When the Family Moves, House Can Follow

House moving is big business, as complex and physically demanding as it is popular.

Darren Stewart, a partner in one of three house-moving companies based in the San Fernando Valley, said that last year his 15-man crew relocated almost 75 homes in addition to small apartment buildings.

Stewart, 26, started his company, Quality Movers and SJS Construction, almost two years ago with his father, Robert, and a third partner, Frank Johnson.

When an owner decides to relocate a home, a company such as Stewart’s will estimate the moving charges and cost of removing the house and building a foundation at the new site.

Stewart said he charges about $6 to $7 a square foot, plus the cost of city permits to move the building through main streets in the early morning. The cost goes up if the house has to to be moved through several cities or if it’s a two-story dwelling and utility workers have to be called in to raise power and telephone lines.

The first step in moving a house is to dig a wide trench around the cement foundation.

Crews then use 20-pound sledgehammers to knock out the foundation, and wooden beams are inserted to hold the house intact. Jacks capable of holding 15 tons each are fitted under the house’s four or five main support beams.

The house is raised slowly and evenly, a few inches at a time, by a large hydraulic system connected to the jacks.

As the house is lifted, the wooden beams are knocked out and the house is lowered onto three dollies that are attached to a truck and moved slowly down the street.

Under city and county laws designed to avoid traffic jams, houses can be moved only between midnight and 6 a.m.

The entire process, not including work by utility companies, can take up to five days. But the time and cost must be worth it to most individual homeowners, who make up 80% of his business, said Stewart.

Stewart said his company also makes money by buying houses about to be condemned to make way for new construction, storing them on a lot in Sun Valley and selling them to prospective homeowners willing to pay the moving cost.

Such houses, Stewart said, can be bought for a song. “I’ve seen houses sell for $1,” he said.

Profits aside, Stewart is a man who enjoys his work and carries on a family tradition. Stewart’s father has been in the business for 32 years, and his father was in it before him.