Small structures on skids

Hi everyone,

I'd love to hear from you what is your opinion on how to start with designing and building small structures on skids.

It's a really new subject for me and I'd like to start learning about it from somewhere. I'd love to hear if you'd have some references about older posts here, maybe books or websites?

Thank you so much

Gabriel Paiva Lago wrote:Hi everyone,

I'd love to hear from you what is your opinion on how to start with designing and building small structures on skids.

It's a really new subject for me and I'd like to start learning about it from somewhere. I'd love to hear if you'd have some references about older posts here, maybe books or websites?

Thank you so much

I built a single car garage on skids using round wood once. It was very cheap to do, and was very robust, but also a challenge. Nothing is flat or straight which is difficult to build from. We took averages to get an idea of where to measure from, but it did work.

A few years later, things changed, and it was easy to hook a chain to the structure, attach it to my tractor, and drag it up the road to use as a sheep barn for a few years.

This thread is one of the best places to learn about building on skids:

https://permies.com/wiki/146807/Skiddable-Firewood-Shed-Holds-Cord



https://permies.com/wiki/146807/Skiddable-Firewood-Shed-Holds-Cord#1314070



From:  https://permies.com/wiki/127977/Build-tiny-shed-skids-PEP

Some threads that might be of interest to you or others:



https://permies.com/t/47740/permaculture-projects/ten-skiddable-structures



https://permies.com/t/138333/skiddable-structures-microdoc-FREE

The concept makes sense to me.
After all, isn't that basically what a mobile home is?
My wife and I had a double wide years ago.  One of the rooms had drywall instead of the coated wall panels you often see in a mobile home.
When they moved the double wide to where we lived, the seams between the drywall sheets cracked.
So, if you are going to have drywall, you might want to wait to do your taping and mudding till after you move the building.

Well, why build ON skids?  I would build on raised piers that would allow one to slide a stone boat underneath, strap it down and take it where needed.  We had a shed that we bought several years ago and dropped on the other end of our pond.  It was meant for our youngest, but she saw wasps and vacated due to allergic potential.  Sat for several years.  I decided to make use of it, so cut some logs and slid them underneath.  I used several rough-cut planks to make a flat bed between the building joists and the logs.  Used deck screws to hold plank to logs with a couple of heavy timber screws for good measure. Ran a couple of heavy straps over the roof and hooked chains to the back of my Ford tractor.  It ran along the pasture, across the base of a hill and then several hundred feet to the back lawn of the farm homestead.  Not a lick of issue.  If one builds the roof heavy in a couple of sections to begin with you could just about hang the thing from a tree and not have issues.  A couple of heavy auto jacks lifted the building to set on the stone boat and then allowed me to lift it off and set it on piers at the site.  The plank then went on to build another structure I needed.  The logs became firewood for a friend.

Second thought - Why build a complete building in the first place?  Why not make modular sections that can be stacked on a trailer or skid and hauled to where you tip them off the carrier bed into a final location and connect the corners.  Depending on your needs, it should be relatively simple to dry it in with a metal roof so long as you take local wind direction/speeds into account and provide continuous load path from roof to anchors/pilings on the ground.  

Richard Henry wrote:  Well, why build ON skids?  I would build on raised piers that would allow one to slide a stone boat underneath, strap it down and take it where needed.

Dragging anything anywhere is probably the least desirable way to move something heavy, as the forces tend to twist and weaken the structure. The stone boat is a good solution. Another option is 10' wide mobile home axles, usually available fairly cheap in most areas. Rolling also requires far less horsepower than dragging, as long as you aren't going downhill and need to control a heavy load from pushing the towing device. If I had a building I planned to drag around frequently, I'd frame it on steel skids, not wood, but more likely would simply build in the option to use an axle or two.

It makes perfect sense to build on skids: A small structure is much easier to move. The legal entanglements might also be less: On a smaller structure, you do not need a permit, and, for those who are taxed, the fact that you can move the structure suddenly may not count as a structure that needs a permit. Do make sure that you check those pesky details with local permitting entities. Make sure you have the Law in hand.
For example, we built a deck without thinking these details too much. We got the permit etc. Months after completion, our house insurance comes to call and points out that this just won't do: You MUST have a railing! Well, we did not want a railing that would make us feel we lived behind bars. I asked "Why?"  she said: It is too high: you cannot build a structure that is more than 2 ft. above the ground without a railing.
When she came back, we had built 2 enormous planters that were barely 24" lower than the deck. 33 ft log by 4 ft wide and 3.5 ft. high.
Here, they look also at the footprint and whether it has water/ sewer/ electricity and 4 walls. My bee shelter for example with 3 walls doesn't qualify as a 'taxable' building, but I cut it pretty close as far as the surface. [I think I'm a bit over].
I built a porta potty over a hole. I then filled the hole with poop but also dead leaves, feathers from my chickens.
With this hole thus enriched, I will plant a shade tree there [sugar maple? catalpa? or perhaps sour wood?
In the Central Sands of Wisconsin, the soil is quite poor, like 2-4" of so called 'top soil' over 35' of sand.
This way, I can stack functions: Soil enrichment, not taxable if somewhat illegal porta-potty and preparation for a tree.
The buildings in these very interesting photos would be much too big for my little 4-wheeler to move.
Also, don't leave it too long is its 'temporary' position or it may be hard to move. "Rien ne dure comme le temporaire" said De Gaulle. ["Nothing lasts as long as the temporary"]
If I had to do it over, I would have run a metal pipe through the front of the runners: It would be easier to attach a rope or a chain to pull it of its 'foundations'. I will dig around it to free it by hand, then push that soil back in the hole.

If there is thought that relocation might be needed, I suggest placing the skids on stone or concrete blocks.  This not only prevents rapid deterioration of wood skids, it provides an easy sliding platform for the next move.

For the stone boat, I made the central skid the longest and hooked to that.  Wheels and axles are fine if one has them, but I would not agree that it is easier to pull any heavy weight downhill with wheels vs skids.  Skids provide a natural braking force.  Skids also tend to provide a bit more side to side stability.  It does not help things if the building being towed decides to move fast enough to tip over.  Kind of defeats the purpose.  Accidentally did that once to a small chicken coop.  The girls survived fine and it was built strong enough to take the roll, but it certainly made me more careful the next time!

Building on skids makes a lot of sense sometimes.

A lot of my buildings on this farm have been moved by jacking and putting the building in skids.

Moving does not take a lot of power as
Long as you live where it snows and the ground freezes. Here in Maine what might take a bulldozer to move in the summer takes but a horse in the winter on frozen ground with snow. You have to Jack them up before they freeze to the ground, but then they will slide.

Gosh, I’ve moved five buildings on my farm and a lot of time would have been saved with them on skids

My mother offered me a shed that my dad and I built when I was a teen.  My brother, who is more mechanically inclined than me, jacked it up, built skids of a sort under it, then we used his tractor to pull it onto his trailer and bring it to my house.  Then we used his tractor to pull it off the trailer.  

Reading this post makes me think that I really should be intentional about installing well made skids when/if I ever build another structure.  My mom has other structures that I could take... but since there is no good way to move them, it's a better use of time and resources to build new outbuildings.