On a Mission
“To challenge a perception of supremacy within the portable building industry, portrayed by a few self elect multinationals.”
Brief History…
Portable Buildings Specialist RENT-A-UNIT® was Initially formed as a company by David Wraith in 1975, but in the early 1980’s as the business grew it became widely known as Wraith Group.
The Sale of Rent-A-Unit®
RENT-A-UNIT® was eventually sold to the Godfrey Davis Group PLC in the late 1980’s, and after being merged with a local manufacturer ultimately became what was commonly known yesterday as Elliotthire now Algeco!
Portable Buildings
Back in the 1980’s standard portable building structures generally consisted of all timber joisting, flooring, framing and roof structures, with the external clad with plywood and coated with a resin based textured finish. The windows were a very basic single glazed aluminium framed top openers, doors were hollow core wooden painted and internally the “ultra modern” of the day was 4mm wood grain effect wallboards (the ones people used to line kitchens and chimney breasts in)
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Steve Empson
Managing Director
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Joanne drury
Operations Manager
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Leanne forrington
Global Sales Manager
The new containerking® / rent-a-unit®
Modern Design, Style and Build
Forty years on and things are very different today, portable building designs have moved forward in many ways with modular buildings forming a large part of todays market for specialist manufacturers, but there’s still a big market for traditional portable buildings. Our range of portable buildings and storage shipping containers available today to hire, are completed to more exacting designs, standards and finishes, offering an unprecedented level of warmth, style and quality. We still carry forward the old fashion values from years gone by in the form of local depots, maintaining close customer contact and understanding, but we have had to succumb to modern day communication mobile phones, e-mail, facebook, linked in and the like.
Portable Building Delivery
There were no HIAB units (cranes assisted transport) in the day, a portable building was generally delivered on a flatbed truck and the driver had to jack the portable building up, drive truck away and then jack it back down to the ground using whats called a “Hi Lift” Jack, not the safest method but there were no other options unless a dedicated crane was employed to offload.
portable Building industry
Portable Building Industry
So it’s not so much that we’re breaking new ground, the portable building industry is effectively a very mature well serviced market. Unfortunately we see an industry that’s lost some of its focus, an industry now dominated by a few self elect multinational business, backed by public and private equity and a number of upstart companies which have sprung from the 2009 financial crisis when cabin businesses were going bust and thus cabins themselves were very cheap.
Today the portable building industry has been distracted by large scale modular build, without clear focus of the individual portable building on which its long term reputation was built. An industry where following years of solid economic conditions which encouraged industry consolidation up to the financial crisis, this has been replaced with mis management and fierce cost competition combined with very little product innovation in an apparent race to the bottom in quality. Local depots have been replaced with anonymous call centres therefore customer service standards have naturally suffered.
Rent-A-Unit® Limited in 2020
Welcome back RENT-A-UNIT®. We are very proud to reintroduce to the market this iconic brand of the 80’s. Out goes the common basic designs & methods. In place of which we introduce a new portable building we call Squadron®. Robust in construction, modern in design with sleek warm, comfortable, stylish interiors, user friendly & with energy efficient insulation’s, and glazing and including features like UPVC window frames, tinted glazing, insulated steel doors with vision panel’s, steel ring beam (optional), beefed up jack legs, plastic coated steel exterior panel’s, LED lighting on PIR sensors (optional), even built in Bluetooth speaker systems so you can stream radio or music through your phone (optional).
There’s been many design and product improvements, to many to mention, but if your looking for a great service and product we believe that you’ll find our Squadron® Unit is by far the best quality combined with value available in the market, furthermore you won’t be talking to a somebody in a faceless corporation, when you call RENT-A-UNIT® you will be talking to dedicated professional and knowledgable staff, someone who can offer answers and solutions, with generally honest, practical advice
Call us for a quote
01724 870000
Portable buildings for sale/hire
Call us for a quote
01724 870000