Houses Dragged Across The Ocean To Build A Floating City | Huge Moves | Spark

30 luxury homes are embarking on 150 mile sea voyage to form a unique floating town but will all the homes survive swirling currents and the precarious lift and launch the world's first full-size house factory is about to start production i was worried about that but can movers keep up with the assembly line and haul over 200 homes to build the fastest town in the west that's all the power i got right there two towns two teams with a mission to move them two titanic tasks that will test the nerves of the people who dare to risk huge moves [Music] [Applause] moving buildings is a risky business so imagine the challenge and danger of moving an entire town one of the most ambitious moves in history began in 1954 when residents of remote areas in newfoundland attempted to relocate their communities to busier shores some tried to haul their homes across the frozen winter sea while others waited until summer and risked floating their homes on fragile wooden rafts not everyone made it across [Music] fifty years later another ambitious canadian is preparing to move a town by sea this time through the treacherous waters of vancouver island visionary developer mark lindholm has grand plans for marina in the historic town of victoria this is a layout a plan of what the docks will eventually look like mark's idea is to build homes that float on water moored in streets alongside a series of walkways the 30 homes will form a futuristic floating community mark's first challenge is to find adventurous home buyers willing to take the plunge and sign up to the life aquatic so you look like a very young couple do you still have children at home his first customers are ken and deanna stratford as a float home owner you're not only joining that yacht club kind of sentiment but you're also now one of the mavericks that own a fold home everything is possible we can put elevators in we can do anything pretty much anything that you do on land we can do on the water uh it's it's just as i say it's a function of uh your checkbook it's uh can all be done well i think maybe we should talk to that architect i'd like that ken and deanna hope to move into their marina mansion in just six months time we're hoping that a phone call would give us a lot of freedom um it certainly has everything that we would be looking for as far as lifestyle goes you've always got the light around you you're always energized and interested in what's happening and what's going on but already mark faces a problem marina residents are not keen on a noisy construction site in their picturesque harbour so mark must build the floating homes 150 miles to the north of the island at marine construction company ctec once complete you'll have to move each of the 30 homes back to victoria to create his floating town [Music] the construction team led by fabian stratton have no time to lose i'll just start decking for 25 feet and let's get four boards down [Music] but how exactly will they make these buildings float [Music] the easiest method would be to build a hollow container under the house just like the hull of a boat the problem is that just like a boat if it's old it will fill up with water and sink in order to create an unsinkable home the floating foundation needs to be filled with something solid but light [Music] big huge foam blocks put them inside the float for the houses government rebar and concrete they'll end up getting i don't know a floatable product they fill the foundations with 18 blocks of styrofoam they've estimated that 200 cubic meters of foam should be enough to keep the front door floating above water but they won't know for sure until the home is launched we're just doing some finishing touches on getting the foam sealed up any cracks like that we'll need to fill with monofilament they encased the foam foundations in water resistant concrete leave it to set solid and build the luxury house on top building the first set of homes takes four months the next challenge is to launch the homes into the water and find out for sure if they sink or swim in denver colorado a more earthly paradise is about to materialize construction king david cohen made his name working alongside his father building some of denver's tallest skyscrapers now he's planning a mass home move that could rapidly accelerate suburban growth this man thinks big i would imagine in the central business district that our company built 15 or 20 buildings from the amaco building to my left petro lewis tower in front of us and the 54-story building the quest tower that's the most significant building in downtown denver we built having successfully conquered vertical building david is now turning his attention to the horizontal amazingly it's today's housing developments stretching for miles over vast areas of land that are the new giants of construction so big that if you were to pile up all the homes in a large new housing development they would be taller than the empire state building david plans to build a town of 237 homes on this piece of land his ambition is to reduce the average time it takes to build a four bedroom house from 100 days to just 25 he thinks that if you can build cars on a fast moving production