Three generations. 60+ years. Jim, Mitchell, and the Klier crew lift, move, and re-foundation structures across Northern Ohio that other contractors won't touch.
I'm Jim Klier. My dad started this shop in Wellington back in 1962. My son Mitchell runs the field with me now — third generation, same name on the truck. We've moved farmhouses across township lines, lifted barns the neighbors had given up on, and added basements under homes that were never supposed to have one.
Every job that leaves our yard is a job we'd put our family name on — because we already do. When you call, you get me or Mitchell. Not a salesman. Not a call center. Us.
Move a whole structure across the lot — or across the county. Steel beams, multi-axle dollies, and a crew that's done it for three generations.
Lift the house, fix what's underneath, set it back down level. The right way to add a basement, replace a foundation, or escape a flood zone.
Why add on when you can add under? Cheapest square footage you can put on your house — and we're one of the only crews in Ohio that does it.
Settling walls, sagging joists, crumbling block. We've seen all of it and we fix it so it stays fixed — with the engineering to back it.
Grain elevators, commercial equipment, park structures, oversized loads. If it's heavy and awkward, we have the gear.
Train depots, schoolhouses, century homes, century barns. The structures Ohio shouldn't lose — we move them carefully and bring them back stronger.
Three stories of timber. One sinking corner. Don't tear it down — call Klier.
When the owners called us out, the south corner of the barn had dropped almost four inches. The sill was rotted through and the stone foundation was crumbling onto itself. Most contractors said the building was past saving. We disagreed. Over six weeks we cribbed the entire south wall, cut out the rotten sill, sistered new oak in beside the original timbers, and rebuilt the corner pier from the footing up. The barn is back — straight, square, and good for another hundred years.
A summer cottage that needed a real foundation underneath it.
127 had been sitting on a stacked-stone perimeter for seventy years. The owners wanted a real basement — finished living space, mechanicals out of the crawl, the works. We slid steel I-beams under the floor system, pinned the structure, and lifted the entire cottage onto pallet cribs. While she sat in the air, our excavator dug the new basement and we poured a fresh block foundation. Three weeks later the cottage was back down — exactly level, with a new full-height basement under it.
People ask us all the time: how do you actually pick up a building? Here's the short version — the way we do it on a typical residential lift.
We open the perimeter, slide steel I-beams under the structure's load points, and pin everything together as one rigid frame.
Hardwood cribs go in beside hydraulic jacks. We lift in synchronized fractions of an inch — one jack at a time, all the way around.
With the structure suspended overhead, our excavator digs the new basement. The house never moves a hair while we work below it.
Footings, block, waterproofing, and bracing — all to engineered spec. We don't hand off the foundation. We pour our own.
Reverse of the lift. Inch by inch, jack by jack, the structure comes back down onto the new walls — perfectly level, no shifted plaster.
Cribbing out, beams pulled, site graded. Mechanicals reconnected. Bilco doors set. We leave it like we were never there.
The owners of this Wellington ranch wanted a basement under a house that was never built to have one. We took six months and forty-some site visits to get it right — and the family let us photograph every phase. From the first dig to the final backfill, this is what a Klier basement-add really looks like, week by week.
Slab-on-grade to full basement. We documented every step.
An ordinary house. An unsafe basement. A textbook Klier fix.
From the street the yellow ranch on the corner looked fine. Inside, the basement walls were bowing in three inches and the dining-room floor was starting to follow them. We installed steel I-beam wall braces floor-to-ceiling around the entire perimeter, sistered the failing floor joists, and tied the system back into a new center beam. The owners moved their kids' bedrooms back downstairs the next month.
Stone-pier foundation, a hundred years of settling, and a forty-eight-hour clock.
The owners of this lake-country saltbox had a problem and a deadline — closing on a refinance in six weeks, and an inspector who wouldn't sign off on the failing stone-pier foundation. Jim drove out on a Tuesday, gave a number Wednesday, and we had steel under the sill by the following Monday. We dug out the old field-stone piers one by one, set a new poured footing under each, and rebuilt with engineered block. Inspector signed off the same day we backfilled. The shutters never even came off.
