How To Dispose Of An Old Mobile Home

For some people, a mobile home is a quality affordable housing option when the unit is new, but when it gets old and no one wants to live in it any more, mobile home disposal and clean up can be a real challenge. Too big to just throw away and usually not worth rehabbing, it may sit abandoned until someone comes along and buys the lot it sits on. The new owner may have to try several approaches to make it go away. Here are a few ways to dispose of a mobile home the right way:

Call metal scrapyards to find out if you can sell your old mobile home for scrap metal, or even give it away for someone to scrap themselves. Average mobile homes contain a good deal of salvageable materials, like copper, aluminum, and steel in the frame and axles. It may well be worth giving the unit away in exchange for removal service.

Call car-crushing businesses, some of which are also scrap metal yards. One of them may take it for a small fee. If not, ask if they know who might take it off your hands.

Tear down and dismantle the mobile home yourself or hire someone to do so — you will need to rent a contractor's waste bin. As you tackle DIY mobile home deconstruction, pile the pieces in the bin until it's full, then call the company that owns the bin to haul it and its contents away. You will need to pay to rent the bin, and you will also need to pay a tipping fee for them to dump the debris at the landfill. Afterward, you will still need to get rid of the frame.

Call the fire department and ask them if they would like to use your old mobile home as a practice building that they can deliberately burn down. This will only work if the mobile home is on an isolated lot, and some fire departments won't do it all. In any case, you will still need to get rid of any remaining metal and the frame.

If there are no mobile home removal companies in your area, call an excavator operator, mobile home demolition contractor, or demolishing company (make sure they have a demolition permit if required by local laws) who can crush your old mobile home to rubble with a front-end loader, then load it in a dump truck or contractor bin. Again, you will have to pay the tipping fee, as well as the heavy equipment operator.

Sell or give the frame away for scrap metal. You may need to post an advertisement online or in the local newspaper. Once the rest of it is gone, the frame should be easier to dispose of as scrap metal.