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Our hearts go out to all the families robbed of their homes in the 7.8 magnitude earthquake last Monday. While nature might be working against us, we appreciate that kiwis are a resilient bunch. If Christchurch is anything to go by, we’re prepared to bet that Kaikoura and the state highway will be back up and running one day soon.

If your home has undergone a serious amount of damage and you and your family need somewhere to stay temporarily, your best bet for independence and your own space is hiring a portable home.

Why a portable building works as a temporary home:

Customization

Order a portable home that suits your family’s personal requirements. Customize the space in your portable home to work with you and your lifestyle. Do you mind sharing rooms or do you prefer your own personal space? Do you spend most of your time in the lounge or sitting at the kitchen table when you spend time with your family? Is a dining room really a requirement, or do you prefer to eat on the couch or outside? Tell us your preferences and let us build a custom portable unit to suit.

Mobility

If you find yourself unable to return to your property immediately after a natural disaster, then you’ll be looking for somewhere to stay in the meantime until your property is rebuilt or repaired. Find yourself a temporary location to park your portable home while you wait to return to your family home. Perhaps you have a friend with a section large enough to comfortably sit your portable home?

A portable unit doesn’t require a lot of space to be set up, so you have plenty of options as to where you’d like us to ship and place it.

Safety

Our portable units are built with strict safety guidelines in mind. Each unit is built to withstand the elements, so you can rest assured that you and your family will be safe and secure within the walls of your portable home.

When we think ‘portable building’, we generally assume this pertains a shipping container-like room propped up on stilts or wheels. Nothing flash and certainly nothing attractive, right? What variance could their possibly be in the world of portable buildings and portable building hire?

There are actually a whole bunch of different, unique uses for portable buildings. Today, we’d like to dedicate this blog article to exploring a few of the portable units we have to offer you at Portable Building Hire:

 

Portable Cabin

The portable cabins are the classic unit you’ll rent or buy from Portable Building Hire. These units are your basic ‘four walls and a roof’, and provide a sound, solid structure for our clients to use in whatever way they see fit. The possibilities with this unit are endless: you can customise your portable cabin to feature anything from a bathroom to a kitchenette.

Portable Office

These are those fabulous little ‘out and about’ buildings you’ll generally see in use as information centers and company stations or booths or stalls at public events. A portable office is a wonderful option for employees representing a company at an event, as they provide a sheltered place in which potential clients can discuss business with your staff.

Portable Sleepout or Granny Flat

Possibly the most popular portable units hired in New Zealand, granny flats (or sleepouts) are the perfect ‘extra room’ alternative for the modern kiwi home. You can exile your teenager to a sleepout when they need their own space (or their music gets too loud). Or, alternatively, you can invite gran or granddad to dwell in your granny flat if they end up needing a little extra assistance and company in their old age.

Portable Toilet Block

As the name says, portable toilet blocks provide the public with a section of accessible toilets during big events such as festivals and markets.

 

See anything you like on this permanent or temporary building hire menu? You can buy or hire any portable units at Portable Building hire today! Just give us a call and fire your questions at any of our helpful staff members.

There is a question that we must all pause, consider, and answer each year as we enter November and press on into December: where are you going for your Christmas holiday?

The answer we all long to give is ‘I’m heading out to the bach!’

Alas, for most Kiwis, a bach is unfortunately out of the question with house prices the way they are these days. A huge mortgage would need to be taken out for the land upon which to build, or for the renovation of whatever old worn-out box you are able to afford in your bach escape endeavours. One look at property prices and the whole deal seems impossible…

Or does it?

 

We can help you

Hiring a portable home for your Kiwi bach might just be the most cost-effective holiday option you ever invested your time and money into! It’s practically genius: totally affordable and effortlessly simple to erect wherever and whenever you’d like! Customise your portable bach to suit your family’s needs, load in your furnishings and presto – you’re ready to go!

Holiday wherever you like

Don’t burn yourself out deciding where that bach will live forever. With a portable unit you can plant your holiday place wherever suits you. Holiday by the lake one year, and the ocean the next! Turn your portable home into a mountain biker’s base camp for these next three Christmases, then relocate to a secluded sandy beach for the three after!

