Mobile Office Trailers in Saint Louis

A lot of Saint Louis gets built by taking something old apart first. Brick warehouses in Soulard and hospital wings in the Central West End come apart first, and so do the vacant schools in north city. The job starts with demolition, and the superintendent needs a dry room with a desk before the first wall comes down. That room is usually a trailer.

Who rents trailers around here

Hospital and university work is the steadiest source. The medical campus near Forest Park and the Washington University buildings around it are always in the middle of some renovation, and the Cortex district keeps adding lab and office space. Those owners want a clean, climate-controlled field office for the general contractor and often a second one for the owner's representative, so the two sides stop sharing a folding table.

Then there is heavy industry and aerospace. Hazelwood and the north county corridor near the airport have plants and warehouses that expand in phases. Utility crews and road contractors working the interstates need small offices that move from one work zone to the next. Retailers and car dealers also call when a showroom is being rebuilt and sales has to keep running from a trailer in the lot.

The riverfront adds barge terminals, flood-wall repairs and rail yards on both banks. Those sites tend to be remote from any building, so the trailer is the only place with a desk, a heater and a locker for the drawings.

A guard shack is a different order from an office. Plants and construction yards that want a gate attendant booth ask for those separately, and a provider can usually quote them in the same call.

What the dispatcher needs from you

The person who picks up wants the street address of the site, not the company office, and a rough length for the project, because monthly terms hang on it. Headcount comes next, along with a plain answer on visitors: if inspectors or the public will climb the steps, you are buying a ramp. Power is the other early question. A temporary pole and a rented generator are different jobs for an electrician. Water and a restroom inside the unit are worth raising on the same call.

Then describe the ground. A gravel staging lot and a muddy lot beside a creek are two different deliveries.

Rivers, clay and freeze-thaw

Saint Louis sits between two big rivers and the low ground along both of them floods. Sites in the Missouri River bottoms near Saint Charles and Maryland Heights, and the Mississippi side around East Saint Louis and Granite City, are the ones to ask about. If your trailer is going into a floodplain, tell the provider up front. The unit can be set higher on piers, and you should know where you would move it if the river came up.

The soil is clay in many places. It holds water, swells, then shrinks, and a trailer set on bare dirt will shift. Good providers block the unit on pads or piers and level it again if the ground moves. Winters here freeze and thaw repeatedly, so ask how the water lines and the underside of the unit are protected if you plan to have a sink or restroom connected. Summers are humid, and a small window air unit on a big trailer will lose that fight, so ask what heating and cooling comes with the unit you are quoted.

Storm winds come through the region in spring. A trailer that will sit for months should be tied down, and delivery day is when to check.

Questions that save you a change order

• What size is the trailer, and does it come furnished or empty?
• Who delivers the steps, skirting and any ramp, and are they in the quote?
• What does pickup cost at the end, and what notice do they want?
• Who connects the electric, and does that need your electrician?
• Does the lease include a minimum term?

Permits come up more than people expect. A trailer left on a job lot for months can draw a building department's attention, and the rules differ between the city, the county and the smaller municipalities. Ask the office that covers your parcel before you agree to a delivery date.

Where the providers reach

Providers based in the metro often cover the city and the inner ring without a trip charge: University City, Kirkwood, Maryland Heights and Hazelwood are all easy deliveries. Saint Charles and Florissant are a longer haul but routine. The Illinois side is a different story. Belleville, Granite City, East Saint Louis and Edwardsville are a bridge crossing away, and some providers treat them as a separate service area with their own delivery charge. Scott Air Force Base and the Metro East industrial sites generate steady demand, so there are providers over there, but ask where the trailer is coming from.

Say the full address, say the state, and let them quote from the yard nearest you. A trailer that travels twenty miles instead of sixty costs you less and shows up earlier.

If the project is a rebuild of something that has stood since the 1900s, plan on the schedule changing. Trailers are the one line on the budget you can adjust by the month, which is exactly why they are rented and not bought.

Looking for a different city? Here are some nearby.

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