Demoing old trailers

[TC29-dude]

I recently purchased 7.5 acres that adjoin my existing property.
The previous owners left behind 3 old house trailers that need to go away.
Actually a big bonus was getting rid of the neighbors.

Has anyone dealt with gettting rid of old trailers? I keep hearing about scrap
guys who will come and take them for the scrap metal but so far I have yet to meet one of these characters.

Let me know what you guys have done. I do not want to bury then on my property...I want them gone.
I was thinking about attacking them with my FEL but am a little concerned about dinging my tractor.

Thanks!

 

[Egon]

Midnight fire of unknown origin??? That should get it all down to the bare bones.

 

[gordon21]

Most rural fire depts will do a controlled burn as a training exercise. No cost to you except what to do with the steel frame afterwards. In many places, the county will haul them off for free.

Do not try to burn it yourself. That is too big a job for one man to watch in case it starts getting out of hand.

 

[randy41]

after we moved from our old trailer into our new house we put an ad in the local paper for a free trailer and it was gone in a week or so.

 

[SnowRidge]

It costs money to move a mobile home and set it up, sometimes quite a bit of it. If the trailers are really old and in bad shape, free might be more than they are worth.

In other words, you may have to pay somebody to get rid of them. I hope you considered that when you figured what the property they were sitting on was worth.

Still, I would go with the suggestion to put them in the local paper, especially the weekly "Shopper" variety that is usually given away at convenience stores and such. And because it's free and can't hurt, try craigslist, assuming they have a page for your area.

Make sure you sell them "As is, where is," but make sure you have legal title to them first. In some states, they are treated as motor vehicles and the vehicle titling people are the ones to talk to if you have questions.

Good luck.

 

[Egon]

The Midnight burn was actually meant as a joke. Please don't think of it as serious.

Perhaps a practice fire for the fire department??? But this would also not fly as there may be hazardous goods involved.

 

[tallyho8]

I don't know how far you are from a scrap metal yard but metal prices have skyrocketed in the last few years. I used to bring trailer loads of sheet metal to the scrap yard instead of the dump because they would unload them at the scrap yard and I had to unload them at the dump. I only got about $10 for my trailer load. Now that same trailer load is selling for $60. Heavy iron is selling for what copper used to sell for and copper is selling for almost what silver used to sell for.

 

[schmism]

The Midnight burn was actually meant as a joke. Please don't think of it as serious.

Perhaps a practice fire for the fire department??? But this would also not fly as there may be hazardous goods involved.

no you can still do it, im in the process of doing it. Requires an espestos inspection for the EPA permit.

But im burning down a full size farm house.

Burning them is diffentilty the way to go. the old ones were built like a house of cards. The guys around these parts usually strip the tin off the side (AL sideing is worth $$) once your down to the steal frame and wood sides/roof, tip it over on its side (easy to do with the FEL) then drive through it. you can then bust it up and burn it in a normal burn pile.

I watched a neighbor burn one up like that over a period of about 4 days. Hed come home and add a few more FEL loads of trailer (from the pile-o-trailer) to the fire a after a few days he was left with the steel frame

you can then cut that down for a trailer, or haul it off. Round my parts they are getting about $125 a ton for mix, more for "clean" stuff. Word has it copper scrap is a $1 a pound.

 

[sandman2234]

I have built a couple of trailers out of mobile home frames. One I still see running around here with a JD450 dozer on it. I used 4 lenghts of the 10" lightweigh "I-beam" to make runners for it, and short pieces between them, plus the front and rear ends. Trailer weighed more than a ton, and it handled the dozer fine. Even short lenghts can be modified to use as something else, such as one piece cut and bent, then two more pieces cut with an angle one one end to make a heavy duty set of car ramps. With enough of the material, you can make a set full lenght to drive your cars/tractors up on. I saw another guy stood two of them on end, and one across the top to make a lightweight crane rail. He built a building over the top of it, and braced the I-beam for side sway. Also works great as roof trusses if you have enough of it.
David from jax

 

[MacLawn]

TC29, I just did exactly what you want to do, except with only one 1964 10' wide trailer. Scrap guy got it...

 

[Destructo_D]

no you can still do it, im in the process of doing it. Requires an espestos inspection for the EPA permit.

But im burning down a full size farm house.

Burning them is diffentilty the way to go. the old ones were built like a house of cards. The guys around these parts usually strip the tin off the side (AL sideing is worth $$) once your down to the steal frame and wood sides/roof, tip it over on its side (easy to do with the FEL) then drive through it. you can then bust it up and burn it in a normal burn pile.

I watched a neighbor burn one up like that over a period of about 4 days. Hed come home and add a few more FEL loads of trailer (from the pile-o-trailer) to the fire a after a few days he was left with the steel frame

you can then cut that down for a trailer, or haul it off. Round my parts they are getting about $125 a ton for mix, more for "clean" stuff. Word has it copper scrap is a $1 a pound.

I just too various scrap metal in today... this is what I was paid.

#2 copper $2.35/pound (#1 is solid copper wire, not stranded, #2 is everything else copper)

Brass $1.15/pound

brass radiators $1.20/pound

Fins (the radiators made of copper/alumuinum found in airconditioners) $1.20/pound


mixed steel $60.00 per ton (2000 pounds)

All these prices are in canadian dollars... as I live in canada

 

[Renze]

60 dollars per ton....
Last time i got 15 Eurocents per kilo, which is 150 euro per ton.... which is somewhere between 2 and 3 times as much as you get...

I think scrap is worth more in my area, because the raw steel plants are only a 150 km away...

I also have a trailer with aluminium sides to scrap... If the frame beams look any good, i'll cut out some good pieces because the stuff is just too expensive to just throw away...

 

[DocHeb]

All these prices are in canadian dollars... as I live in canada

Not much of a difference nowadays between $US and $Can!

 

[TheHammer]

I was in a similar situation about 2 years ago when I purchased my property. It came with three old travel trailers that had been vandalized and were pretty much of no value. I pulled them to the edge of the property near the road just to get them out of the way. Everyone I called wanted to charge me for removing them. As a joke, my brother-in-law hung a "free" sign on them. They were gone the next day.

 

[kc5dlo]

When I finished my house, I demoed the trailer I was living in. I pretyy much gutted the interior before hooking up to a neighbors tractor and moving it to the back of my place.
I carefully used the front loader to push in the walls. I was easier to push at an angle to the walls breaking them in the middle of the studs. Most of the pieces were quite easy to move by hand to a smallish burn pile and burned over the coarse of a few days.
Pulled the frame back to the shop for other projects. It was quite fragile with out the support that the floor gave it. Overall, I was pleased with how well it went.

 

[ToadHill]

If those trailers have aluminum siding, strip it off before you offer them to the fire department, Aluminum prices are out of sight.

 

[TC29-dude]

Update! I found a guy who is thrilled to demo the trailers for the scrap metal.
He had one torn down to the frame in no time today. I have another guy who is delivering a roll off dumpster in the AM so my scavenger guy can toss what he doesn't want.

The really scary thing is that he is planning to haul one off and rehab it so his son can live in it! To me...they are total junkers!

With any luck I will soon be trailer free!