Projects Moving tips! Need solid suggestions!

Forklift can be a lifesaver, but pack/stack/load on Pallets! There's a reason they are under all those loads taking up space and weight in heavy trucking!
A pallet jack too, if this is going in and out of a trailer.

 

Yes, a pallet jack would be great for an enclosed trailer. I was going to suggest buying one and reselling when done, but @MARKDTN already did that. Like he said, provides storage until ready to unload.

 

Ugh, I'll be moving soon once I close on the property, which should be in the next few weeks. I keep procrastinating the packing and boxing of the little things around the house and garage. I estimate I'll have 5 trips with my 18' open deck car trailer full of vehicles/parts/tools/equipment, and 1 trip with my friends 20' enclosed car trailer for the furniture.

I was hoping to be able to buy some land and build a big shop and it be my final and forever home, but with the current market it's just not possible for me. However, I did find a nice mid century ranch with a wrap around driveway and a garage out back in a nice neighborhood so it should work out for a bit.

 

Down to the last three days, movers are here to start packing and start loading.
I didn’t think that leaving this place would have such an emotional impact.
I love the mountains, and the small town we live in.
Lots of great memories from sixteen years here as well as an emptiness from dreams not finished, nor even started.
My wife, and the daughters and granddaughters, finally got me to realize that we weren’t getting any younger, but the clincher was the great granddaughter due in December will be named after my wife. That made it five to one, and I knuckled under.
See you in middle Tennessee soon!

 

Well it’s official.
We are at the new residence in Murfreesboro, TN.
The movers are unloading now.
As far as leaving East TN, “Parting is such sweet sorrow”. This area will never replace the East TN
mountains. It’s really going to take some gettin’ used to. SIGH!

 

Welcome to Middle Tennessee, we are in the flatlands of West TN. After you get settled and you get a wild hair, contact me and come for a visit, its only about two and an half hours from us.

 

I’ve been getting rid of “stuff” the last five years since my wife p***ed in 2020. Just after she p***ed I decided to take on another project. Ended up selling it two years later. The buyer made 4 trips (8 hrs each) to haul away everything. He had a pickup with trailer and and E350 van with a trailer. I learned then, only one project at a time. I plan on downsizing/moving within the next five years, and the plan is to take very little with me. When it’s time to move, that’s when you find out who your real friends are. lol!

 

Just read this and I believe the THP was checking out the width of your lift. Max width limit without a permit is 102". Over 102" you need a permit, wide load signs and flags at the widest points. I bet if you check the total width of the lift at the outsides of the base pads, you'll find you are over. Not to worry now that you've got it home, but just a word of warning for anyone else considering a move like that.

 

Congrats!

I'm about 50% packed up, myself. On Monday I'll start the back and forth of loading and emptying my 2 trailers over the next few weeks. Doing it all by myself, as usual. My new house is 200 miles away, so it's gonna be a challenge with a M-F work schedule.

 

Jeff, that is a spot on ***essment! Its been, just 4 yrs since I retired and moved from Texas. I liquidated a lot of stuff before moving and it was still "an emotional and physical nightmare"...

 

The best thing (IMHO) is to start looking a while before you will put your house up for sale. Make the NUMBER ONE requirement that it has a large garage or shop. You will probably find that large shops are often a turn off for many (other) buyers wives and probably a little harder to sell. Remember, the general population of the US is not mechanically inclined and park their car in the drive or on the street. They have few or no tools. My grand daughter got married a couple years ago. Really nice guy and seems pretty intelligent. He had a wall plug quit working and was going to call an electrician...........
Anyway, a large shop is often a turn off for the average couple, they would rather have a larger house with lots of wasted space.