line then you should be able to do the same with houses so david plans to build the world's first factory for full-sized homes this parcel of land on the edge of town has been planned and approved for a large new residential community if we put the factory right here we can build full-size traditional homes in a controlled environment and get them to their foundation without the impediments that would normally make that impossible conventional wisdom has always assumed that family homes are too big and fragile to be factory built and hauled hundreds of miles across country but david plans to put an assembly line at the center of his new town so no home will need to be moved more than a mile to reach its foundation the factory will pump out a new house every week until the rows of empty streets are lined with homes when the town is complete the factory can be moved to a new site where once again a new town can be born the empty streets are waiting and the factory is ready with millions of dollars invested in the project the stakes are high for david if this works it could revolutionize house building forever [Music] [Applause] on vancouver island the team building the floating homes destined for victoria marina face a major challenge they must launch the first three houses into the water [Music] they've built the homes on top of a giant floating platform now they must gently lower the platform into the water and allow the homes to float clear but this won't be easy compressed airlines feed into ten huge tanks that keep the platform floating above the water line when they release the air the tanks flood with water and the platform supporting the houses sinks the homes should then lift up and float free it's just like a ship sinking basically but we're trying trying to control it a bit one by one fabian releases air to flood the tanks under the platform so we work our way in a bit of a sequence so that we go down evenly see if we flooded these two tanks first that end would drop down so we want to do it as even as possible well you don't want to damage anything you know it's there's a lot of money sitting here and getting bouncing around and you start banging buildings together and stuff like that we'll then spend a lot of money doing repairs the water is just about to the corner here on this one it's the beginning it could go bad yet it's dropping right now it's going to start going here real quick i think kind of jump this way a little bit shake it big on that side the way suddenly the entire platform lunches dangerously to one side as fabian battles to level the platform the first house starts to float free houses two and three also left off oh there we go very exploding hey john we need you to make that quick please they're losing control as the strong tide pulls the buildings away from the dock within seconds the situation becomes critical the tide is about to smash the house into a post let's pull that down george george quadra gonna hit the tile hey bonjour what are you doing over there i'm gonna send somebody to rescue that other one because it's heading the campbell river well you can see that current picking up here the strong tidal current sweeps the first house downstream south john you're going too far north well i'm working out here john's little boat engine is no match for this strong tide so he attaches a line to the runaway house and tows it with the tides to the safety of a moored barge we're on our way now they finally managed to bring the homes under control and move them clear of the platform tug driver kev arrives to tow the homes to the marina in victoria but decides the tide is far too strong to risk setting off now so what time do you think you're going to get away midnight is the next flood what's the providing answer yeah always kev waits for the tide to turn and at midnight he finally casts off he faces an epic 150 mile journey through unpredictable waters well the last time they set me up for three days i was out 19 the other time they sent me over six i was gone 44. part of the job [Music] by morning the homes have traveled 50 miles down the coast but a storm is now brewing well it looks at the weather we're going to get stuck at pal river a couple of anchors there we can tie to sunday night is meant to blow up to 40 southeast we definitely want to be hiding for that [Music] with bad weather ahead kev risks exposing the houses to high winds and waves if he's caught in open waters he needs to get to the sheltered side of these islands but to make it to safety they must negotiate a maritime black spot the infamous dodd narrow that runs pretty good in there the tide runs hard to run up to six or seven knots dodge narrows is one of the smallest and most dangerous straights of vancouver island only 60 foot wide and lined with rocky outcrops it channels the tides into high-speed cross currents that swirl in vicious eddies and whirlpools we've got another boat coming there grab one of the houses i'll be following the other boat he's been doing it for 30 years there's a real risk of the two houses smashing into each other or grounding on the rocks so kev has called in veteran tug driver harvey to take the first house and guide him through the narrows in the last 30 years i've been down here and retrieving