August 4, 2010

FEATURE | Site services

ATCO

Today’s construction trailers are greener and built to exacting standards.

Market grows for energy-efficient construction trailers

DON PROCTER

correspondent

Finding a building site set up with worn-looking construction office trailers these days is rare. Fewer contractors – especially big commercial ones — settle for anything but the best.

“Years ago it might have been acceptable to see old beat up rusty trailers but now image is more important,” says Jeremy Smith, branch manager of William Scotsman Inc.’s (WS) Toronto office.

The big U.S.-based modular building company is one of a several modular manufacturers serving the competitive Greater Toronto Area market.

While the technology of building modular trailers for construction site offices hasn’t changed much in past decades (it is a low-tech building product, after all), today’s models are much more energy efficient than those of the past.

Clients demand it, says Tom Hardiman, executive director of the Modular Building Institute, a Virginia-based association with about 100 manufacturer-members in the U.S. and Canada.

The energy savings from additional insulation, high-efficiency heating and air conditioning systems pays for itself on long-term projects — particularly on building sites set up for a year or two, says Hardiman.

In addition to increased insulation, many of today’s trailers come with thermal windows (sometimes even low-E coated), he adds. That wasn’t the case five to 10 years ago prior to rising energy costs and the big push to go green.

The price of a trailer, back then, was the only priority for many contractors.

Smith says William Scotsman’s trailers are all two-by-four framed (some manufacturers “go cheap” with two-by-two framing) covered with housewrap and insulated with R-30 walls, floors and ceilings. Thermopane windows are standard issue.

Hardiman adds in some regions of the U.S., green-friendly trailers may garner credits towards LEED certification.

As it stands, most of William Scotsman’s trailers and its chief competitors’ products are equipped with modern HVAC systems.

Some units, in WS’s case, even come with energy recovery ventilators. Propane and electric heat are options. Custom layouts are common.

Hardiman says while trailers are easy to retrofit with additional insulation and windows, most manufacturers will build new to a builder’s specs.

Builders tend to lease, rather than purchase trailers primarily to take advantage of the turnkey service provided. “It’s easier for the GC if a trailer is delivered and set up by a company and removed when the job is done,” points out Hardiman. “They don’t want the headache of having to do it themselves.”

The industry is “highly competitive” and even though energy efficiency is a big demand from customers, price is still the factor that often makes or breaks a sale, he suggests, so manufacturers are careful not to build in costly features in their products that might turn potential customers to their competition.

There’s no scarcity of trailers these days but Hardiman says even in the busiest construction times when trailers are in big demand shortages are rare because manufacturers can turn out trailers quickly.

In North American about 20 per cent of the market for non-residential modular industry is construction trailers.

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