Frozen in Ice Castle ideas?

[Fisherman25]

Dang! That was a LOT of effort required!

 

[guywhofishes]

nice pics! thnx

 

[Walleye_Chaser]

Holy shit. Now that was a project.

 

[CatDaddy]

Way to stick with it and help a friend out! Thanks for sharing the pics, one hell of an engineering problem (solved)!

 

[Vollmer]

Cut out and lifted up, but about 15" of ice still hanging from the bottom of the house.

Same day. Overhead gantry system would have worked better if it was 3-4' wider and about a foot higher. The width hindered the ability to cut easily in between the frame and the house. It also made it a little tricky where the hole was a little bigger because we had chiseled out around the front door to get it open. Had to rig some things to get it to span that spot while we were winching it ahead.

West side. Ice in the wheel well is how deep it had flooded and frozen in.

Inside the house. Didn't measure it, but it was 10" minimum. Maybe a little more.

Ice around the back was a couple inches below the RV plug. You can kind of see the line just below it. Measure to the line from the bottom of the frame, and it was about 18".

At the front it was between the two vents for the furnace for depth. About 16" ahead of the axles.

Pulled ahead about 10' off of the hole we cut and hit the ice hanging from the bottom from about the axles back. At that point he put heat in the inside again and drilled out the fishing holes through the ice hanging underneath to help break it up. Took a couple days.

Behind the house after we had it moved ahead 10' or so.

Finally off of the enormous hole in the ice today!

Unreal

 

[guywhofishes]

silly question #1

did you winch one end - block it up - then winch the other? (to halve the lift)

 

[jer79]

good job, glad to see you guys got it.. a cubic foot of water weighs about 62 pounds. 62 x dimension of fish house = wow

 

[Srputz]

Not to be mister negative but how is that thing suppose to float according to the fishing rigs from the game and fish. That thing is massive

 

[NDwalleyes]

One can always tell who their true friends are when you get in a pickle such as this guy was. A pickle like this could have happened to any of us. True friends will drop everything to help even if it takes weeks. Opie...you are a good man and a better friend. Good work!

 

[Rowdie]

Holy s.h.i.t thats a big house! Is it still on the ice, how do you get the wheels down to pull it off the ice?

 

[Opie11]

silly question #1

did you winch one end - block it up - then winch the other? (to halve the lift)

Had the hitch chained up to a gooseneck ball in a pickup bed. Hooked onto the rims of the rear axle as that was about all we could get to. I'm going to have to get the story on how they got the hitch up onto the pole that's blocking it as that was one of the days I couldn't help out. They told me what they did at the time, but I'm old and forget details! Once we had it lifted as high as we could we tried pulling with the pickup. Hung a another pole across the back of it chained to the frame. Ran a chain from each side of that back to the gantry frame vertical supports and pulled. Didn't work real well because as soon as the chained up pickup couldn't pull it spun an hole a foot deep in the soft ice. So we chained up one side and took the winch from there and chained it in the back of the pickup and pulled it with that. That worked a lot better. A lot more control than taking a lunge at it with the pickup.

- - - Updated - - -

Owner is working on the wheel problem. I'll find out tomorrow if he figured something out. Need to get it off the ice. Shoreline is going to get bad fast this week.

 

[NodakBuckeye]

That is crazy! Glad you guys got it out.

 

[Kurtr]

That is crazy

 

[SDMF]

I watched the video on the last page showing the big house w/hydraulics, etc. There's one thing I don't understand about that setup. Why on earth isn't there a fishing hole you can access from the shitter?

 

[Achucker]

Wow that was no small task. Way to go!!!

 

[SLE]

Don't take any offense, looks like a shitty deal and I guess this is why a person has insurance but I have to imagine the inside of that house is trashed?

 

[BrokenBackJack]

Congrats to all of you Opie on getting it out of the ice and hopefully getting the wheels down and off the ice soon. :;:thumbsup

 

[LBrandt]

Oh how humbling mother nature can be.

 

[Rowdie]

Oh how humbling mother nature can be.

I guess when you try to put a trailer house on a lake thats what you get. I'm surprised this doesn't happen all the time with these huge things.

 

[pluckem]

I guess when you try to put a trailer house on a lake thats what you get. I'm surprised this doesn't happen all the time with these huge things.

The guys I know in MN with these big houses, never leave them unattended. Way to much weight, too much $$, risk of theft, vandals, etc.... That's why they have hydraulic or electric winched axels, because they go up and down a fair amount.

They go Friday evening to set it up, fish in it till Sunday, pack up and leave. Just like camping in the summer.