four boats that have gone down but it's been stupidity really one guy read the tide wrong and got caught in the back and he thought he was flying up here and all of a sudden john point he hit the the uptight and spun around and went under kev watches anxiously as harvey enters the narrows first we're going around the circle too yeah and now we're doing five knots we're in the tide this is a back kitty here let's see the past one to go sideways that way the tide's running faster up that side but i don't want to be too close kev battles to hold a good line through the narrow and out the other side go ahead good job there good job they've made it halfway to victoria and after surviving the rite of passage through dodd narrow the crew of the north coaster enjoy a celebratory sausage thank you sir [Music] in denver the assembly line in david's pioneering house factory is gearing up to build one house every 25 days there are five workstations one for each stage of production at station one they assemble the walls floors and roof of the wood frame house we don't have this luxury off the field you pump everything you haul everything on your back there's oil at station 2 and 3 they install the internal plumbing and wiring at station 4 they paint the walls and put in the windows and at the final station they lay the floors plumbing the bathrooms and plug in the microwave only one piece of the house is missing the foundations which are waiting outside but this is a major problem for the construction team a wooden building of this size could easily twist out of shape if the team tried to move it through the factory without a solid base the only solution is to build the house on a steel frame a bit like the chassis of a car to keep the structure rigid underneath the frame they install 10 air casters each one channels a powerful jet of air capable of lifting up to 14 tons the house floats on a thin frictionless cushion of air along the assembly line from one station to the next it's more like a hover pad these are little hover pads all the way around it you can actually push a whole house with your hand [Music] 110 pound guy moving 32 tons pretty amazing stuff as the first homes take shape inside the factory the sales team do their best to promote the empty streets outside it's gonna be a little challenging for the sales staff to try and get people to purchase houses without seeing them go up and then they'll show up complete like a finished manufacturer product you'd buy at a store almost so it's gonna be a different selling experience for sure i'm david cohen hi i'm george rosales george nice to meet you nice to meet you i'm jessica jessica david meets the rosales family nice to meet you he hopes to convince them that his factory can build their dream home wow so huge isn't it that's something the rosales family are the first buyers to be given the grand tour of the assembly line in action sales manager jennifer alpert hopes to secure the sale by showing them the layout of a four-bedroom home so we could be standing in our kitchen right now you could be staying in your kitchen right now explain what we're gonna have for dinner yeah that'd be awesome i'm standing on the table so let's start building it yeah okay good we're ready the rosales home takes shape but before it can move down the production line the team faced their biggest challenge launching the first completed house into the outside world and proving that david's factory-built town might just work [Music] in vancouver the floating homes are on the final leg of their voyage welcome to victoria ah the home's getting home thank goodness victoria harbour is one of the busiest on the west coast of canada cruise liners ferries and yachts jostle for space as a constant flow of seaplanes adds to the mayhem two five sierra harbor did you have contact with that beaver now crossing at twelve o'clock two now [Music] kev must now guide the homes through a narrow channel to reach the marina we got lots of water in there right now it's not much water it's very narrow right here i gotta go in this channel with it right here kev takes the houses as far as he can and then the marina team more them into position yeah yeah push it in now we can untie it yeah tell that kid you know don't go ramming it he only knows one speed marina manager colin is anxious to see whether any sea water has washed in causing damage i mean considering it's come 130 nautical miles in rough seas it's pretty good mark's town is taking shape but much too slowly the move has taken twice as long as planned he will never meet his completion deadline if he carries on moving homes at this pace customers like ken and deanna are packing up their city homes ready to move into the floating town mark and the team will have to come up with a faster way of shipping the houses it's always painful to leave a house or a home but we also of course we're really looking forward to the adventure back at sea tech they've been rethinking how to move the floating homes well the first two we did they they went down we had a bit of problems with weather they were delayed and so this is why we're trying a different system [Music] their new approach is to use this huge barge first as a construction site to build the homes then as a