Used portable cabins for sale
Second hand portable cabins for sale from our own yard in Manchester, delivered across England, Scotland and Wales. Site offices, welfare units, stores, toilet blocks and containers — bought in, put right, and sold on with an honest description of what you are getting.
Used cabins, second hand portable buildings, refurbished site units, 2nd hand site accommodation — whichever phrase you started with, this is the page. A single portable cabin for sale is an ordinary week for us, and so is a row of twenty. Buy one at a time or by the compound; a used portable cabin for sale on its own is priced exactly the same way as a batch.
Start here
One word, a dozen different buildings
Almost nobody rings up asking for a “modular building”. They ring up asking for a cabin, and then describe something quite specific: a place for two people and a kettle, somewhere to lock tools, a room with a shower in it. The word is the same every time and the building behind it never is.
So this page is the way in rather than the answer. Tell us what has to happen inside it, how many people, and roughly how long you need it standing, and we will point you at the right unit instead of the nearest one. Most of what leaves the yard goes onto a construction site, but farms, schools, depots and event sites buy the same cabins and buy them the same way.
- Site cabins and site offices — the everyday working cabin, open plan or partitioned.
- Jackleg cabins — corner legs already fitted, so it stands without a prepared base.
- Anti-vandal cabins — steel clad with shutters, for compounds that are left unattended.
- Welfare units and canteens — messing, drying rooms, and units with a WC built in.
- Toilet and shower blocks — plumbed sanitary units, single or multi-cubicle.
By type
Which used cabin suits the job
Every one of these is a cabin. Which one you want depends on the ground it stands on, who is in it, and whether it will be left alone at weekends.
| Type of cabin | Usual sizes | Chosen when |
|---|---|---|
| Site cabin / site office | 12ft to 40ft | People need somewhere to work, meet or keep paperwork dry. The most commonly bought cabin of the lot. |
| Jackleg cabin | 12ft to 40ft | The ground is uneven or temporary and you want the unit standing on its own legs rather than on a prepared base. |
| Anti-vandal cabin | 10ft to 40ft | The compound is unmanned overnight. Steel skin, steel door, shutters over the glazing. |
| Welfare unit or canteen | 16ft to 32ft | Breaks are taken on site. Seating, a servery or sink, often a drying area and a WC compartment. |
| Toilet or shower block | 10ft to 24ft | Sanitary provision on a plot with drainage and water available, or a tank arrangement. |
| Container | 10ft to 40ft | Security matters more than comfort, or the unit will be moved repeatedly by hook lift or lifting vehicle. |
Sizes are nominal and describe the external footprint. Widths of 8ft, 9ft and 10ft are all common in used stock, and a foot of width changes a layout more than a foot of length does.
Buying second hand
What to look at before you buy a used cabin
The floor, first
Walk the whole floor and put weight on it. Soft patches near the door or under a window are the usual sign that water has been getting in, and a deck is the one repair that is genuinely awkward once the unit is on your plot.
A tired interior above a sound deck is a cosmetic job. A sound interior above a failing deck is not.
How it will be lifted
Look for the lifting points and check the corner castings or lifting eyes are intact and not distorted. A cabin with no safe lifting point costs money to move twice — once to you and once again when you finish with it.
We check this on every unit before it leaves us and will tell you exactly how the one you are buying is designed to be picked up.
What is actually fitted
Sockets, lighting, the consumer unit, the heater, the door lock, whether the glazing has blown. This is where two apparently identical cabins separate on value.
Electrical certification is supplied with the cabin, and we tell you exactly what is fitted in the unit you are buying.
Comparing quotes. Ask what is in the figure and what is not, so you are comparing the same cabin in the same condition delivered to the same place.
The other direction
Selling a cabin instead of buying one?
Buying used cabins in is as much a part of this business as selling them. If you have one standing that you no longer need, we would rather buy it than see it stand.
Send photographs, rough dimensions and the postcode where it is standing. You get a figure for the cabin, a separate figure for the transport, a collection date, and payment by bank transfer on collection. One unit or a whole compound.
