Real Estate

A heavy building wouldn’t budge — so workers used 700 bars of soap

The idea isn't new. Utah applied about 16 gallons of Dawn dish soap earlier this year to shift a bridge 110 feet.

The Elmwood building in Halifax, Nova Scotia, was moved for the first time since it was built in 1826. Brad Rushton/S. Rushton Construction

By Kyle Melnick

December 19, 2023

(The Washington Post) — As Sheldon Rushton prepared to move a 440,000-pound building earlier this month, he realized he was missing a crucial piece of equipment: soap.

Rushton’s construction company had been tasked with moving a nearly 200-year-old Canadian building a few feet to make space for a new apartment complex. Construction workers dug under the building and inserted more than a dozen steel beams for support. The company brought a tow truck and two excavators to move the structure.

But the building wouldn’t budge until it became slippery with soap, Rushton said.

To help complete the project, Rushton’s wife, Leanne, went to 15 stores to buy every bar she could find of Ivory soap, the brand Rushton said is the softest. It took four days and more than $970, but by last week, Rushton’s crew had 700 bars of soap to unpackage and place under the building.

“We might have [gotten] away with a little bit less, but we weren’t pushing our luck,” Rushton, 67, told The Washington Post.

After the soap made the steel beams and the bottom of the building slippery last week, construction workers moved the structure in Halifax, the capital of Nova Scotia.

Although moving a building with soap might sound novel, the idea isn’t new. The Utah Department of Transportation applied about 16 gallons of Dawn dish soap earlier this year to shift a bridge 110 feet. Construction crews in Missouri also used dish soap to slide a bridge in 2016.

Rushton said he has moved buildings with soap dozens of times. Small buildings need between 20 and 40 bars of soap, he said, but the building in Halifax was the heaviest he has moved in his five decades working in construction.

Halifax’s Elmwood building was built in 1826 and served as a home and a hotel before becoming an apartment building a few decades ago, according to the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. Rushton said the building had never been moved until his crew started construction in October.

“It’s not something you want to pull fast or rough,” Rushton said.

Rushton said he was nervous about the project and was unsure how long he would need to safely move the building. After digging underground, Rushton said construction workers placed nine 85-foot steel beams under the structure to match the building’s width. Then, they added eight steel beams under those for more support.

When the building was in a position to be pushed backward, there was only one brand of soap Rushton was comfortable using: Ivory. He said most soap brands quickly become dry and break apart, but Ivory soap sticks to steel beams for a smoother slide.

Rushton figured he could take some Ivory from his home’s bathroom. But he said his wife wasn’t happy giving up their personal supply, so she drove around to stores — Atlantic Superstore, Shoppers Drug Mart and Sobeys — until she had 700 bars of Ivory soap. Rushton said buying fresh soap is important because old soap cracks more easily.

Last week, Rushton’s crew lifted the building one inch higher with hydraulic jacks. Then, crew members opened about 440 bars of soap and placed them on trays that slid between the steel beams. Overnight, the building’s weight squished the soap until the beams became slippery.

Rushton said workers’ fingers were sore from opening soap wrappers, but the next morning — Dec. 7 — his crew latched the tow truck and excavators onto beams at the bottom of the building and moved it 15 feet backward.

The crew took a break and added roughly 235 more bars of soap for the final push. A few hours later, the crew propelled the building back 15 more feet.

Rushton said he was nervous the night before the push, but after the project was done, he and his roughly 10 colleagues were smiling and laughing.

After the crew put away their equipment, Rushton said workers took home some of the remaining 25 bars of soap as souvenirs.

“And we all smelled good when we left there,” Rushton said.