contact us if you are interested in coming out for the next project or build.

The WHTC project is indeed a huge undertaking. As you can probably imagine even the phase one plan has many steps and many more twists and turns. Today was indeed an example of this!  Yesterday morning began with a plan to relocate two storage buildings about 15 miles away to the WHTC site. There was a big one and a small one to move. As expected the 2-man team arrived this morning while there was still a chill in the air. After assessing the situation I was alerted to a few problems, some I had anticipated and others I had not. The issues unfolded something like this...:
1. The movers realized I had told them the large building was 20' long when it was really 24' long. The flatbeds are about 16' so the 4' addition was a big deal.
2. The slope was steeper than they movers anticipated and they had to get a completely new plan for gettng the building out
3. The smaller building has metal posts around two sides to prevent it from moving (it too was on a very steep slope). The problems was that the posts were embeded in 16" of concrete and were obstructing the side where the movers were going to attach the building.

Ok so here is how these issues were resolved.
1. The movers raised the price (ouch) by about $200 and called in more help! The called in 2 more trucks and 2 more highly competent men, bringing the move team to 4. They also decided to work with the additional 4 feet of building which mean that approximately 6 feet would be extended beyond the end of the truck bed.
2. The highly competent (translated very brave) men managed to move the building off of the support piers (also known as cinder blocks) and managed to get it loaded (sometimes with three wheels actually on the ground) and after about 4 attempts, they actually got the building and the truck back out to the street in preparation for the move to the final resting place. The 2nd building was just as exciting. Heavy duty chains were attached to the metal poles and then connected to the wrecker truck and pulled out of the ground. The firstpole pulled a hole in the building before we realized that each pole was not only concreted into the ground (approx. 18 inches) but also bolted through to the inside of the metal storage building. After the four poles were removed, another flatbed truck was able to easily hoist the building into place.

Both buildings were on the same steep slope but they managed to remove them safely and other than the light damage to the small building, it was an absolute success.

I will post again to tell your the rest of the story. If this wasn't exciting enough, the delivery onsite brought on challenges that will make you reminisce of childhood stories of Paul Bunyan.

More to come later...

Live life fully today!
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Live life fully today!
LaRahna