This Old Mobile Home
When we bought our 22 acres in Texas Hill Country last year, it came with an assortment of ragtag buildings. Four of them hadn’t been occupied in years. We weren’t certain what we would do with them. We thought some might not be worth saving and restoring.
One was a storm-damaged doublewide, sited on the property line and sitting right at the very best view spot. A friend helped us get it sold, split and trucked off the property. Two unoccupied (except by mice) singlewides were on the other end of the property. If you’ve been reading these columns, you know we decided to keep and remodel them. They’re our new home. We live in one and use the other as an office/guesthouse.
What about the Blue House?
But another, which we called “Blue House,” caused a lot of gnashing of teeth. Blue, with a corrugated roof, the 1,000-square-foot cabin had a woodstove for heat in one corner. It was easy to romanticize that. But it was also dark, dank and pest infested.
Turning it into a functional home was a non-starter. It was a sure thing that every $1,000 we spent would immediately become $1 of value.
But we didn’t give up. We thought we could still save it. We’d tear off one wall, gut the inside walls, plumbing, etc. We’d use it as a garage.
Then I looked at the roof trusses and checked the outer walls. They were moved outward in a pretty serious way. Keeping the structure as a garage might not be such a good idea.
It’s demolition time!
That’s when I called Ken Maynard, owner of a demolition company. He came by, we talked, and the next morning I had a quote. That was in December. A lot of other prices were coming in then. They were scary. I decided the demolition project could wait.
Now it’s September, we’ve sold our Dripping Springs house at a premium, and the remodeling/restoration of the two singlewides is complete. And we were still solvent, so I called Maynard again.
Two days later, in the late afternoon, I opened an unused gate and a gigantic excavating shovel came through. It parked for the night. Ken introduced me to John, the foreman on the job and the excavating shovel operator.
The crew starts
The next morning at 7 a.m., work crew guys, both named David, arrived in cars. So did Eric, a former champion weight lifter from California. Although he’s not a big guy, he picked up the cast-iron coal stove as though it was a loaf of bread and carried it out of the building. Ricky, a Bobcat operator, arrived about the same time and unloaded his Bobcat.
Eric and the two Davids went into the house. They removed windows, mirrors — anything that would be hazardous when broken.
Ricky initiated the demolition. With the Bobcat loaded with pieces of wood from a long dismantled cistern, he plunged through a corner of the house, making a hole for the excavating shovel. Quickly, he loaded the cistern fragments into the opening.
Then John went to work with the excavating shovel, pushing, lifting and crunching sections of wall and roof, curling the shovelhead like it was an elephant trunk. Whenever he tore out a section of corrugated roofing, he’d lift it up, shake it to lose as much wood framing as possible, and smash it down. Finally, he’d pick it up and move it off to the side where the two Davids worked to remove any remaining wood. All the roofing and any other scrap metal went over to the growing pile.
Inevitably, the shovel struck electrical wiring, shook it and moved it over to the metal pile as though it was a piece of spaghetti it didn’t want to eat. Early on, the shovel picked up a water heater tank, raised it high as though to give the elephant a beer keg to drink, and shook it until all the water was out. (During the entire process Eric was hosing the site down, reducing the dust.)
A very neat pile of rubble
In less than two hours, half of the blue house was a pile of rubble. But every fragment stayed within the foundation. Pile of rubble, yes, but a very neat pile of rubble.
John made the shovel do a kind of dance. First he would sweep the shovel from the outside toward the center of the house. Then he’d have the shovel plunge down with open jaws and fill itself with lumber, drywall and insulation. Then he’d plunge the shovel down into the pile, crushing everything it hit into smaller and smaller pieces. Finally, when the pile started to spread out, he pulled the shovel back and had it make a big sweeping motion to rebuild the pile.
Surgery with boxing gloves on
I can only liken this to asking a surgeon to operate while wearing boxing gloves. Not delicate. But rhythmic, precise. With devastating effect. (It’s good to remember the goal here: The patient was not to survive.)
The blue house was a heap of rubble by noon. But the sweeping, piling and crushing continued. Grab by grab, the pile was taken down in big bites by the shovel head. Eventually, two 40-cubic-yard dumpsters were loaded and hauled away.
That left the whole crew sweeping the foundation clear, revealing an odd mix of Saltillo tile, ceramic tile, flat stones and cement. They were all but done and gone by 4.
Tomorrow morning they’ll be back for the final cleanup and to remove the scrap metal pile.
It’s fun to build and create. But sometimes, less really is more.
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Earlier columns in this series:
Scott Burns, “This old mobile home: raze or save?,” 1/12/2019 https://scottburns.com/this-old-mobile-home-raze-or-save/
Scott Burns, “This old mobile home: The Joy of Tear-Out,” 2/25/2019 https://scottburns.com/joy-of-tear-out/
Scott Burns, “On the level … and going with the flow,” 3/8/2019 https://scottburns.com/on-the-level-and-going-with-the-flow/
Scott Burns, “Stuff: Do we really need it?,” 4/20/2019 https://scottburns.com/stuff-do-we-really-need-it/
Scott Burns, “This Old Mobile Home: Lessons from a Book Purge, 5/7/19 https://scottburns.com/this-old-mobile-home-lessons-from-a-book-purge/
Scott Burns, “Making Things Happen: Real-Time vs. Internet Time,” 5/19/2019 https://scottburns.com/real-time-living/
Related columns:
Scott Burns, “Two ways to own a manufactured home,” 3/6/2015 https://scottburns.com/two-ways-to-own-a-manufactured-home-2/
Scott Burns, “The secret of crystal bay,” 2/27/2015 https://scottburns.com/the-secret-of-crystal-bay/
Scott Burns, “You, too, can live near water,” 3/13/2015 https://scottburns.com/you-too-can-live-near-water/
Sources and references:
Maynard Construction Services https://www.maynardcs.com
This information is distributed for education purposes, and it is not to be construed as an offer, solicitation, recommendation, or endorsement of any particular security, product, or service.
Photos: Scott Burns
(c) Scott Burns, 2019