So start shopping in advance and make that large out building priority one. Then when you do move, you have a place to store everything until you can resort it all out and make a nice shop again. It seems that most people on here who move resign themselves ahead of time to not finding a place with a good shop. I have a reasonably new neighbor (3 years). He's about 40, is 5'1 and weighs less than a hundred lbs. We have become really good friends. He told me that the reason they bought the place across from my house was because of the large metal building behind it. (Used to belong to a guy with a large motor home) I think its maybe 50x50 with high ceilings. He has it full of cars . We found some pallet racking for a good price and put it along the back wall and made a really nice 10 ft work bench with a steel top in the rack. He just got a 2 post lift the other day and I unloaded it with my tractor and helped him and his brother stand it up and bolt it down. I promised him I would help him erect an overhead crane like the one we built at my son's house, using the lift as a support.

Oh, and my son did the same thing. Couple of disappointments when he thought he found what he wanted and didn't get it...........but something better always comes along. He loves the place he ended up with. Lots of acreage, a beautiful shop, and 3 other reasonably new metal buildings as well. You just have to look in order to find.


My son's shop already had this 2 post lift. We put the pallet rack up and built the crane. My neighbor wants his to be like this one.




My neighbor is living his dream because he refused to buy a house without a large shop. He's not rich, just determined........and I'm gonna help him. You won't find one if you resign yourself to not finding one. And because of our common interests we became good friends.

 

I would add that you need to check the area for zoning and a big one, electrical service.
If you are hoping/planning on 220V stuff and the infrastructure isn't there, a big building is not the big cost.

 

Recently finished moving 7.5 miles. I’d haul a pickup load every time I’d go over to the new house, lost track of how many loads. Had a towing company move my coupe an a tilt back, which was quicker than renting a trailer, loading and unloading. Final big stuff I moved in a U-Haul. Now I can start getting the shop set up and organized. Plan to get a lift eventually.

 

Well, we’re now officially residents. Movers finished up today.
Here’s a good example of 10 pounds in a 5 pound box. Wife said it couldn’t be done. HA! Take that! Right to the door, but it’s in. Of course no room to swing a cat, much less do any work. Time to line up a metal building guy for the addition.

 

Get a ton of 4-drawer or 5-drawer file cabinets for free or cheap off marketplace. There are often many available in cities. Load all the heavy miscellaneous stuff into them, then wrap with the stretch plastic. It goes easily onto a hand truck from the side, and is equivalent to having several stacked boxes that would likely collapse, tip over, or tear open by comparison. Plus when you get there, there's nothing to unpack. Just line them up against a wall wherever you want them and cut the plastic off.

I use "chalk writer" pens from the dollar store to label the drawers. Wipes off easy with windex when you want to reorganize.

 

I moved from my 1600sqft shop in California to North Texas. My main advice is PURGE!!!!! Get rid of all the 'stuff
you know you will likely never use. I left my 2-post lift, 5hp air compressor, for the new owner. Gave my steel and wood stashes to friends. Those can be replaced cheaper than moved in the final ****ysis. Then bite the bullet and pack everything possible into moving boxes and label them. I'd rather take a beating with a claw hammer than move again!!

 

Well, the s**t is never ending with this move. I desperately needed to start on the shop addition ASAP, but oh noooo.
Got the metal building company out to do the slab layout and they say that I’m within 10 feet of the end of the septic field lines and they can’t proceed. WTF.??
Not ON/OVER the field line, just not 10 feet from the CAPPED ENDS of the lines.

Went to County Planning and was told, “Sorry, you have to apply for a Sewer Field Modification Permit”. That is controlled by the State: The Tennessee Department of Environment and Conservation, or TDEC.
Called a couple of field contractors and they won’t touch it without the SFMP.
The application is $400 plus $100 for the inspection, non-refundable! Just to get the approval to shorten the lines to meet the 10 foot setback, PLUS the actual work! Oh yeah, just the approval (or denial) could take up to 45 days. By then it will be winter.

Another “privilege” of living in a strictly regulated, bureaucratic urban area.
Back where we moved from, my neighbor with his Kubota and I would have those lines shortened in a day, and the slab would be finished by now!

And yes, I checked before moving on the field location and was told I was in the clear, by the same planning department. Catch 22.

Meanwhile the existing building is full to the door and my cars are still in storage.
Sorry for the rant, I’m pissed, discouraged, aggravated, and should have stayed in the mountains.
Back to your regular programming.