floating platform to move them [Music] it's large enough to take four homes including ken and deanna's this is a much safer method to transport the houses down because they're sitting inside of a barge so there's really nothing can happen to them you can go in any weather and there's no chance of damage to the house it actually goes quicker with the barge because the barge can tow at seven or eight knots they launch today the team worked frantically to finish the hose before the tugboat arrives to tow them to victoria [Music] still gotta dismantle the scaffolding wrap up the tools we're still installing 23 minutes see ya with the tug roped to the front of the barge the floating village set sail [Music] everybody's off have a safe trip she's all done my babies and they're gorgeous looks like its own little floating town basically to take the sides of the barge off and grow some grass you could have its own little community you guys they did a great job the hull of the barge moves easily in the water the little north coaster picks up good speed as they reach dodd narrow a day ahead of schedule security security security north coaster southbound one barge in tow transiting dodge narrows at 1-1 they draw the barge in close to the tuck to ensure maximum control as they navigate the narrow once through they let it out on a longer leash [Music] by dawn the next day the four houses reach victoria they've arrived on time and completely dry but now they face a new challenge this barge doesn't sink so how do you offload four 85-ton homes into the ocean in denver it's time to test david's groundbreaking idea and move the first house out of the factory the foundations for this first home lie half a mile away from the factory doors [Music] with the assembly line set to churn out one house every week there's no time to build a traditional moving rig for each home so they've designed a unique whole house shuttle complete with leveling hydraulics and remote control power steering the plan is to dock the shuttle at the end of the assembly line roll the house on and steer the rig to the foundations no one has tried anything like this before and move team leader scott white is feeling the pressure here's the real deal this is it this is the real house the first house so it's a make or break day for me the team hooks cables to the house and start to winch it out onto the shuttle and the long steel beams as his boss looks on scott checks the house rolls evenly if it veers off course it could fall off the ring worked i i was worried about that this is a real milestone having unit number one come out the door we uh have worked on it for so many years it's exciting [Music] the house makes it safely onto the moving rig but now the real test begins this is the first time any of the move team has ever attempted to move a house a little nervous a little little anxious it's a long time coming for this day and if something breaks it's adrian's fault our brakes are off we're ready to go i'll pop a wheelie right now using the remote control scott rolls the rig forward and the house sets off at a snail's pace [Music] up ahead he faces his first tight turn onto a busy road [Music] i am not going to clear this string i see there's nothing i can do about it a newly planted tree stands in the way with the house blocking the busy road scott can't park here [Music] just after the house picks up speed they hit another glitch we're gonna have to go real slow over this curve and you guys got to keep me level unfortunately for scott sidewalks have been built before the houses are in place that's both joysticks full that's all the power i got right there that's just not enough full throttle scott has one more shot but they're still stuck that's it i'm at a loss man with the house stuck in the dirt there's only one thing for it to call in the house mover's trusty friend the front loader with an extra 100 horsepower hooked up the house makes it over the curb little more that's good scott checks everything inside the house has survived the bumpy ride house is in good condition although we're not all the way there yet we got another 30 feet all right let's do it boss their final task is to slide the house onto its foundations this away three-eighths that way yeah this house will stand in the center of a row of six adjoining townhouses now we're dead nuts parallel with the foundation it's like a set of railroad tracks you have to keep it all straight the team must line up the walls precisely with the foundations if they're a fraction of an inch out the entire street of homes will not be straight all right we're going john they reconnect the winches and carefully roll house number one onto its foundations beautiful [Music] oh harley we couldn't ask for more than that [Music] with 236 more homes to haul scott's team must ensure the next move runs smoother to keep pace with the assembly line you know this is the first real test of it but uh that's things i need to i need to think through better in the future is a you know trees post stuff like that it's so intricate and so complex and you know one part of a million things could go wrong and it shuts us down just a little tune-up you know a little maintenance we'll get it [Music] in victoria the team faces the daunting task