I'm in a jam. Dangerous situation, best way to address? (Demolition)

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R

redmanlcs

Burning Hunk
Nov 20, 2017
165
West Virginia
To make a long story short, I have an abandoned singlewide mobile home with very vey little interior walls left and ends of the trailer is stripped all but a piece or two of tin. Everything else has been scavenged. Most of the exterior walls are gone as well. This old trailer is only 8 feet from my house and if the roof collapses, depending on the direction, could damage my house or kill someone! Its sitting on some soggy ground without any nearby trees. Solid ground is too far to reach by cable or chain until the weather dries up a bunch. Ticking time bomb needs disarmed! Is there any safe way to bring this thing down other than pulling it down with a chain/truck in a few months?
 
Have you considered renting an excavator?
 
So what is holding the roof up if most of the exterior walls are gone? If exterior wall sheeting is gone but framing is still their then you should have nothing to worry about interior walls give no structure to these... Personally if it was me i would hire a excavator and have them collapse it onto itself. I have demolished a few of these with a excavator and they were a little harder to collapse than i expected. Who thought it would be a good idea to strip it in this fashion? Should have started from the top down
 
Longer rope or cable. A snatch block attached to poles driven into the ground to change directions if need be
 
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any type of heavy equipment won't float in this swamp. Setting poles would be suspect as well as I don't think poles will set firm in swampy land either. It started off by me removing the outside metal to make skirting for another home. Then some of the exposed exterior 2x4's were removed to build a dog house. Then it got cold, and I ran out of firewood, so I started removing the interior walls and burning the wood and kitchen cabinets. Was totally a "not thinking" moment until I ran upon an article online about a guy being killed by a roof collapse in cornville Maine. One dead, another injured in Cornville mobile home collapse (wabi.tv) It is true that interior walls don't hold weight, but they do provide some horizontal bracing. The roof isn't going to collapse straight down, its going to skew either left or right off to the side. No interior walls to prevent side to side movement of roof. No bracing on the ends. Its basically going to do this number :
[Hearth.com] I'm in a jam. Dangerous situation, best way to address? (Demolition)
There is a small path of solid ground where a small excavator or tractor would be able to stay afloat. I think first I'll try a long cable or chain wrapped around the roof and see if we can't just pull it over.
 
Second thought is to use a snatchbock or come-a-long and tighten it .. catty-cornered from roof corner to frame corner and try to collapse it that way. Really in a pickle.
 
Put down a couple pieces of plywood, and flip it over with a hi lift jack or two. I presume it is a single wide. Remove most of the supports on the side away from the house, and jack it over. You could jerk the supports out from under the side away from the house, and once it is tipped that way, the roof cannot fall up hill.
 
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Wow that was the most dangerous thing i just read... You do not use high lift jacks when lifting leave these on your 4x4... i used to move and set these things up and seen someone get crushed trying to lift one of these things with the wrong tooling.. Lifting the old chit is dangerous on a good day i have hand the beams fold and flop over just about flopping the hose on top of me. If it would not have been for all my safety cribbing i would have been dead.. I had good equipment where i could lift the whole unit as one lift and not one side at a time... really their is only one safe way to do this and that's to hire equipment
 
Just jack it up a little bit on the house side...make it lean "away" a bit...just enough to if it falls/collapses, it does it to the "away" side...
 
I think the phone pole will keep it from hitting the house.

The chimney on that house might be a cause of concern though.
 
actually the pole is leaning.. it was set in soggy dirt too and way way too shallow..... as for the chimney, i started a thread a while back pertaining to shady installs.. this install was my inspiration for that lol.
 
Could you wrap a chain or cable around the cinder blocks, on the side away from your house, and yank them out one or two at a time. That would get it leaning the right way.
 
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I would strap the entire thing. Use a come-a-long or maybe 2, 30ft away. I would strap it about 3/4 of the way up. Go slow. Possibly jack or just use 2x4 or some wood to apply pressure up from the back. I don't see how the entire roof would go backwards and destroy your current house in this situation.
 
I would get one of those heavy tow trucks and pull it down and those tow drivers have the experience and can get the job done. Be safe as you can be--good luck....clancey
 
Hire an excavator operator with mats for the soft soil, and let him dismantle it. Not a job for someone learning to operate a machine.
 
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If your place is the white mobile next door, that wood stove vent is completely illegal and a greater threat than the place next door.
 
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begreen said:
If your place is the white mobile next door, that wood stove vent is completely illegal and a greater threat than the place next door.
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Rather than bringing up a problem, how about bringing up a solution?
 
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Maybe redmanics will update us and let us know what he did to solve the problem and in May he was going to pull it down with a winch..Hope that works out...clancey
 
Sodbuster said:
Rather than bringing up a problem, how about bringing up a solution?
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because a proper solution either simply refers to code, and/or requires details of the situation, which are not available as of yet, and likely would not be forthcoming unless the OP is convince of said danger.

Hence, if the OP is interested in safety, this is the trigger to ask questions ("why, how?"), leading to providing details of the set up.
 
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Sodbuster said:
Rather than bringing up a problem, how about bringing up a solution?
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Can't do that without verifying this is their place and knowing more about the installation. What's connected inside and how is also very important.
 
begreen said:
Can't do that without verifying this is their place and knowing more about the installation. What's connected inside and how is also very important.
Click to expand...

A skilled operator with a track hoe and and claw could tell him within 15 minutes how its constructed, and how to safely take it down. I am sure he owns it or he would face criminal charges for destroying someones "property"
 
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