Seattle Mobile Office Trailer Rental

Mud, rain and a pad that stays dry

In Seattle the question is rarely if it will rain. It is if your trailer will be sitting in a puddle when it does. A site office parked on bare dirt in November has a mud pit at the door within a week. Everyone tracks it inside, and the floor is wrecked before the project is half done.

Ask for a gravel pad, or at least timbers under the unit, and lay a walkway from the gate to the steps. Skirting matters in wet weather because it keeps water and critters from settling underneath. A provider who sets the trailer on piers instead of the ground also gives you a flatter floor on a slope, and Seattle has plenty of slope.

Winter means heat and some way to dry the air. Window condensation is constant and plans left on a table curl at the edges. A unit with a decent heat pump and a working vent fan beats the plainest box on the lot.

A tight city and a tighter street grid

Downtown, South Lake Union and Capitol Hill have little room to spare. Many sites have no yard at all, so the trailer goes on a parking deck, a neighboring lot or a closed lane. A closed lane means a street-use permit, and the city decides what hours a truck can block traffic. Start that conversation early. The permit can take longer than the rental.

The truck that carries a trailer is long. The driver needs a turning path, overhead clearance and a place to stage. On the slopes between downtown and Capitol Hill the grade becomes its own planning problem, so mention it on the first call and the right truck shows up.

On very tight sites, ask about stacked units. Some downtown jobs go two stories to save ground. Not every rental company does it, so ask directly.

Where the work is

Across Lake Washington, downtown Bellevue is a field of towers and the Eastside keeps adding office and residential projects. Redmond and Kirkland see campus work and tenant buildouts. Sammamish and Bothell lean toward subdivisions and schools. South of the city, Kent and Renton sit on flat industrial ground with warehouses and aerospace plants, and Boeing's presence in Renton keeps parking lot and plant work going around it.

The Port of Seattle and the waterfront bring marine contractors and utilities who rent a trailer for the length of a pier or terminal job. Light rail and highway work across the region puts offices at staging yards.

Shoreline, Burien and Edmonds have smaller commercial and school projects, where a single-wide for six months is typical.

Choosing the size and layout

Seattle sites are small, and the temptation is to take the smallest trailer that fits. Resist that when several people will share it. A superintendent, a project engineer and a safety coordinator all want a desk, and the plans table takes real room. One double-wide with an interior wall is easier to live in than two single-wides set with a gap between them.

Picture inspection day. A cramped trailer with drawings stacked on the floor is a poor place to meet a city inspector. Ask for furniture to be included so the space works from day one, and for shelving that holds rolled drawings.

Some providers rent guard shacks and office-and-storage combinations. Along the waterfront or near Interstate 5, where tools and materials tend to walk away, a combined unit puts a locked room beside the desk. It takes less ground than two separate boxes.

Seattle crews also lose daylight early. From November on, the site is dark by late afternoon, so ask about exterior lighting at the door and the steps. A lit approach is a safety item, and it discourages the after-hours visitors that tend to find downtown sites.

If you are in Bellevue or Kirkland, ask where the truck is coming from. Crossing the Lake Washington bridges at rush hour can cost a delivery half a day, and a provider with a yard on the Eastside side of the lake can often beat that. For Kent and Renton the yard is closer, and the question is the pad and the drainage, not the drive.

Earthquakes, wind and anchoring

Western Washington is earthquake country, so anchoring is a fair question. Providers set tie-downs to what the site and the city call for. Ask what they use and if the trailer will be braced. You are not asking for engineering advice. You are finding out if the company has done this on a site like yours.

Wind off the Sound can be stiff, and exposed waterfront sites deserve extra attention on anchoring.

The call itself

You will get a same-day quote if you can say the following when the provider picks up.

• Address, and any gate or access limits.
• Start date and expected length of the project.
• Crew size, plus a conference room or restrooms if you want them.
• Slope, overhead lines and street width.
• Where temporary power stands.

If you are working downtown, say so in the first sentence. It changes the truck, the time of day and the permit conversation.

One more habit worth having: ask for delivery, setup, monthly rent and pickup written out together. Rental terms that look flat grow extra lines when a project runs long or the site moves.

Looking for a different city? Here are some nearby.

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