of unloading four floating homes into the water this shipyard has the only machine on the island big enough for the job [Music] it's a 150 metric ton level luffing electrically powered fully revolving rail mounted crane [Music] we are going to be using the 150 ton level luffing crane to put these houseboats from the barge into the water the rigging team prepare the lifting gear as crane operator gary lowers the five-ton hook yeah the horn works try the wipers are quieter [Music] these are some of the strongest lifting cables in the business but crane rigger norm has spotted a major problem we could probably block them all but there's two here that are going to be critical the third one is probably the worst okay we've got a little bit of a scenario we got we got an overhang on the top of the house boats which will be a potential crush hazard there's nowhere on the floating homes for the crane to hook onto so the team plan to pass lifting straps under the foundations and attach them to the crane with long steel wires but the balconies could be crushed by the cables as they tension up [Music] something we got to deal with to solve the problem the crane crew hope these huge red beams known as spreader bars will hold the steel wires away from the fragile balconies with the bars in place they thread the lifting straps under the house through long narrow trenches each nylon belt is capable of lifting over 70 tons the team is nervous they have never attempted a lift of this scale and complexity before all stops what they want to do is pick the house up and have it swing one way or another a couple inches either way could be catastrophic ken and deanna watch anxiously from the dockside with the other float home owners well first of all somebody's home this is their whole life savings they put into some of these homes and um so there's a little bit of a tight space last thing we want is a homeowner getting all upset because uh there was a scratch right then and who would blame them the left is certainly going to be exciting and i'd rather they were cautious now than after one's tumbled into the water so okay coming up easy yeah we're just starting to uh take weight now i'll stop coming up real easy norm to 50 ton [Music] start now norm coming up on the load real easy to 8-0 metric ton stop at eight zero [Music] yeah you're starting to peel off on this end too norman uh the barge is following about two it's moving around yeah i think we are stuck to the barge you got two things that are moving you got a crane that's going up and the barge is going with it and it's moving the team faces a sticky situation the concrete foundations that were poured directly onto the barge are now clinging to the barge's surface as gary lifts more weight he's lifting the entire barge out of the water the home could break free from the barge at any moment then there's a danger the barge will shift if gary doesn't keep up with the moving target the swinging house could easily crash into the other hose okay gary up two more please so what i'm going to do is go up in little increments and hopefully we can just slowly break it free of the deck going up real easy to 87. there she goes we're free everything's good gary we've got a movement here the uh the barge moves suddenly and the house swings alarmingly close to ken and deanna's home away from my house too you're getting a little close swinging back and forth gary rolls the crane to one side and lifts the house clear of the danger [Music] congratulations to the owner's relief the first house is safely in the water and norm climbs aboard to release the lifting gear thanks skinny norm thanks skinny i am skinny it's all the gear i got on that's what it is now that they've done the first one the next three well hey they've broken ground well one down free to go that was a hard one first one's always a hard one yep it's always the hard one the next ones go off pretty quick they connect up house number two and start to lift but immediately run into more trouble okay up easy gary crushing the roof on this side okay i'm gonna get definite compression on this when it starts coming up the balconies and overhangs on this house are extra wide [Music] we keep coming up against the house with our wires it'll crush it if we keep coming up i don't know what we're gonna do here some more head scratching that's why i don't have any hair too much scratching the team must improvise and solve the problem quickly they hammer in thick wooden blocks to hold the straps further away from the house gary restarts the lift the team watches nervously hoping that the blocks will hold now we're coming out we've got a little bit of bend on the end here but it's not too bad yet up real easy oh there she goes it works the second house sails over the edge of the barge and into the water the tow boats clear the landing zone and the third house touches down in style [Music] last up is ken indiana's place hey hey there she goes it's uh kind of scary watching your future hanging by a couple of nylon straps sounds like the story of my marriage [Music] does it float three two one contact down all the way and they just have to save the best to last [Music] in denver the house factory is in full swing completed houses now roll off the assembly