A friend and I have done many of these and travel trailers included. They are only overwhelming when you don't have a trash and wood disposal but why someone would do one when they don't is murderous. In a 3 day span over the last week just him and I completed the tear down of a 60 foot mobile home and a 30 foot camper. Here are some tips and things to keep in mind:
1. Have a proper tear down site - campers are fantastic for the reason that you can pull them to a location without permits and with most pickup trucks. We have gotten lucky in that a good friend of ours own a large ranch and he doesn't mind us demolishing them right next to his burn pit. I am not condoning this but in certain circumstances we have pulled trailer houses down backroads to this site. The best part about this location is we are allowed to throw any and all wood into the burn pile.
2. Salvage/recycle/reuse everything you can - Yes it's more time consuming but will make you more money down the road. Appliances that are easily tested can be resold very easily on craigslist. Find someone that has a use for old/used insulation. Luckily we know a guy that runs a trailer court and says he will take all the insulation that we can get him. I find this kind of nasty as most insulation we pull out stinks and has bugs in it. Just today I sold two mirrors that came from a trailer house for $5 each and a medicine cabinet for $10 on craigslist. My dad also will take a certain amount of 2x2 boards and paneling to cut up with his table saw and burn in his shop. I will sometimes remove the hinges and knobs from cupboards and resell those on
ebay as well. On campers, keep the handles on the outside near the door. These sell well on ebay.
3. A hatchet is an amazing tool - when you finally get to cutting up the tin roof I advise you to use this technique. If all you have to haul ferrous items is a pickup the hatchet method works great. I can cut up a 60 foot tin roof into 4 foot sections in about 15 minutes, the key is gentle steady swings. Swing it too hard and you miss the line you were working on. Obviously the hatchet can be used in more areas than just the roof
4. Follow the order of operations - it is very tempting to start ripping off the aluminum first thing but I find that its a big mistake. The order we like to follow is removal of interior bulky items, cabinets and counters, interior paneling, fiberglass insulation, kicking off the aluminum from the inside, knocking wood frame out until roof falls on floor, hatchet destruction of the roof, flipping the floor over with a truck like previously mentioned. Another tip to follow is cutting any wire out when you see it. If you dont you end up with a huge pile of wood with wire tangled throughout the whole thing.
5. NEVER EVER PAY FOR ONE!!!
Something we found interesting was that the 30 foot camper had the exact same amount of aluminum as the 60 foot trailer house. This is partially why, the camper had an aluminum roof (many do) and an aluminum floor. We sold all of our aluminum as "dirty" and I can safely say we got lucky the yard took the roof with tar on it. A camper seems to have more windows and bigger ones than a mobile home too.
Oh, and we have yet to come across a mobile home with aluminum wiring
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