I’m sad for the tree. It provides a lot of shade in the mornings. It tried to move my shed into the ditch though. Lucky, the shed is pretty strong. It moved about a foot, punched a hole in it, and it is slightly racked. A bunch of stuff fell off the wall.
It is covered by insurance, so I am only out the deductible and the time it takes to organize the repairs.
It could have been a lot worse. If that had moved my house by a foot, I would be more upset .
Oh, we also don’t have power. So that’s great. Hopefully that will be returning soon. It’s chilly in here.
Some of those shed companies can have that moved back over in no time. patching the hole and dealing with it being racked will be the harder part. Good thing for insurance! Hopefully its not too much of a hassle to deal with!
I bought a 10x20 shed during the pandemic, the (solo) guy who delivered it had a pretty amazing flatbed that could lift at either end, skid sideways, etc - put it down right on the mark. If you look at Jeff’s photo the base looks like pallet skids so it’s really easy to get underneath and move it around.
The power is back (it was out for about 14 hours total).
I think moving the shed should be reasonably easy with just some scrap wood and a jack stand. But I would rather let an expert do it. I imagine they will either just level it where it is or lift it and do some sort of sideways sliding with one of those caterpillar two track things. If I had to do it myself, I would probably waste a ton of time lifting it up a bunch so I could work under it and then move it to the side before dropping it back down.
But none of that can happen until the tree is gone and there is going to be some serious earth works too. There is a bunch of cruft that was right up next to it.
I wonder, is there no concrete footing that the shed should be bolted to?
I always find incredible the fact that in America most houses and buildings are super weak. No offense of course (and I do realize we’re talking about a shed here), and surely it has its upsides, but most houses seem to be made of light timber that flies off at the first breeze. That’s especially weird considering the fact you guys have tornados and hurricanes on a regular basis.
In France this kind of construction is very rare, we either use stone or concrete blocks. In China it is almost always cast concrete with rebar or at the very least bricks.
I hope for you there’s no serious damage to the structure and that you’ll be able to put it back into place without having to spend too much money.
Maybe that could be a good opportunity to improve the way it was secured to the ground, just so it won’t fly towards your house if there is a stronger wind someday (I sure hope not).
Also be careful with removing the tree, it’s very dangerous.
Good luck mate, sorry for what happened and best wishes
Nope. This kind of shed was either built from a cheap kit, or by some buddies with a 30 pack of beer and some power tools. We have very high winds here (obviously). But I think it is a testament to the structure that a 40 foot tree fell on it and it only moved a foot. The enormous winds that cause the tree to be uprooted did not move the shed.
By the time modern buildings were being created, didn’t England and France already cut down most of their timber? The US has a lot of wood it can use for houses and the west is only 200 or so years old. Most houses are built on a concrete foundation, built with a softwood frame, covered in engineered panels, and then wrapped in insulation. This is a pretty efficient (relatively cheap) way to make them here. They will not last 200 years, but no one who is paying for it will be around that long anyway. At least in the suburbs of the west, these houses will probably be remodeled or replaced before they wear out anyway.
It was definitely a difference when I visited Europe. A lot of houses are built from thick concrete and are maintained to be the same in 200 years.
I have a $1k deductible on the home insurance and it will cover this accident. So I will be out $1k and I will try to get professionals to handle as much as possible. The tree is way too heavy and tall for me to attempt removing it myself. There is a local builder that makes sheds like these that will be able to fix it. My guess is that the structure is just as dodgy as it was to begin with and the racking will go away once the tree is removed.
The shed has been there since at least 2009 when we bought the house and it wasn’t new then. The house was built in 1980. I am not that interested in bolting the shed down. Honestly, if it had stayed still, it might have been damaged more by not giving that 12 inches.
Cruft is just junk. Detritus. Trash. It’s a generic term. Specifically I am talking about the pine needles, leaves, and dirt that has accumulated near the shed floor. That probably needs to be cleaned up so the shed can go back where it belongs.
Really sad for your tree, but happy that you, your family, and house are OK.
It was quite an ordeal for me too, went to help a family member with a car problem Saturday AM and it turned into a two day debacle. No power loss or damage at home in Longmont, but Boulder saw the same outage you saw. I thought you were further south…???
I live in Golden. By the tree that’s sitting on a shed.
A shed builder came by to take a look and he’s going to give me an estimate. He’s going to jack it up into some 4x4s, repair the foundation blocks used, then use a come along to move the shed on the 4x4s before putting it back down. The roof needs fixing and so does the door.
The first estimate for the tree came in at $4500, which is about 3x more than I thought it would be.
Awe man… you missed out on an opportunity for a larger shed!
When we had a hail storm damage our upstairs, we managed to squeeze an entire bathroom remodel into the rebuild. We moved the tub over 6" and had the shower made larger.
Fixing the racking will be interesting. Pushing the walls back vertical won’t be difficult, but new internal braces will probably need to be put into place to keep them that way.
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Help a teacher broaden his vocabulary. 
could have used it when the power was out.