You might be a redneck

[rootytoot]

This is one of those crazy but true stories from the farm. My friend Mercedes John has been helping me put new siding on the shop building. When John took all the rotten siding off the south side of the building, we noticed that the south wall was hanging a couple inches off the foundation at the west end (the east end was fine). We said, huh, wonder why, earthquake maybe? But we didn't think too deeply about it, we just added a 2x6 pressure treated support fastened to the concrete to put something under it. We finished the rest of the south wall without incident, well, except for the hundreds of wasp nests we had to kill.

Then we started work on the north side. After the siding was off on the north side, we could see that end of the building was also pushed south off *its* foundation! It was immediately obvious what had happened: at some point, some fool ran into the northwest corner of the building with a tractor, and knocked the whole building into a parallelogram!

So, what to do, what to do... we started out trying to use a manual winch (come-along) together with thirty feet of chain to pull the building straight again. By my estimate we applied about 1800 pounds of force before I got worried about a chain snapping. So, we gave up on the winch.

That left the ultimate tool in the redneck toolkit: 31 horsepower Ford 1920 tractor in lowest gear. We positioned the bucket of the tractor at the offending point of the building, and gently let out the clutch while keeping the rpm steady. The tires spun slightly, the building gave an impressive groan, and the north and south walls moved two inches closer to square. We hit it two more times, and it moved about five inches total. Not perfectly square, but darn square enough to have both ends on the foundation again.

You might be a redneck... if you've ever used your tractor to square up a building!

Kurt

Before:


After:

 

[wyeguy]

Got 'er done!!!

 

[Larro Darro]

Good job. I thought the story was going to end with the tractor inside the shop via a new 'door'.

 

[TomSeller]

Clever. Good job. Now put up some diagonal bracing.

 

[newbury]

And you might be a redneck if you run into a building and knock it off it's foundation.

 

[jinman]

You might be a redneck... if you've ever used your tractor to square up a building!

Not true!!! You are only a redneck if you drink a 6-pack and try to pull the barn straight with your pickup bumper. Making a Youtube movie of the bumper coming off while your buddy laughs hysterically gives you extra redneck points.

 

[2LaneCruzer]

Not true!!! You are only a redneck if you drink a 6-pack and try to pull the barn straight with your pickup bumper. Making a Youtube movie of the bumper coming off while your buddy laughs hysterically gives you extra redneck points.

Who's holding the beer?

 

[RoyJackson]

Can't say I squared a structure up with a tractor, but I did push a roughed out house off it's foundation.
My first "real" job after high school was working for a plumbing company. Part of the job consisted of operating a backhoe (an old Ford).
I was digging a sewer line trench and curled the bucket when I was very close to the foundation. As the bucket curled, the heel of the bucket pushed against the house...pushing it off an inch or so...
It took an experienced operator (not me) with a sledge hammer to beat the house back onto it's foundation.
Got my butt chewed over that mistake...

 

[vtsnowedin]

I gotta put that into the file of "useful things you can do with a tractor" in case I need to convince the Guardian of the checkbook that I really NEED another one. I've about worn out most of the usual list.

 

[rootytoot]

Newbury: you are right, in retrospect that would have been the true redneck test (to knock it off its foundation). It occurred to me afterwards that we should have filmed it. Then if it all turned out wrong we'd at least have something to post on youtube! Reminds me of that great series of commercials Toyota did for their pickup in the 90's: Bugger!