No long term commitments

When the little ones have all grown up and moved out, there are a few options to consider for your portable unit:

• Purchase the unit to keep from Portable Building Hire for retirement in New Zealand – anywhere you like!
• Finish your rental term and return the unit, while keeping all the wonderful memories you and your family made with it!
• Rent your portable home out as a ‘book a bach’ home and make some extra money off that sweet-spot accommodation you’ve arranged!

So where will you be going for Christmas? The answer: anywhere, with Portable Building Hire!

We’re halfway through October. It’s only a matter of time before Christmas music is blaring through every store’s sound system, and kids are putting their orders in for presents!

If you ambitiously went and offered to host Christmas holidays at your home this year, then chances are you’re probably regretting your life choices! That is…if the guest list is growing, and you don’t have enough space to accommodate the rellies! Fear not: Portable Building Hire has got you covered!

The solution to your summer holiday hospitality problem is quite simply this: rent yourself a portable sleep out! It’s going to get so much use, you’ll wonder why you didn’t build one on your lawn in the first place!

Here are a few ways in which hiring a portable building might save your skin this summer:

 

Summertime for your teens

If you’ve got a teenager, then you’ve probably endured a night or two of sleeplessness due to their noisy shenanigans that sometimes last well into the wee hours! Do yourself a favor and banish them to the outdoors: well, not really! A portable sleep out packed with all the gear your teen and their buddies need to have a wonderful summer sleepover is the perfect solution. Bonus: you won’t have to tip-toe around until after lunchtime whenever they decide to wake up from their all-nighter-induced coma!

 

Inlaws

We love them. They’re part of the family. But what we don’t tend to love is their endless presence as we try and go about our morning routine. Do yourself a favour and give them their own private space in your garden with a portable ‘granny flat’ that can be moved whenever they leave! Although, in saying that, you might just find the portable room does such wonders for privately accommodating extended family…that you may aswell keep the extra room all year long! You never know when family members will just ‘drop in’.

 

The army of small children

It might not be said for every family, but generally gatherings with the relatives means an army of small, loud, annoying children. There’s always that one kid that needs a ‘time out’ room, and that baby that needs constant naps in the middle of the day that impose a house-wide silence to be maintained. It’s not fair on you or the rest of your guests. Hiring a portable room in the garden can provide families with a quiet, safe haven in which to retreat to with their little ones, while the rest of the ‘grown ups’ enjoy the main home as they were!

 
If you’d like to solve your summertime problems before they happen, go ahead and give the team at Portable Building Hire a call or email. We’re sure we have the right room for your accommodation needs!

‘Tiny houses’, ‘the tiny house movement’ and ‘tiny living’ are all terms you might have heard being tossed around in media articles regarding the state of the New Zealand housing market this year. Kiwis are constantly on the lookout for solutions to New Zealand’s current housing issue: homes are getting pricier, and houses are getting tinier!  

Let’s take a  closer look at those terms:

What exactly are ‘Tiny Houses’

Tiny houses are simply defined by their size: generally anything under 37 metres squared. The most fun part of designing a tiny house is getting really creative with the interiors of that small space! Some of the designs for multiple-use furniture used in tiny houses are incredible!

The most popular choice for tiny houses are portable units, because these can be lugged around on wheels from property to property: portable house owners have the freedom to move and live wherever they like!

Describing the ‘Tiny House Movement’

The Tiny House Movement is a relatively social front that embodies the concept of promoting all-over downsizing of your living space. The aim: to achieve a simplified or ‘minimalist’ lifestyle.

In asking around you will find that the most popular reasons people are embracing this lifestyle are generally to do with environmental concern, financial strain, and the a desire for independence (without a huge mortgage to worry about)!

