How to Choose Which Type of School Classroom Building to Buy

Many schools are now facing up to the dilemma of how they are going to resolve the problem of providing extra classroom space. And do you plan for the short term or the long term?

If you opt for the short term solution and look to rent a classroom building (because it is difficult to know if a school classroom bulge might just be a temporary trend plus you may have to take potential restrictive budgets into account), you might want to consider just how cost economical overall this actually will be. The reason being – even if you are putting in a temporary classroom, it will usually still require full planning permission as a building is only deemed to be temporary if it is sited for 28 days or less. In a school scenario, I doubt this will be the case. So you will still incur all of the cost of filing an application to your local planning authority and putting together the required information and drawings. The likelihood too is that you will also still have to apply for full building regs (or your building supplier will usually do this on your behalf but there is still a cost for the application to be made to the local building control officer and all of the structural calculations to be submitted).

And then there is the cost of delivery and siting the unit….and then when you don’t want the building anymore, another further cost to de-commission it and take it away again. And whether you rent it for one day or five years, you will still need to put down the required baseworks/groundworks for the building to sit on plus the connection of services including electricity, foul drainage and water. These elements are “un-rentable” as you cannot simply take them away once the building is no longer required.

But mobile or modular classroom buildings do have obvious advantages over traditional build-on site classroom buildings. And in this instance, a mobile classroom is usually defined as a pre-manufactured unit built on a chassis (which comes in either one or two sections dependent upon overall size) which is delivered directly to site on the back of a low-loader truck. It is already fully kitted out internally with all electrics, plumbing, lighting, heating, partitioning etc so its great advantage to a school is that on-site time is minimal compared to a traditional build. A typical mobile classroom build would be 2 weeks on site (including all groundworks) whereas as a build-on site contract would typically be 8-10 weeks – so a lot more disturbance to the school day or term.

However access can sometimes be an issue for mobile classrooms as it is has to be fairly easy to site the building within the school grounds onto its designated site. If access is a major issue, it is still possible to crane a building in but this obviously adds to the overall cost.

But nowadays mobile classroom buildings are built to the exacting standards of a traditional build and with attractive design and aesthetics in mind – flat roofs, pent roofs or traditional pitch, choices of external cladding including cedar, thermowood or Canexel ( a type of plastic wood which requires very little maintenance). Eco mobile classrooms are becoming increasingly popular too and these type of classrooms include for living sedum roofs, solar and wind power, air source heat pumps, eco friendly basework systems etc

For further information as to how we can advise your school on the best solution as well as financing/funding options, please contact Simon Fearnehough on 01865 858982 or email simon@hideouthouse.com

or simply visit school classroom buildings