Anyone ever scrap out a camper?

[Ultradog MN]

I see a lot of old campers that are shot and can be bought for $500.
Am wondering how big of a PIA it would be to tear one apart for the trailer frame. The wood I could burn and scrap the aluminum.
Anyone done that?
I'd like to build a bunk house to replace our old Airstream trailer up at our hunting property. Make it kinda cute like my deer blind.
Anybody scrap out a 20' camper. How bad was it to do?
Thanks

 

[racecougar]

It's a PITA if you're doing it by hand. Not so much if you have a grapple bucket. Note that depending on the camper, the frame might not be worth the effort. Plenty were built with awfully underwhelming underpinnings.

 

[JeepYJ]

Are you wanting a mobile bunkhouse or just a bunkhouse? A prebuilt shed delivered would be far easier and still somewhat portable.

 

[niget2002]

My grandparents sold their last fifth wheel trailer to someone looking to do something similar. They pulled that thing all over the US and by the time they were done with it, it wasn't really road worthy and barely had one or two more tows in it. I think the guy ended up just using it 'as is' and building a carport/cover over the top of it.

It might be easier and cheaper to just find a used camper that's still half-way decent vs rebuilding something yourself.

As others asked, do you really need the mobility?

 

[driftpin]

I was in the fire-rescue ambulance returning from a call, where we transported a patient to the E.R. of the local public health trust hospital. Just as we turned off the boulevard, 2 blocks from the fire station, I saw something unusual. It was the entire side of a slide-in camper, lying mostly in the sidewalk, and extending into the street gutter.

There was a concrete utility pole in the R.O.W. and apparently, from the white paint on the street-side of the pole, someone had cut the corner a bit too-close, and they neatly peeled-off the aluminum panels comprising the entire right-side of the camper. It fell to the ground, and interestingly, the large awning window in the panel wasn't even sporting any shattered glass.

After shift exchange, one of my now off-duty co-workers and I returned to the intersection, and he helped me load the side of the slide-in camper into my truck. I took it home, disassembled it for aluminum scrap and got some pocket-money. The 'disassembly' was already done, so it was easy to scrap.

 

[carlaisle]

I've seen it done and that third party observation was enough to convince me I would never want any part of it. It will be less work to stick build a 20' bunkhouse, even if you have to carry all the materials to the building site by hand.

 

[Ultradog MN]

Good replies. Thank you all.
A bunch of additional thoughts here
I have a loader with forks. I could pierce through the walls and pull it apart in big chunks and drop them on the burn pile up there. Rake up the remains.
I'm thinking I could still get a few $ for it when the day comes we quit hunting/fishing if it was easily transportable.
I computed an approximate weight and it would be in the 5K lb range.
No bathroom or plumbing. We have an out house there. Haul water from home like we do now.
Yes, stick built, well insulated -all 4 sides + top and bottom. Decent residential vinyl windows. Frame a hole for windoW AC. Use electric heat.
Build it at home where all my tools are - on the apron In front of the garage. Lift the floor, walls, roof in place with the loader. Maybe do 9 or 10' wide. (I can do over dimension loads.)
Sell the Airstream To buy materials.
No more bugs, spiders or mice.

 

[JeepYJ]

I'm thinking I could still get a few $ for it when the day comes we quit hunting/fishing if it was easily transportable.
I computed an approximate weight and it would be in the 5K lb range.
No bathroom or plumbing.

Why not just start with a utility or equipment trailer and build a tiny house on it?
Quite a bit of a camper won’t burn or will be stuff you’d probably not want to be burning.

 

[dfiler2]

I just had a young neighbor ask me about an old camper, 26' i think. I told him he could have it. He spent 4 nights after work tearing it apart then a couple of nights cleaning up and hauling away the scrap. He built himself a nice flatbed trailer. I say go for it, it would be a fun project, IMO. Ill bet you could find a free one just for hauling it away.

 

[Lassen Forge]

Christ, most of them were hauled off and shitted as scrap, and EVERY ONE of them lost money on the deal....
Get a GOOD trailer, and then YOU fix it up to work for you. Because, sadly, you'll never get your money out of it, but if you;re making it for a prairie cabin or a Workshop, then you might break even-ish... Still if you are planning on living in a trailer, you better have a plan for it, as it will (not really) slowly turn to ****.
I want to get an Airstream (which ALMOST hold value, tho they;re still a loosinf proposition), drop a new axle set under it, and make it a home away from home... But every time I work it out I go ""F*** NO" because as coo as they are, you are still ******* money down a a sewer. UNLESS I find a real 1960's jewel that needs no resto, then count me out.

 

[mervyn]

Aren't those things made of alot of plastic ?

