How to dispose of a portacabin and a caravan

[usenet]

We have just acquired a bit of land adjacent to our house, we've used it for grazing our horses for years anyway but buying it just completes our plot nicely.

Now we own it we'd like to get rid of the ancient and decrepit portacabin and caravan that are on it. The portacabin is actually falling apart, when we looked just recently the roof was falling in, thus it is worthless I think unless the angle iron is any use to anyone. The caravan is not quite so far gone, it's a biggish one intended for 'fixed' use I guess. The roof is still waterproof, it has a plumbed in loo though it's not actually plumbed in if you see what I mean.

How can we get rid of these? Does anyone have any idea how much a waste disposal company is likely to charge? If anyone is interested in the caravan I'm quite happy to assist them in getting it moving (I'm not even sure of the status of its wheels, if any, at the moment).

Any/all ideas would be very welcome.

[[news]]

set fire to them, shovel what remains into a skip.

RT

[Andy Dingley]

Moron.

For one thing, a caravan is skinned in aluminium. Burned aluminium is an effective weedkiller and you'll leave a bare spot there for years (depending on soil type).

Depedning on the age of the Portacabin you might have to pay money to get rid of it (If you're near Bristol, drop me an email and I'll tell you A Chap That Does). It'll break up easily enough with a sledgehammer, the framing steel is useful, or worth buttons for scrap (but worth it). The jacklegs off it may be of interest to someone who has just bent one (depending on age). The panels though are too many low-value materials lammed together to have much recycle value. Some of them make excellent greenhouse potting benches though, as they're solid plywood with a smooth waterproof laminate on them.

The caravan should be demolished with a sledgehammer. The aluminium panels are useful, or are definitely worth the scrap price. The trim is unusable and needs landfilling and the windows might be usable for coldframe / shed duty if glass, or are worthless if plastic. You can bonfire the timber afterwards (if it'll light) but you really need to strip the plastics out before setting light.

if you have electricity nearby, a big reciprocating saw will make your day less tiresome (Axminster do a big own-brand one that ought to last long enough).

[sylva]

We just had an old tourer removed off some land bought for a charity, local car remover charged 100 quid.

AJH

[bruce_phipps]

Chris,

When I bought my house recently the contract stated "vacant possession". So when the owner left a load of crap behind I was able to get my solicitor to chase them up and the offending items were removed soon after.

Don't know if this applies for land purchase, though. What happens if a load of stuff is fly-tipped just before a land purchase goes through?

Bruce

[Andrew Gabriel]

or if you were renting the land before and the rubbish was yours ;-)

[usenet]

That might work with the portacabin whose walls and roof appear to be some sort of cheap plywood but the caravan is mostly aluminium, not easy to burn (though theoretically possible).

[usenet]

No, it's not worth the hassle. We bought the land at auction which probably changes things. The story is a bit convoluted anyway:-

We bought the house with about 7 acres of land in 1998, the people we bought it from retained about half an acre at the corner of the site in the hope that they might get planning permission (very slim hope). They thought about selling a couple of years ago and we asked them to tell us if they got serious again. Then recently we saw a few people looking at the land and, on asking them, found it was to be sold by auction. We quickly got our act together (funds etc.) and I was able to buy it for a reasonable price, I don't think anyone else wanted it much, still no chance of planning permission.

All the time that we didn't own the land we had informal (and even slightly formal, in a letter) permission to use it for grazing etc. It basically forms part of our plot and there's no real separation or obvious boundaries. Thus we have maintained it to the extent of clearing the ragwort (poisonous weed), topping as required, etc. Our bonfire patch is on it too. We were told by the (then) owners that we were welcome to use/move the caravan if we wanted.

So I doubt if we can get the previous owners to clear it. Dismantling and burning seems the best approach.

[[news]]

ah, I thought it might be.

chop the ali one up with and axe / grinder. weigh the ali in at a large metal recycling yard. the price of aluminium has gone stratospheric recently. burn the ply one and whatever is left of the ali one, then shovel the remains into a skip. it's probably worth weighing the steel in, too.

RT

[nightjar]

Around here (West Sussex) there is a banger racing circuit, which will sometimes collect old caravans for demolition in one of their races. Otherwise they are a pain to dispose of. I was really pleased when the purchaser of my late parents' house wanted to keep the ancient caravan they had been using as a garden shed for decades.

Colin Bignell

[Badger]

Cheeky buggers, easy profit from just the skin of an OLD caravan, modern laminated vans however....

[The Natural Philosopher]

Do NOT make the mistake my father in law made, and let the local diddies do it 'just taking this lot away (all the aluminium).. I'll be back later to finish the job....'

Basically hire a skip and a big angle grinder: burn what you can and scrap the metal work. You MAY get enough for the alloy to pay for the skip and the angle grinder.

[sylva]

I doubt he bothered, he'll have just removed as much plastic and wood fixtures from it, taken off the wheels and weighed it in.

In the past caravan dismantlers did used to remove the aluminium and then fire the remainder, then a JCB would crush the chassis and this would be weighed in as light iron. Same people would smash open lead acid batteries, let the acid trickle away and burn the cases, selling the plates for recycling. I also remember plastic coated wires being heaped up to burn the pvc?? coating off prior to selling the copper at

400quid a ton. This will be in the late 60s. I don't know how much things have changed but I have noted that the plastic "mulch" used in a manege seems to be chopped flex with the copper dissolved out (flex is short plastic cylinders) and the old batteries are no longer stolen from my yard, now I have to take them to the civic amenities site.

AJH

[Rick]

A friend of mine stripped out any items of value, and set fire to his. The fire brigade turned up, and he told them to go away.

Once cool, he set too with an angle grinder on the larger bits of metal, and loaded the whole lot into a 10 tonne skip.

Rick

[Rob Morley]

I hope they charged him for the callout - any "controlled burning" that is likely to be called in by a passer-by should be notified to the local fire station so they know what's going on. I suspect that disposing of waste in this way contravenes environmental legislation anyway.

[Dave Stanton]

I would agree. Somebody might have had a real life endangering fire while they were at the other 'fire'

Dave

[sumankosic]

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[claire]

replying to Andy Dingley, claire wrote: Hi Andy

I know it's a real old post, can you contact me with lacal chap to Bristol. I have to quote to dispose of a porta cabin

[e-mail]

[Brian Gaff]

Large hand grenade?

Brian

[Andrew]

Offer them to 'The Grand Tour'