Half the job is the stuff nobody photographs — bilco doors set true, cribbing stacked plumb, the extra trip to the salt-truck dispatcher. Here are a few.
Most movers go home in December. We finish what we started. This gothic-revival farmhouse needed her foundation done before spring — the snow showed up first.
When we add a basement, we add a way in. Egress, code, and a kid-friendly path from the backyard. Set straight, sealed tight, lined up with the block.
You don't notice good poured concrete. You notice the cracked, leaking kind. We grade, form, and pour our own bulkheads — no subcontractor handoff, no excuses.
Sometimes that's six inches off the foundation wall, with the surveyor's tripod inside the cut. Mitchell runs the machine. Jim watches the line.
The owner of this Italianate wouldn't move her porch furniture for the job. Fine by us — we worked around it. Antique iron, bird houses, and all.
A move isn't just cribs and beams. It's permits, pilot cars, route surveys, utility coordination, and a Saturday morning at 23°F. We handle all of it.
Tap a card to read the bio. When you call us, you'll talk to one of these people. That's the whole company.
23°F. A Marathon station, a state route, and 18 tons of historic Ohio on a trailer.
Most movers shut down December through March. We don't, when the job calls for it. This little outbuilding had to come off a property being sold, and the museum receiving it had a grant deadline that didn't care about the weather. We pulled the move at 6 AM on a Saturday — pilot car ahead, flagger behind, salt trucks notified, roof boarded against the wind. By noon she was sitting on cribs at her new home twelve miles away. Cold work. Clean work.
Bracketed cornice, double-hung sash, original storefront — and a perimeter giving way.
This little Italianate had been a 19th-century shop, a private residence, and now an antique gallery. The owner loved it. The foundation didn't love her back. The whole east side was settling and the cornice brackets were starting to pull away from the wall. We shored the structure in place, replaced the failing sill plate end-to-end, and underpinned the perimeter with new footings — all without disturbing the porch furniture or the 'spitting on sidewalks prohibited' sign she keeps by the door. Restoration finished in a season. She added the wicker chairs back the day we left.
Slab-on-grade, growing family, no place to add on. So we added under.
The Wellington-area family had outgrown the ranch but loved the lot. Adding on meant losing the yard. So we did what we do — we added under. Lifted the entire house off its slab, dug out a full 8-foot basement, poured walls and footings, and set the house back down on a foundation that'll outlast all of us. They got 1,400 square feet of new finished space without changing the footprint by a single inch. And we put the bilco doors in too, so the kids can run straight in from the yard.
Some of the most photographed jobs in the family's three-generation run. Tap to enlarge.
A Civil-War-era octagon, a Mack truck, and a county-line move that made the local paper.
One of the most photographed jobs in the Klier archive. This 1860s octagon — cupola, stucco, original sash and all — had to come off a property being rezoned commercial. The receiving family bought it for a dollar on the condition they could move it themselves. They couldn't. They called us. We pulled the cupola, set steel under the main floor, jacked her onto the trailer, and rolled her seven miles down the county road behind the old Mack. Cupola went back on the next morning. She's still standing on her new lot, four counties over.
Slab-on-grade to full basement. We documented every step.
The owners of this Wellington ranch wanted a basement under a house that was never built to have one. We took six months and forty-some site visits to get it right — and the family let us photograph every phase. From the first dig to the final backfill, this is what a Klier basement-add really looks like, week by week.
Original 1880s clapboard. New block foundation. Zero shifted plaster.
An old Pittsfield Township farmhouse with original clapboard siding and a fieldstone foundation that had finally given up. The owners were terrified of cracking the plaster inside — generations of family photographs and original woodwork. We worked one corner at a time, inch by inch, with a synchronized jack system that kept the whole structure within 1/16″ of level the entire lift. New block. Original house. No cracks.
Pediment, gable returns, and a flatbed straight up to the front porch.
