Shed sales may be the first step in the process, but it takes special skills to get these structures to their destination — not to mention the additional relocations and reclamations that happen.
Here are some recollections that stand out for those who know what it takes to haul these buildings, including their funniest, strangest, and most meaningful accounts.
Tiny Home and Cabin
Earlier in his career, Missouri-based Simon Yoder, shed mover and owner of Shed Wheels LLC who works with builders and dealers on relocation jobs and new deliveries, was asked to move a 12 by 32 Morgan-built tiny home shell.
“It looked in decent shape when I arrived, so I backed up to it and lifted one end with the trailer, planning to back under it and load,” he explains.
“As the end of the building came up, I could not understand why the floor in the middle looked so strange. I walked partway down and stuck my head underneath and discovered what was going on. Because of the age of the building, and also the fact the siding did not run down past the bottom floor joist very far at all, the only thing holding the floor to the walls was the nails in the bottom floor joist and they were pulling straight out.
“The walls were coming up kind of straight, but the floor was sagging very badly. It was basically falling out from under the building. I had this sick feeling in my stomach like, ‘What in the world am I going to do now?’”
Yoder told the customer he could give it his best shot, but the structure could fall apart in transit. She asked if they could pray about it.
“Her prayer went something like: ‘Lord, we ask that you would give us wisdom to know what we should do with this house. In Jesus’ name, Amen. Let’s move it!’” he says.
It took some time, but he got it safely onto the trailer.
“We were only going about 20 miles, but it was hilly, curvy, narrow Ozark roads,” says Yoder. “Everything was going fine until I had to turn left onto another highway. I glanced in my mirror and was horrified to see the building appeared to be taking on a serpent shape. The backside was coming around to meet the front. I stopped at the intersection and the back of one wall had shifted completely off the floor about 18 inches.
“I threw a couple 40-foot straps over the entire thing and cinched it down to keep the walls from leaving. I drove even slower and sweated even more. All the while, I was trying to decide what I would do if the walls stripped down over the floor or if the whole thing collapsed in a heap.”
Yoder made it to the destination, but when he was done, the back wall, halfway down, was entirely off the floor and trying to sit on the ground.
“I got it jacked up with my handyman and shoved kind of partly onto the floor. The customer insisted it was fine and she would fix it up and finish it out herself to live in. I decided that woman definitely had more faith than money,” he says.
A Snowy Day Move
Another move would involve a tiny home two days after a major snowstorm. The customer was beside herself with worry.
“I thought it would be a fairly simple move once I got the cabin Muled out to the street where most roads had been plowed,” says Yoder.
His customer asked to meet him at a junction where she wondered what happened to his crew.
“I said: ‘We’re all here, it’s just me and my equipment!’ She got a horrified look on her face like this was quickly becoming her worst nightmare!” says Yoder who went to see the cabin. “Before I got back to the truck, a trash truck came along. Instead of easing past, he tried to take a wide swipe through the ditch at high speed. It didn’t work and he got hung up.
“I needed to turn around anyway to head back the way we had come after I was loaded, so I got turned around in a narrow drive using my sideways wheels and then hooked to the trash truck and got him worked out of the ditch.”
It would be difficult to load the Mule because the little town had not plowed the snow that had been packed down and turned into ice. He had to find a spot to get enough traction in the narrow street, which took multiple attempts.
The ride to the destination was pretty uneventful. Yoder simply unloaded the building and Muled it into the corner of an empty lot and set it down.
“An hour later, I was back with the porch and set it down in front of the cabin and started taking my braces off the porch,” he says.
The customer came to him with tears in her eyes and said, “Can I give you a hug? You don’t know how much I have been worried about this and you make it look so easy!”
“I told her it actually is easy with good equipment,” says Yoder.
When she told him she considered it a miracle that the cabin was moved on a snowy day, Yoder told her he had always wanted to work a miracle. The customer sent him a card in the mail that said “You move mountains” on the front. On the inside, she had written “and tiny homes!”
Yoder and his family would later be invited to dinner along with others who helped the woman save her tiny home.
“I don’t know what her bill was at the restaurant, but it was definitely some good food,” he says.
For the Record
Benjamin Curran, former owner of American Haulers in Lavonia, Georgia, now an executive at Anthony Group Hardscapes and Anthony Winter Services in Pennsylvania, holds the state record in Georgia for the highest portable building placement on the top of Brasstown Bald, the highest point in the state.
