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Billy Ward of AABC House Moving
Star Profile
By
John Temple Ligon Temple@TheColumbiaStar.com
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| Billy Ward
| | AABC
House Moving, based in Camden, bids competitively for jobs
statewide. It's run by Billy Ward and his brotherin- law and
partner Haney Hancock. AABC is scheduled for televised full
disclosure this January on the Home & Garden Network.
Billy Ward was born in Jacksonville Beach, Fla., where his
father was based in the Navy. Staying with the Navy, Ward's
father moved the family to Virginia Beach and then Orlando,
where Ward began school.
Ward's father left the Navy and moved the family to Ft.
Mill, S.C. Ward entered the third grade at Ft. Mill Elementary
School . He played the trumpet for the Ft. Mill High School
Marching Yellow Jackets.
Immediately out of high school Ward began full- time work
in the house moving business with his father and his three
uncles. Ward's grandfather started a house moving business
long before in Ft. Mill with mule power and creosote logs.
Ward and his wife Lisa have two children in Camden public
schools. The family is active at Bethel Worship Center, where
Ward is the volunteer sound engineer, or soundman, as he might
be called on a road crew.
Their Camden home has a fish pond in the back, and Ward's
few quiet moments can be found on the banks.
Since his grandfather's beginnings, the house moving
business has changed dramatically. Besides equipment and
vehicle improvements, one of the most dramatic changes has
been the expanded opportunities for collateral profit centers
in the business. House sales, for instance, can be lucrative.
A property owner saddled with several unoccupied houses on
a site targeted for development might have no incentive to
suffer the expense to demolish the unwanted houses and clear
the lot of debris.
Ward bids the job to move the houses off the site, but the
potential in the sale of the discarded and moved houses, after
a little upkeep, can be truly worthwhile. The concept began
when Ward's family won the contract to clear the plant
property for BMW in Greer.
Once they learned the business of upgrading and selling
unwanted houses, the next logical development for Ward and his
partner was to design and build new houses for sale and
transport them to new home sites, marketing the concept with
an all- inclusive turnkey price. Ward's partner has a
contractor's license for such opportunities, and their spin-
off business is called B&H Construction Company.
For the Home & Garden Network television cameras in
January, AABC House Moving will roll a house from Irmo to the
Saluda side of Lake Murray in the daytime, which is unusual.
Ordinarily, the SCDOT and the house movers agree on nighttime
moving schedules due to reduced traffic.
The house to be filmed is 40 feet wide, which is too much.
Ward will have to cut off enough house to reduce it to 31
feet. Large houses do not get moved intact. They get cut into
parts, moved in parts, and reattached at the new home site.
Still, segmenting, moving, and reassembling a house can be
far cheaper than new ground- up construction.
Many of Ward's clients want little more than a raising of
the house and holding it in place above the foundation so the
foundation can be replaced. Upon completion of the new, modern
foundation, the house can be lowered on top.
An advancement of the same concept allows the single- story
house to be raised even higher where a whole new ground floor
and foundation can be built underneath, finishing with a two-
story house.
Editor's note: The Columbia Star will report on Ward's move
for the Home & Garden Network in January. For more
information, visit www.aabchousemoving.
com.
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