Relocation of the Sytin House in 1979, now this house houses the flagship Nokia showroom in Moscow (Pushkinskaya metro station)
Sometimes buildings, if they are in the way, are not demolished, but moved to another location. This was done in Soviet times in Moscow when streets were expanded, and houses were moved along with the residents, and during the move, water supply, sewerage, etc. continued to work in these houses.
Relocation of a residential building on Sadovnicheskaya Street in Moscow in 1938
Relocation of the Savvinsky Metochion 1938
They dug and gradually transferred the weight of the house onto I-beams. That is, you dig a trench under the house a meter wide, and place a rolling support under the beam. Then the next trench. As a result, your house is in the same place, but on a different, movable support.
Not a little, but much cheaper than a new house.
About the foundation. Foundations come in different types. The type of foundation is selected depending on the soil. Pile foundations are used in unstable soils. And in our strip, strip ones were most often used - that is, reinforced concrete blocks were installed in the pit under the load-bearing axes of the structure. Now the same strip foundation is often made not from blocks, but filled with a monolith. In short, piles are not driven very often.
And regarding “sawing the house off the piles.” Piles are vertical structural elements. Horizontal beams (crossbars) are mounted on them. They are fastened together by welding specially provided embedded elements. Next, the structure is mounted (if a frame) or laid out (if a brick) or poured (if a monolith) in “layers”. Each floor is a new layer. So there is no need to saw off anything. Probably, you can say that the weight of the house rests on the structural elements of the foundation, like on a tray :)
“At five in the morning, when dawn was just beginning to appear over the city,
the final preparations were completed and the command was given
turn on the compressors. The arrows on the instruments showed
force 170 tons. Powerful shiny cylinders of four
jacks rested against the steel beams on which it rested
house ready to move, and it slowly rolled along
rails along the main street of Moscow. At the speed of a second
the arrows rotated thick steel rollers, and almost imperceptibly
to the eye, the huge structure of the building floated away towards Mayakovsky Square.”
Newspaper "Trud" dated 04/11/1979