“It wasn’t easy,” he says. “There was a lot of time involved and the road up there was so steep, it overheated my transmission twice going up the hill with a 10 by 12-foot-wide building on such a steep curvy road.”
There were highlights along the way.
“It was a beautiful view,” says Curran who also had some doubts. “I didn’t know I could do it until I did it. At first, I was a little skeptical because the hill was so steep. It was a little scary with the very narrow, very curvy hairpin-type road that was a bit intense. When I got up to the top, they said: ‘We want it over here on that ledge.’ I thought, ‘Certainly not that ledge with a 6-foot drop on one side.’ It’s on 3-inch blocks and the back has four pillars about 5-feet tall.”
A Repo Job Gone Wrong
Another memorable moment came when Curran did a repo in South Carolina.
“This was a tattered old building—a 10 by 24 utility-style building—that had graffiti all over it,” he recalls. “It was completely trashed, and I have to go inside to take the inventory number. I saw lots of dog bowls and mattresses and all kinds of nasty stuff. I step into the building and look up at the number and confirm it’s correct. Then I walk out about 30 seconds later to go to my truck to hook it up. I look down and I thought I had stepped in an ant pile. There were tiny black creatures moving from my knees to my toes. I could not brush them off or crush them in my finger.”
Unfortunately for Curran, they turned out to be hundreds of fleas that were crawling into his pants and biting him.
“All of my good care went out the door and I drove my truck right through the yard and put the pedal to the metal,” he says. “I got that building loaded up so fast.”
Movers and Shakers
While Paul Stalnaker, owner of Stalnaker Transport LLC based in Benson, North Carolina, does not have any specific stories that come to mind, he shares some overall thoughts about hauling as a whole.
“The biggest stuff we run into is people thinking we can do the impossible and put a 12-foot-wide building in a 4-foot-wide gate,” he says. “There are some unprepared customers who didn’t cut the tree down, or they’re not there when they told you they would be.”
Stalnaker says people often have no idea what to expect during a shed delivery.
“They think you’re a magician and they think it just happens,” he says.
Surprises can also occur on the road.
“It’s always a fun one to look in your rearview mirror and see a door wide open,” he adds. “You’re already wide and you lock them closed, but they still find a way to work themselves loose.”
On a brighter note, Stalnaker says, “It’s always fun to give kids a little playhouse, like a little girl who’s chomping at the bit. You do get customers who are just so thrilled, and they make the job so much easier, even if it is a challenge to get it into place.
“That’s always a benefit to the job. Knowing the person who is getting it is thrilled to have it like the customer who has been saving for five years to get the building. They got this shed they have all these plans for. That’s always a fun one to do. It’s like you made their year.”
Transfer Requests
As someone who knows the highs and lows that come with the territory, Malachi Green, hauler and owner of Specialty Transport, based in central Virginia, now does private moves that tend to go well, but he has done reclamations in the past that have been a challenge.
“You’re coming in there taking a piece of what they think is their property. You have to be de-escalating the situation,” he explains.
A Tense Encounter
Some scenarios can be especially tense, like one attempt in particular that sticks with him.
“I had a shed inside a locked gate compound with a big dog in there. I pulled up to the gate and I could see the building through the fence, but I wasn’t getting out of the truck,” says Green. “I cut the lock and swing the gate open and jump back in the truck. I was loading the building by remote control, so I didn’t have to deal with the dog.
“There was a guy sleeping in the compound next to the shed who got up and he was irate. He was probably on some substance. It was 40 degrees outside, and he was dumping sweat. Something was not right.
“He came running toward me and cursing at my truck window and then he goes running back to the compound. I don’t want to stick around to see what he’s getting out. It freaked me out enough that I got out of there. He told me there was a guy sleeping inside the building that I was picking up. I don’t know if that was true because I didn’t get to take it.”
A Sentimental Save
Green remembers another structure that had a more successful outcome.
“It meant a lot to the person. It was such a sentimental building for them. It was a small cottage, a 4-by-6-foot building. The smaller ones are more challenging to haul because they are more top heavy,” he says. “This one, the father had custom built with their daughter who ended up passing away in a car accident.”
When the parents were selling the house, Green was able to prep and relocate the special structure three hours down the road to their new home.
“They were extremely happy about that,” he says. “They thought they were going to have to sell the building with the house.”
