Our Mission

“Challenge the perception of supremacy of product and industry dominance of portable accommodation, portrayed by a select few multinationals.”

Brief History…

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 is commonly known today as Elliotthire.

Traditional Portable Buildings

Back in the 1980’s standard cabin 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)

Steve Empson

Managing Director

Joanne drury

Customer Care Manager

Leanne forrington

Accounts Manager

The new rent-a-unit®

Modern Design, Style and Build

Forty years on and things are very different today, cabin designs have moved forward in many ways with modular housing forming a large part of todays market for specialist manufacturers, but there’s still a big market for traditional portable accommodation. Our range of portable offices and 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.

Transport And Cabin Delivery Build

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 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.

The portable building industry

The 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 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 accommodation 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 building called 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

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