What Happens When You No Longer Need Your Portable Building?

There are multiple reasons why you may want to hire portable buildings. You may need a temporary site office for a construction project that you’re working on. Or perhaps you need a temporary classroom at your school while refurbishment is carried out. 

In some cases, you may want to expand your business premises without the longer term commitment of moving into a bigger space if you are unsure whether you will need it long into the future.

All of this begs the question: what happens to your portable building when you no longer need it? The answer really depends on whether you’ve hired your portable building or bought it.

What happens at the end of a portable building hire period?

If you know that you will only need a portable building for a specific amount of time, you may decide hiring one rather than buying one is the best option. This ensures you have what you need without having to think about what to do afterwards. 

When your hire period comes to a close, we will carry out a site inspection to determine how it’s best to remove the portable building from your location. How a building is removed will depend on various factors, so you’ll receive a quote for the cost of removal. 

Usually, however, an articulated lorry with a crane attached will be sent to your site to remove the portable building and bring it back to our location or move it to where it’s needed next. 

What do you do if you’ve bought your portable building? 

There is a strong resale market for portable buildings. The UK’s prefabricated construction market was forecast to have grown by over five per cent in 2025. 

While this forecast includes the use of modern methods of construction (MMC) to build homes, it highlights the desire for modular buildings that can be assembled quickly onsite and also speaks to the need for portable buildings that can serve a range of other purposes. 

One of the reasons why MMC is rising in popularity is a shortage of skilled construction workers. Research indicates that the UK construction sector needs to recruit close to one million additional construction workers by 2032 to keep up with demand. 

If you have bought a portable building, perhaps that has been used as a classroom or even a site office for a few years, provided it is in good condition you will likely be able to resell it. 

How do you resell a portable building? 

One option is to sell your used portable building to us. We offer both a buy-back and part-exchange service for the portable buildings we sell. What we pay for these buildings is dependent on their condition at the time of sale. 

Given that our cabins have an average lifespan of 20 to 25 years, it is likely that there will be plenty of life left in your portable building that will make it appealing to others. 

In addition to buying used portable buildings to add to our own stock, we also provide the opportunity for you to advertise your portable building for sale on our website, enabling you to reach a wider audience. 

How are portable buildings moved?

Before you take any steps to move your portable building, it’s important to remove all the furniture and any other fittings you have installed from its interior. You will also need to arrange for any electricity or other utility supplies like water to be disconnected. 

Once these steps have been taken, your portable building will be ready to be moved. It will need to be detached from its foundation pad and then it can be lifted onto an articulated lorry using a crane, ready to go to its new home. 

The fact that portable buildings can be reused and moved to new sites, makes them a highly sustainable option, particularly in situations where you know you only need a temporary structure. 

Older portable buildings can be refurbished to give them a new lease of life. A new owner can also choose to brand the building using either a vinyl wrap or by choosing cladding in colours that complement those of their business. 

So, when your portable building has ceased to be of use to you, there’s no need to worry. Whether you’ve hired or bought your portable building, there will be an opportunity to pass it onto a new home.

This will minimise your environmental footprint and allow you to use the space the building once occupied for another purpose.