line at a rate of one per week [Music] in just three months the move team has hauled the first street of homes into place [Music] now just one house is missing from the east chenango place the resales family home they make the finishing touches ready for the big move but overnight disaster strikes [Music] we don't normally get snows of uh this magnitude here in denver it's been four or five years since we've had a storm of this size we've got two feet of snow in the clear drifts of four and five feet this was a big snow event the snow stole scott's plans to move the house out of the factory this morning but it can't sit there for long the storm hasn't really impacted our work within the plant we're able to work in our environment that's controlled the rest the city shut down with work continuing inside the factory scotch team must clear the rosales home out of the way despite the weather to avoid jamming up the production line [Music] it's cold let's start winching scott is nervous his house shuttle wasn't built to work in these freezing conditions obviously visibility is quite a problem right now and the fact it's so cold my hydraulics are really slow doesn't have the action it usually has everything's delayed a few seconds just because of the temperature [Music] they've gritted the roads to ensure the shuttle doesn't slide off course and career into the banks of snow [Music] all right where are we at we got to be uh level and parallel or we stand the risk of jumping off the track which i probably don't need to explain would be bad that's that's something i don't want to see got all them bolts out yeah are we looking for level come up about an inch sheila and jessica rosales arrive to receive the home delivery it is moving out you can see it moving oh my gosh that's pretty cool too men to move one big house that's awesome so what'd you do today i pulled a 60 10 house into police [Music] oh it does look fantastic it is so weird to think that you can have your house made and brought out and protected from all of this special delivery [Music] it's getting home should be good how are you scott yep create both these on the back of the deck and then we'll chain her down let's go home there's this house in the sunset now and it wasn't it wasn't there two hours ago it's just amazing [Music] david's team now build move and bolt entire streets together in just a matter of months [Music] we developed this technology but didn't know exactly what was going to happen till we were physically moving houses and now as a company with patents in place and communities being constructed we're very excited about our future house moving for us will become a daily activity house moving is going to be taking on new dimensions newbridge colorado the fastest town in the west on vancouver island the homes are on their final leg of the journey [Music] victoria marina is just a short toe away and marina manager roger is preparing for the latest shipment if you bring in the wrong house at the wrong time then it's in your way you can't work and if they start banging into each other then we're in trouble one false move and you could take out a whole wall on one of these houses it's been a long journey and is that wonderful that it's time to find me here roger guides in deanna's house slowly the route inn is now surrounded by other float homes there's no margin for error hey watch your back end now you've got to be awfully close to that house there because i don't think i'll watch for a little while but look how close it's getting to that house as well [Music] yes please i hope we're not hitting the corner oh you can never that is too close for comfort fellas too close for comfort whoops oh canada just the corner there and we hit the flag after a run in with the neighbor's flag post roger regains control of the house and slides it into position good job that was a little too close for comfort for my taste i'm sure you knew it was happening but when it's swung over it's still running [Laughter] watch the house there buddy watch the house they secure the home in its mooring with steel posts driven deep into the sea bed hey welcome to my world won't you come on in look at this great great deanna steps aboard and waits for ken to return from work [Music] hello hello we did it we made it we congratulations [Music] oh yeah and the plan is for more and we have actually a waiting list of people wanting to come on board so i mean i think we're going to have a very a very vibrant very great community here in a very short while [Music] it's a great sense of pride to see it finally coming together it's very much a relief to see the float homes get there without any significant damage all the float home purchasers are also very content with their homes so that's also another relief over the coming months a flotilla of aquatic homes arrives in victoria harbour and west bay marine village is finally born [Music] you

Channel: Spark

Views: 352,641

Keywords: Spark, Science, Technology, Engineering, Learning, How To, education, documentary, factual, mind blown, construction, building, full documentary, space documentary, bbc documentary, Science documentary, huge moves, floating mansions

Id: O4c6ipJ6Ff0

Length: 49min 46sec (2986 seconds)

Published: Wed Dec 30 2020