Ice House Skid Recommendations

[jtchev1978]

Hey guys,

Dad and I recently bought a 10x20' skid house (heavy) and it's time to replace the skids.

I am looking for some advice/input as to what people recommend. Currently the skids are wood. I have heard good and bad from a couple resorts about wood and metal skids.

Does anyone have some advice for me? I need to get these replaced before too much longer so I am not scrambling when the cold hits! HA

Any help would be appreciated

[jerkbait]

Alot of people swear by the white oak skids.

[Hawg]

4x6 white oak. Sometimes a metal runner 3 inches, give or take a little, really helps it move easier but be SURE to countersink the holes or the screw heads will act like breaks and scratch into the ice.

[LindellProStaf]

Hawg you have a PM.

[Ryan_V]

My last house on mille lacs had white oak skids. never had a problem with them. had other problems with the house, so dumped it, and bought one on steel skids. I like the no maintenance of steel, but if we were going to have to replace them in the old shack, based on what we saw for cost, we would have stuck with white oak. you should easily get ten years out of them if properly cared for

[jb426]

If you can weld/or know someone who can weld I would go steel. I'm redoing mine as speak. Build a frame with angle iron, weld some plates to attach the house to the frame then weld on some metal skids. under $500 in materail.

[ice_medic]

I have always been a fan of the wood skids with a metal runner down them. As stated earlier just make sure if you screw them in make sure they are counter sunk in there. I did a lot of metal work and welding when i had my skid house so i used wood skids and wrapped them around the bottom to the sides and bolted them in place that way. That worked pretty good too. Anyways good luck

[jtchev1978]

Thanks everyone for the help!

[chris63]

Couldn't you just use a 1/2 wrap or tabs on the side to attach rather than having to countersink and bolt from the bottom?Some resort owners don't like steel runners as they tend to tear up bridges and/or move them prematurely.c63