 

[The Cobbler]

like mentioned, usually the frames are not very robust for anything substantial

 

[Mick56]

A few years ago I was at a scrapyard when a guy hauled in a motorhome on a trailer. The office guy went running out there. No way he said, get that out of here! We don't take motorhomes. He came back in the office and said, " they are just way too much work to get anything out of them".

 

[Rst277]

Aren't those things made of alot of plastic ?

There is a bunch of plastic as well as fiberglass insulation that doesn't burn and is a pain to deal with. There is a reason autowreckers won't take campers.

 

[Stuart in MN]

There's a lot of stuff inside them you'd have to dispose of too - appliances, water/wastewater tanks, cabinets, bathroom fixtures, mattresses, a settee and maybe other furniture, and so on.

 

[mervyn]

There is a bunch of plastic as well as fiberglass insulation that doesn't burn and is a pain to deal with. There is a reason autowreckers won't take campers.

That's what I was thinking. Boats are a pain to dispose of too I think.

 

[Gmonkee]

I tore down a 1969 16' camper years ago. The alu wasn't a huge payday. The trash pile was impressive and the chassis was worth 50 bucks.

Yet I would do it again to make a 20'+ trailer now. I'm stupid that way.

 

[larry4406]

I can’t imagine this to be a sane endeavor.

But do as you please.

 

[Renegade1LI]

Check these guys out, maybe get some ideas on selling the components.

New & Used RV Parts | Young Farts RV Parts | Shop Online For RV Parts

Are you looking for a place to buy new & used RV camper parts? Young Farts RV Parts has what you need! With The lowest prices in Canada & The Biggest RV Salvage yard in Canada! New & Used RV parts shipped right to your door! Come to our website to get in touch with the greatest RV wreckers around!

youngfartsrvparts.com

 

[Gmonkee]

I can’t imagine this to be a sane endeavor.

But do as you please.

It isn't, especially if trash disposal is expensive where you are.

 

[zendriver]

Just be sure the trailer you get actually has a "frame".

I had one about that length, that just had two longitudinal frame rails and thin strips of vertical sheet metal crosswise to support everything above. Making it into a trailer was almost starting from scratch.

 

[nadogail]

Sometimes we have great ideas that just don’t work out well.

 

[PoorUB]

There is a lot more garbage in a camper trailer than the aluminum will scrap out for. Then the trailer frame is not that great either, cheap sheet metal rolled main beams and cross braces. I agree with the other comments that you will be farther ahead buying or building a trailer.
I helped out my parents scrap out a 60 foot mobil home that was partially burned up. We hauled in what scrap metal there was and sold the frame to someone. I forget, but I think we made about $1 and hour on the deal.
They had advertised it for free for scrap and not one person bit on that deal. One guy offered to tear it down and haul it out for $500. They should have paid him! He said he would come in with a pulp wood truck and a dump truck and rip it apart, then sort out the recyclable materials and the rest would go to the dump.

 

[Ultradog MN]

Thanks guys!
Yeah, I knew it wasn't the best idea before I asked but a guy can hope can't he ?
My original plan was to build it at home and then haul it up there on my 16' 12K trailer and set it on blocks. The structure I'm thinking of would last 30 or 40 years and I could sell it easier some day if it was a simple hitch and go.
I like doing odd stuff.
I came up north after I posted that this morning. Am selling a rental property I have up here this fall and needed to move the
out house over to my other place - where the camper is and where we we hunt.
I did some figuring on what it weighs - about 7000 lbs and thought I'd try my hand at moving it. It made the winch grunt pretty hard but I got it on the trailer. Dunno how I will get it off but I'll figure that out I'm sure.
I built this 35 years ago. Yes it's brick and yes it's kinda cool. It will buy a tank with seat like you see in your typical porta potty and I have it serviced by a local company as needed.

 

[bwringer]

When Dad, a legendary hoarder, died, one of our many monumental tasks was to somehow get rid of Grandpa's RV, which hadn't moved in about eight years.

Long story short, I sold it to a den of crackheads for $50.

They clambered all over it for about two hours, somehow got it running with a couple of not-quite-dead batteries we dug up (the property was covered in dead and dying vehicles), banged on the brakes with a borrowed sledgehammer until they released, and aired up the ancient tires. They sent one crackhead underneath to operate the seized shift linkage, and backed out into the road. "Shifty" the crackhead rolled back underneath, click-click it was in drive, and off they sailed, cheering wildly.

One had a plan to evict the squirrels and take his girlfriend camping, another claimed they knew a place they could sell it for scrap. I wasn't clear on who would win that debate, and honestly was past caring.

I never saw it again, and that's all I wanted.

I strongly doubt they ever made a penny from the thing; RVs and campers are mostly made of stuff you can't sell or recycle.