Moving heavy things

I got up at 4am this morning -- during the summer (right now!) it's already hot by 8am -- to help my in-laws move an old garden shed from one property down the block, over to my parents-in-laws' place.

My BIL was the brains of the outfit -- he got together all the requisite tools. Five round fenceposts as rollers; a bunch of wooden beams for "tracks" (more consistent than the uneven ground the shed passed over); and a blue hydraulic car jack.

The photo to the left is the shed sitting at the foot of my parents-in-laws' driveway, after we'd moved it down the footpath. You can see the family pushing on it, the roller-logs, and the beams the logs rolled on.

My BIL and I got into an interesting debate as to what was more efficient for lifting the shed (as various points we had to put it up on cinder blocks -- Aussies call them "bessa blocks" ("besser blocks"?). I claimed that using a lever and fulcrum was faster than jacking it up. However, my BIL correctly pointed out that there were more "moving parts" to position when using a lever. Plus, with the car jack, it was a one-person operation: the car jack held it up while the same person placed the blocks -- whereas with a lever, someone **else** has to place the blocks.

Still, the lever was useful for when we had to shift the nose sideways, to "steer" the shed: one person would make sideways sweeping motions with the lever -- much like a gondaleer -- while one other person helped things along by pushing sideways on the shed.

The photo to the left is just a few meters shy to the shed's transitional resting place. We called it quits around 9:30am -- getting too hot, and we wanted to stop before it stopped being fun.

Presumably I'll be called to action in another few weeks, to finish moving it into its permanent location.

Pretty interesting stuff. But tiring.


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--GG