Tiny Living

Simplified living: you might think that downsizing would leave you lacking, but it can actually be quite satisfying! Maybe you’ve experienced the light-hearted feeling you and your family get when you packed up and went away to camp or stay at a low-key kiwi bach? Essentially, you have all the basics that you need, and none of the clutter. Your life eventually increases in simplicity and quality.
At Portable Building Hire, you are welcome to a selection of cozy portable buildings in which to initiate your own ‘tiny living’ lifestyle. Get in touch with the team today to explore your tiny portable home options.

 

With everything these days being so snappy and instant, it can be so easy to forget those members of our family whose lives are slowing down dramatically as they move into their twilight years. A walk to the local park, a visit to the dairy, and even a trip to the bathroom can pose intense challenges for the elderly among us. There comes a time when nan and pop can’t do their daily routines without needing a little extra help, and that’s when they need you!

We’ve all passed around the term ‘granny flat’ in conversations hither and thither. Originally, the term referred to a small, easily-accessible home in which an elderly person might live a reasonably independent lifestyle. Nowadays the term is loosely applied to any small living space: usually the studios parents tend to exile their teens to!

At Portable Building Hire, we’d like to restore the the originally elderly-friendly meaning to the term ‘granny flat’, and offer you the opportunity to provide nan and pop with a safe, easily-navigated home in which to comfortably spend their twilight years. You can hire a portable granny flat in New Zealand to house your elderly relatives from the safe proximity of your own garden!

Our team are ready to talk customisations: any portable building ordered with us can be fully customised according to your preferences and needs, so you can ensure your portable building is safe and cozy. Your parents or grandparents can enjoy the independence and comfort of their own space, while maintaining a safe distance in case they need a meal, take a tumble, or just need a little company.

Give the team at Portable Building Hire a call today to get your family’s perfect granny flat made and delivered to your door!

A few weeks ago we took a look at the important part portable buildings play in the New Zealand tourism industry: chiefly when they are used as information centres. You might have seen info centres (or I-sites) parked next to some of your favorite New Zealand activities, but have you considered just how vital these portable units are to a tourist as they journey through our country?

Let’s take a look at two more ways in which I-sites are able to save the day for avid adventurers in New Zealand:

 

(Sometimes) a toilet

Sometimes tourists hear the call of nature and – when the area might be unfamiliar – the information centre is their go-to spot for a bathroom stop. An information centre should be able to point people in the right direction of a public toilet or, in some cases, might be able to offer their own toilet for public use.

At Portable Building Hire, we would recommend hiring a portable toilet block to be placed beside or in the vicinity of the information centre as this is one of the most frequently asked questions tourists will be asking!

Shelter

There’s nothing worse than walking miles in the rain. Tourists might have ventured too far onto a walking track, and when they show up again at the entrance it is often the information centre room that restores their wary souls. This tiny portable building filled with little more than a few pamphlets and a desk is a roof and four walls none the less. It provides temporary shelter for tourists to warm up, dry off, and recoup.

From this humble room taxi cabs can be called, bus tickets can be booked, accommodation can be arranged – all out of the wind and rain. Sometimes the centre itself can provide all of these commodities by offering a phone or some advice on where the weary travelers should head if they want the best deals and value.

Tourists are the economic lifeblood of New Zealand in the spring and summer. They travel from far and wide to explore and experience all the exciting activities our adventure-packed country has to offer.

Traveling across a foreign country can be a whole lot of fun, but the ride doesn’t come without its bumps along the way: that is why we have information centres!

Put yourself in the tourist’s shoes for a moment as we take a look at the true nature of information centres, and the ways in which they are more than just a portable pop up room situated by popular attractions:

 

Meeting point

For those of us who were unfortunately not blessed with a good sense of direction, information centres have become the perfect points at which to meet with friends and family. Information centres are usually strategically placed in open, safe, public, and easily distinguishable locations. These little buildings are the perfect point from which to arrange meeting your travelling buddy/buddies before you set off on your adventure!

 

First aid/emergency

Accidents happen! Especially in New Zealand where action is our nation’s major travel selling point. Information centres have been known to help in a few emergency scenarios when the occasion might arise.