Sell a single cabin or container · Sell a compound of units · What we take and what we decline
By type
Used cabins, unit by unit
The categories overlap in everyday use. Start wherever seems closest and we will work out what actually suits the job.
Used site cabins
The everyday working cabin. Open plan or partitioned, 12ft through to 40ft, ex-hire and ex-contract stock.
See the range →Used site offices
Office cabins fitted out to work in all day — flooring, lighting, sockets, heating and a door that locks.
See the range →Used jackleg cabins
Corner legs already fitted, so the unit stands and levels without a prepared base underneath it.
See the range →Used anti-vandal cabins
Steel clad, steel door, shutters over the glazing. For compounds left unattended overnight and at weekends.
See the range →Used welfare units
Static welfare cabins, canteens and drying rooms. Seating, servery, drying space and a WC compartment.
See the range →Containers
Shipping and storage containers, 6ft through to 40ft, standard height or high cube, plain or lined out.
See details →Bigger than a single cabin? See used modular buildings for multi-bay blocks, or second hand portable buildings for the full picture on condition and terminology.
What are you looking for?
What is standing in the yard changes from week to week, so the useful conversation starts with what you need rather than with a list. Describe the size, the layout and where it is going, and we will tell you what we can supply, in what condition, and what the building and the transport each cost.
Have something to trade in? Tick the part exchange box. A building coming the other way usually improves the arithmetic in both directions.
- Two figures — the building and the haulage — so you can see what you are paying for
- Refurbishment to your specification before delivery is usually possible
- Part exchange welcome — a building coming the other way is part of the deal
Common questions
Used and second hand cabins
What counts as a cabin?
On a compound, "cabin" covers almost everything that is not a container. A site office, a canteen, a drying room, a toilet block, a store, a gatehouse, a sleeper unit. They are all single self-contained buildings that travel complete on a lorry and are set into position. Ask three people on the same site what a cabin is and you will get three answers, which is why we work from photographs and dimensions rather than the word.
Is a second hand cabin the same as a used cabin?
Yes. Second hand, 2nd hand, used, pre-owned, ex-hire and refurbished all describe the same thing here, and we use them interchangeably because customers do. Whichever word you started with, what we sell is put right in our own yard before it goes out, and we describe the actual unit rather than the category.
What sizes do used cabins come in?
The common lengths are 10ft, 12ft, 16ft, 20ft, 24ft, 32ft and 40ft. Widths are usually 8ft, 9ft or 10ft, and the width makes more difference to how a room works than most people expect. A 10ft wide unit takes a desk down each side with a walkway between; an 8ft wide one does not.
Can I buy one cabin, or do I have to take several?
One is fine. A single cabin going to a farm, a yard or the back of a builder's merchant is an ordinary week for us. Equally, if you need six matching units for a compound we would rather supply them from the same batch so they line up and look right together.
What condition are used cabins in?
They come to us in every state. Some come out of a fleet lined, floored and ready to work in; others come off a finished contract needing the interior putting back. Either way the work is done in our own yard before the cabin goes out, so what we quote is what arrives, and we describe each one as it actually is.
Do you deliver, and how is the transport priced?
We deliver on our own lorries across England, Scotland and Wales. The cabin and the haulage are quoted as two separate figures, never rolled into one number, because the transport depends entirely on where the unit is going and what the access is like at the other end.
Can I see a cabin before I buy it?
Yes, by arrangement at the yard the unit is standing in. If travelling is impractical we send detailed photographs of the actual cabin rather than pictures of something similar.
What if I want to sell a cabin rather than buy one?
We buy as well as sell, and we would rather buy a sound cabin than see it scrapped. Send photographs, rough dimensions and the postcode and you get a figure, a collection date and payment by bank transfer on collection.
Tell us what has to happen inside it
Size, layout, how many people, and the postcode it is going to. We come back with what we can supply, the condition it is genuinely in, and what the cabin and the transport each cost.