An 1850s Greek Revival schoolhouse, sitting on a corner lot the township wanted back. The receiving family bought the building for the cost of moving it. We dropped the truck nose-in to the front facade, set steel beams under the floor system, jacked the structure onto the trailer in a single February morning, and rolled her four miles to her new lot before the snow stopped falling. She sits there today, original pediment intact, teaching nothing but standing proud.
From a busy state route to forty acres of quiet — without disturbing the chimney.
The owners had bought farmland an hour from where their grandparents' Cape Cod sat. They wanted the house, not the lot. We picked the structure up — full chimney, original brick, dormers, every window — and trucked it down county roads to the new property. The freshly poured foundation was waiting. We set her down level, hooked up new mechanicals, and the chimney never lost a brick.
Three stories. Cedar shingle roof. Suspended on cribs while we poured below.
A 7765-address Victorian with a slate-shingle roof that nobody wanted to risk. The owner had outgrown the crawlspace and wanted a real, full-height basement underneath the family home. We slid steel beams under the perimeter, lifted the entire three-story structure onto pallet cribs, and held her there while our excavator dug and our crew formed and poured a fresh 8-foot foundation. Mitchell ran the lift; Jim watched the chimney. Not a single shingle moved.
Hand-cut bargeboard, board-and-batten siding, and a stone-pier foundation past saving.
A small Carpenter Gothic cottage with the original hand-cut gingerbread bargeboard still on the gable — the kind of thing that gets lost the moment a contractor decides it's easier to demo. The owners refused. We worked one corner at a time, slid steel under the sill, and held the cottage on stone-pier replacements while we rebuilt the foundation in matching fieldstone. The bargeboard never came down. The 'NO TRESPASSING' sign she keeps on the door didn't either.
A teal-walled ranch the owners couldn't move out of. So we worked around them.
The family in this Wellington-area ranch had medical equipment, a rental shortage, and nowhere to go for the duration of a basement-add. So they stayed. We worked the lift in two phases — front of the house, then back — with synchronized jacks set so precisely the family kept living upstairs the entire time. Not a single picture frame fell. Not one. The teal accent walls and exposed beams went on the cover of a regional magazine the next year. The Klier crew didn't get the photo credit. We didn't ask for it.
Original sash, three matching dormers, and an entire perimeter held in the air.
An 1890s farmhouse with three matching gable dormers — the kind of detailing nobody builds anymore. The family wanted a full basement underneath, with mechanicals out of the crawl and finished living space below. We slid steel beams under the entire perimeter, jacked the structure onto pallet cribs, and held her there for the three weeks it took to dig, form, pour, and waterproof a new 8-foot foundation. The dormer trim never moved a sixteenth of an inch.
60 feet of agricultural building, no center posts, and an entire sill rotted out.
A working pole barn out in the flats — 60 feet across with no interior posts. The owner used it for equipment storage and couldn't lose the open span. The sill plate had rotted through and the whole structure was starting to settle. Most crews told him to tear it down. We didn't. We cribbed every load point, lifted the entire roof system on jacks, ran a new sill plate end-to-end, and reset her on a fresh footing. She's good for another forty winters.
Set tight to a pond bank, cupola intact, and a crew member working the jacks at sunset.
A small blue cottage on a private pond — built tight to the water and never given a real foundation. The owner wanted her preserved, lifted, and set on a proper poured base before the bank gave way. We worked the lift two cribs at a time so the structure never came off level, kept the cupola square through the entire process, and finished the set-down at sunset on a Friday. The orange-shirted crew member in the background of every photo is one of ours — twelve seasons in.
Tin roof, board-and-batten siding, and a township that was about to bulldoze her.
A 19th-century one-room schoolhouse sitting on a township-owned lot scheduled for demolition. The local historical society had three weeks and a small grant to find a mover, a foundation, and a new home. We took the call on a Monday, walked the site Wednesday, and had her on cribs the following week. The original tin roof — patinaed copper-orange — never lost a panel through the move. She's at the historical society's preserve now, schoolchildren coming through every spring.
Brick chimney, original sash, and the FWD running the haul one more time.