 

Bummer. It's one thing to get stalled by a physical problem, say a giant rock where you want to excavate.

But to be stalled by an arbitrary, perhaps unnecessary regulation is just painful.

 

I don't have anything going on right now, I'll help you move back.

Ran into a similar situation in Michigan. Bought some property through a realtor that was listed and sold to me as residential. Needed to build a pole barn and get the floor poured so we had somewhere to store all my shop stuff during the house build. Got the go ahead in writing from the building inspector, the contractor goes to pull the permits, and the same building inspection department says, "Nope, that property is zoned commercial, not residential". We had to go to the planning commission and get the property rezoned which took us five months and put us at the back of the line for the contractor's schedule. The day the contractor was supposed to start the barn, he called the building inspector for a hole depth inspection and the SOB didn't show up. Next morning, when he got to work, I was waiting in his office and told him his next move better be out to my property or my lawyer and I would see him at the next planning commission meeting. He beat me there. They poured the floor the last week of November and we set everything on pallets on green concrete the next day. Bureaucrats are not your friends.

 

Loading them on a trailer like that is how the salesman who took the Buddy lifts around to different Goodguys shows hauled them. He offered to deliver the one he had on display at Puyallup Wa to my place that way and set it where I wanted it and drive out from under it.

It looks like that hoist will need it's own bay or and extension with a higher roof on the shop.

I never intend to move again but if I did I would be hauling every part I had that did not have a designated project that it was going on to swap meets or put them up for sale. I'm pretty well going to do that after I get the 48 to a point anyhow. Someone else can deal with those might use it someday parts.

 

Ok, you guys are scaring the **** out of me. I'm planning on doing a similar move (multi state away into the outskirts of a town). I'm reading that you can't even trust the realtor OR city to even be correct on their listings/jobs......great. Who the H*LL can you trust then.

 

@Mr48chev
“It looks like that hoist will need it's own bay or and extension with a higher roof on the shop.”

That’s one of the reasons for the 24x32 extension off the back of the existing building. In addition to providing the shop floor space, the roof will be higher than the current roof, either full length or the rear portion. The lift needs 12 feet of ceiling height to get a car all the way up. I could convert the back portion of the existing building’s trusses to scissor style trusses, but still wouldn’t have a large enough area. Pretty much forced to extend off the back.
The only other option is to build perpendicular to the existing shop, but that is limited to 20 feet width to clear the field lines. And puts it right in the middle of the back yard, and in full view out the windows, something that is vetoed by the spouse.
FUBAB

 

No one but yourself.

 

Sorry, I didn't mean to imply that the realtor was shady; She did nothing wrong. Like anyone else, she had only the information about the property that was provided by the seller and the county.

Another thing, make sure that the state that you're moving to has a disclosure law. Without one, the seller doesn't have to tell you anything about the property. I went through a hell of a lawsuit with a seller of a property in Alabama, which is a non-disclosure state. While the seller didn't lie to us directly, they omitted to tell us about a number of problems with the property that the bank inspector found, and the seller wouldn't fix. We got out of the contract, but the only people who made any money on the deal were the lawyers.

 

^^^^^ I'd not be so quick to cut the realtor slack...

 

True ^^^^^
Caveat emptor. The selling agent wants to sell the house.
Your realtor is getting paid to ask the questions, do the research, and protect his client, YOU.
A paid home inspection, unless you want to climb all over everything, finds a lot of issues.
I had two houses here with huge shops that I terminated the contracts on due to all kinds of issues, including serious mold, that the seller wouldn’t address.

 

I'll add this as well. You should personally locate & hire a trust worthy home inspector. Maybe even get a second to double check the first.
When we bought our first home the realtor recomended the home inspector who missed (or just left out) alot of things I know now we should have been made aware of.

 

Same answer to the question "who can you blame?" and "who can you please?".

I have heard of **** getting in the way of the building process, but you literally have **** in your way!

 

I heard that if an inspector does miss a big problem all you’re likely to get back is the cost of the inspection. You’re still stuck with the repair cost that should have been on the seller.