Take for example the Rotorua Mountain Biking information centre building: this small portable building – situated metres away from the famed Rotorua Redwood Mountain Biking trails – is the first point of contact tourists have when they take a nasty fall during their biking or walking adventures in the woods

This centre packs first aid, and is run by locals who happen to be lovers of mountain biking and other forest sports themselves. The team are available and ready to help should tourists need safety briefings, or should anyone enjoying the woods find themselves in a safety-compromising situation. Phones are also available in this portable building should ambulances need calling.

 

Keep an eye out for ‘part 2’ later this month, and thanks for reading!

Everyone in New Zealand is – or knows someone else who is – currently ready to get a finger in the housing market pie. If building happens to be on the table and, perhaps, this is your first time, it is always important to consider where exactly you will be staying while construction ensues.

Speaking from experience, this writer can assure you that the last thing you want while your four walls and roof are a WIP is to be living the gypsy life: packing up and hauling yourself and your family of five from fisherman’s cabin to holiday home, a few relative’s houses and then finally an unfurnished  bedroom floor of a half-finished home…one that is still a WIP to this day!

The solution to this is obviously refining the temporary housing situation down to one single, solid state of living. Hiring a portable self contained unit from Portable Building hire could be the best decision you ever make along the course of your build, and here are just a few reasons why:

 

Leaving town?

If you’re moving from one place to build in another, hiring a portable building to stay in on the property is going to allow you to keep an eye on things. You can watch your build from start to finish from the comfort of your portable cabin!

 

Get in good with the neighbors – early!

You get the luxury of achieving a feel for the neighborhood before officially becoming a neighbor yourself! If you’re building in the late spring and summer you could hire a cabin with a deck and invite the neighbors around for a BBQ or two!

 

Thumbs up in person

Your house is going to get built so much faster if you are onsite and available to liaise with your construction team. Being there in person to ‘okay’ any given job is going to be super convenient for everyone involved, rather than exchanging poor quality photographs via email, or trying to describe things over the phone.

 

Can we keep it?

You might decide you love your portable cabin and you’d like to keep it! This might be a brilliant investment for you, as your portable unit can work as a games room, a gym, an office, or an extra bedroom for visiting family – perhaps you could earn a little extra income by lending the place out as a rentable room. The possibilities are endless!

 

Bye bye cabin!

One day you might even feel like selling your portable unit. Your unit can be shipped up and off your property in a snap, and the best part is…it won’t lose value over the years, as portable rooms are always in demand. Oh, and when you scatter a little grass seed down over the area where your cabin used to be, it’ll be as if it was never there! You can have your lawn back, all to yourself.

After a few wild and windy ones we can finally put the mid-winter blues behind us. Now, with spring around the corner, it won’t be long now until New Zealand receives its yearly influx of tourists teeming into our country to admire our views and have themselves an adventure. They might come from all corners of the world, but these travelers all have one vital thing in common: they all need accommodation.

That’s where we come in.  

If you or someone you know owns a camping ground, or is considering doing so, then the decision to hire portable buildings might be the biggest investment you ever put into your holiday park. Here are a few reasons why:

New Zealand springs are unpredictable

Springtime in ‘Middle Earth’ can bring climates that range from colourful and mild to morbid and stormy. Travelers researching our country prior generally receive sound weather forewarning and thus come prepared to pay that little bit extra for a solid roof and four walls…just in case. If your holiday park possesses a few sleepouts and self contained units then you can guarantee you’ll be the preference of any traveler passing through your neck of the woods.

So much to see, so little time

Tourists are so often pressed for time that, with so much to see and do in New Zealand, it seems only fair for them to favor a cabin or self contained unit over setting up a tent at each new destination. After an action-packed day of sightseeing and adventures, the ultimate type of accommodation is one that is warm, ready and waiting and without fuss.

Security and storage

In places like the Bay of Plenty where day trips to the lakes or beaches are so popular, you can imagine the daily drama of unloading and reloading your valuables back and forth from your tent every time you want to pop off for the day. Cabins and portable self contained units are not only a form of accommodation; they also provide secure, lockable storage to travellers who wish to ditch their luggage and set off on an adventure…without having to stack all their laptops, chargers, jewellery and the like back into their cars.