A white Cape Cod with an original brick chimney — the owner had bought farmland twelve miles south and refused to leave the house behind. We pulled the move in a single day on the old FWD truck Jim's father bought in 1979. The chimney rode standing. Not one brick fell. The new poured foundation was waiting at the destination. We set her down level by sundown.
A retired Lake Erie boat pilothouse, repurposed as a future showroom.
Not every Klier job is a house. A retired pilothouse off a Lake Erie working boat — round, top-heavy, and built to ride waves, not roads — needed to be moved overland to a new home as a showroom. We cribbed her on hardwood, set steel under the deck ring, and rigged her balance so the curved hull rode level on the trailer. The original signage is still on the side. She'll open as a showroom in 2026.
Tight access. Snow on the ground. A two-car garage set down clean.
Not every Klier project is a Victorian. A homeowner in the city needed a new two-car alley garage on a lot that was a foot too tight for most contractors' equipment. We poured the slab, built the structure, and set her on the foundation through a back-alley access barely wide enough for our skid-steer. Snow on the ground the day we finished. The owner had her cars inside before the new year.
A lot of "movers" rent everything by the day. We don't. The dollies, the jacks, the beams, the excavators — they all sit in our yard in Wellington, ready to roll. That's how we hit your timeline. That's how we keep your number honest.
Every photo is from an actual Klier project — no stock, no AI, no recycled shots. Tap any tile to see it full-screen.
The Klier name has been on a Wellington truck for sixty-three years. Here's the short version of how we got here.
Read the full storyThe Klier family runs its first structural move out of a small shop in Wellington, Ohio.
Jim takes over from his father. Dollies get bigger. The territory expands across the Lake Erie shoreline.
We become one of the only crews in Northern Ohio adding full basements under existing homes.
First museum partnership — relocating an early-1900s train depot to a Lake County preserve.
Mitchell joins his father in the field. The shop adds the green-and-black Klier truck mark.
Family-owned, family-run, three generations deep. Same Wellington shop. Same straight talk.
Jim or Mitchell comes out personally, looks at the structure, and gives you straight numbers — no surprises later.
We coordinate with engineers, utility companies, road crews, and your local building dept. You don't lift a finger.
Crews show up on the day we promised. Steel beams, hydraulic jacks, multi-axle dollies — whatever the job needs.
Structure goes back perfectly level on its new foundation. We clean up the site like we were never there.
Don't see yours? Call Jim. He'd rather answer it on the phone than have you guess.
(440) 647-2405Done right, no. Our synchronized hydraulic jack system keeps the entire structure within 1/16″ of level throughout the lift — that's tighter than the floor was probably built. We've lifted plaster-walled Victorians without cracking a single wall.
"I have a 100-year-old cottage in need of floor joist jacking with very tight access. Jim and Mitchell came and did a superb job. I'm very content with the results. I highly recommend them."
"Great expertise, service, and communication. I was refinancing my home and my bank required a foundation inspection. The owner scheduled it on short notice and quickly provided what we needed."
"Honest and precise. Klier did exactly what they said they would, on the timeline they promised. You don't find that often anymore."
"I have seen houses lifted by other companies and they do not compare to the quality that Klier Structural Movers offers. Everyone — from your own staff to the subcontractors — was extremely knowledgeable in their roles."
"Kliers exceeded our expectations and went above and beyond to make this move happen smoothly. They delivered everything they said they would, from the moment they started until the moment they finished. True experts."
"We had a 1920 farmhouse that needed a real basement underneath. Jim walked us through every option, gave a fair price, and the crew was meticulous. The house didn't shift a hair."
"Saved our 1890s barn. We were ready to tear it down — Klier raised it, we poured a new foundation, and it'll stand another century. Worth every dollar."
"Foundation was failing on one corner. Klier showed up when they said they would, fixed it right, cleaned up. Hard to find that kind of work ethic anymore."
From east of Toledo to west of Youngstown, and north of Columbus to the Lake Erie shoreline — if it's in our part of the state, we'll be there. We also travel for the right job anywhere in Ohio and surrounding states.
Call Jim directly. We'll come look at it, give you straight numbers, and tell you the most economical path forward — whether that's us, someone else, or a different approach entirely.
