A construction site camp is ordered before the site can receive it, shares its access with the works, and has to be gone before the contract ends. It also has to cover offices as well as beds, and each of those conditions changes what you ask a supplier.
Most camp quotations answer how many units. On a construction site the harder questions are when the units can stand, where the truck gets to, and what is left behind.
Wanbang manufactures modular buildings for construction, mining, energy and infrastructure projects, and its modular camp building supplier page states what the supply covers and what it leaves to the site. The checks below are the ones to run with any supplier, including us.
A construction camp is part of site establishment, which means it is usually needed before the permanent facilities exist. On a mining camp the plot is often levelled and serviced early; on a construction site the camp frequently gets whatever area is left once the works layout, haul roads and laydown are fixed.
That makes the unit's footprint matter at the position, not at the gate. The published specification for the 20 ft expandable unit gives a folded size of 5,900 × 2,200 × 2,480 mm and an expanded size of 5,900 × 6,300 × 2,480 mm, with approximately 37 m² of floor area based on those published dimensions, and two units per 40HC. The expansion runs across the width: both wings open along the long sides, so the 5,900 mm length stays as it is while the 2,200 mm transport width becomes 6,300 mm on the ground. Confirm that clearance, on both long sides plus room for the crew, exists at the final position before the vessel sails.
Three items belong in writing from the supplier: the ground bearing pressure and level tolerance the unit assumes, the lifting method and lifting points it is designed for, and whether the unit can stand on temporary bearers while the permanent pad is completed. Take those answers to your project engineer and into the temporary works plan; the lift itself is agreed between your lifting supervisor and the crane contractor against the unit drawings.
On a construction site the camp competes with excavation, haulage and crane time. The gate may be shared, the access road may be one-way, and the crane may already be booked for steel rather than for accommodation. Container count is therefore a scheduling number as much as a freight number.
Loading density is published per unit type. Our Nigeria project record — 360 units for a steel plant workforce camp in Lagos State, 340 quick-assembly and 20 flat-pack — puts quick-assembly houses at approximately 14 per 40HQ and flat-pack at about 10. Both figures come from that one project record and those two unit types: loading density moves with the model, the wall and roof build-up, the packing method and the container type, so take them as an indication and ask for the figure for your configuration. As an illustration only, 200 units at those rates work out at about 15 containers in quick-assembly and 20 in flat-pack. Fifteen lifts or twenty, inside a delivery window shared with the works, is a decision to take before the order, not after.
Disassembled units also bring loose components. Quick-assembly houses ship as knocked-down structural parts, flat-pack houses as panels, columns and accessories, so the site needs a fenced, drained store before the first delivery. Ask for the packing list per unit so the store can be sized and the parts checked in against it.
Assembly hours sit on the same line. The Nigeria record states roughly three hours per quick-assembly unit for four workers, without cranes or forklifts. That is one unit type on one project under its own site conditions, not a rate that carries across the range: ask for the figure that applies to your model, whether it includes internal fit-out, and who supplies the crew, since on-site installation is outside our standard supply scope.
A construction site usually carries more non-accommodation space than a mining camp of the same headcount, because the employer's representatives, the supervision team and the contractor's own management all sit on the same plot. Offices, meeting rooms, a canteen that can host a delegation, drying rooms, first aid, stores and a gatehouse arrive with the camp.
The procurement question is whether those blocks come off the same platform as the dormitories. If they do, they can be detailed into one complex; if they come from two suppliers, you own the interface between them. That compatibility is a drawing question, not a brochure question: ask the supplier to show the floor levels, the connection details and the corridor links of both unit groups on one layout before you accept a mixed order.
One delivered example is the airport expansion project department camp built from flat-pack units, a project administration complex for the construction department of an airport expansion. It was arranged in two zones: an entrance hall, a reception dining room with separate private dining rooms, a manager's office and a meeting room on the client-facing side; staff offices across several units, a staff canteen and distributed toilets on the working side. The blocks are linked by covered external walkways, with corridor containers between rooms, and the complex sits over two levels with a three-run indoor staircase. The units were standard flat-pack modules; the work was in the zoning that keeps client meetings away from the working side.
Ask for a function list priced line by line against your own site layout, not against a unit count. A dormitory-only quotation is cheaper because it is a smaller scope; the rest returns as a variation. For the office units themselves, how to choose a modular site office for your project covers unit type, layout and RFQ blocks.
Construction camps are occupied by subcontractor packages with different mobilisation dates. The earthworks contractor usually leaves before the MEP contractor peaks, and a camp sized on one headcount is wrong in both directions within a few months.
The answer is to plan the plot as sub-camps, one per package or per trade group, each with its own sanitary block and its own access, rather than as one undivided block that has to be reallocated when a package demobilises. That means more sanitary provision up front; in exchange, a block can be handed over or shut down without rebuilding it.
For the time-based side of the same problem, the construction site accommodation sizing guide for a moving headcount covers peak, tail and how batch size affects freight. What belongs here is the allocation: which package occupies which block, which blocks have to be separable, and who is responsible for handing each one back.
Most construction contracts carry a demobilisation date, and the plot usually has to be handed back clean. Two things follow from that, and neither is in a unit price.
The first is what leaves and what stays. Units travel; foundations, drainage runs, cable ducts and hardstanding do not. What a unit needs under it is a design decision for the ground conditions and the local rules, so ask the supplier which foundation its unit requires, then ask your project engineer what removing it would involve and price that before the layout is approved.
The second is what the units are worth at the end. If the camp will be sold or reused on the next contract, the specification that survives demobilisation is not the cheapest one that satisfies this one. The buy or hire decision framework for construction site cabins covers whether owning makes sense at all; removal cost and residual value belong in the comparison.
A supplier can only price what it is told. The brief for a construction camp should carry seven items, and a supplier that prices without them is pricing its own assumptions.
Send the same brief to every supplier: a quotation that answers a different brief is a different camp, not a cheaper one, and the difference will be settled as a variation.
Our standard supply covers the units and the project documentation that travels with them. Ground preparation, foundations, utility connections and erection on site sit outside it, so the exact delivery scope has to be confirmed in writing for your project rather than assumed from a category list. On a construction site that boundary needs a decision: map each excluded item against your own contract, decide who executes it, and have that party price it. Do not assume the main contractor will absorb the work because plant is already on site; put the question to them and record the answer.
Get the exclusion list in writing and check it line by line. The items that cause disputes are rarely the large ones; they are stairs, landings, tie-downs, the last ten metres of cable, and the connection between the camp's drainage and the site's.
Quality is a line to close separately. What we publish is specific: every unit passes incoming, in-process and final inspection, anything that fails final inspection is reworked before dispatch, and third-party inspection can be arranged on request. None of that is a warranty and none of it is a delivery promise; both belong in the contract, not in a brochure.
Certification needs the same care. ISO 9001, ISO 14001 and ISO 45001 are certifications of our management systems, and EU CE marking applies to relevant products. Neither is a fire rating for the building in your order, and a non-combustible panel grade would still be a material-level specification rather than a whole-building certification. Ask which certificate and which test report apply to your model, and read them against the destination's requirements.
Documentation runs per confirmed model rather than per order: layout drawings, material lists, inspection reports and an installation manual for each building type. Ask which of those documents is issued with each model, and check that the revision on each set matches the unit that was priced.
Order against the date the pad will be ready, not the date the main contract is signed. Production and sea freight run in parallel with your site works, so ask for a batch plan with dates worked back from the occupation date, and protect the date when the first truck can stand and unload.
Not the building supplier, under standard building supply. Ground preparation, foundations, utility connections and on-site installation sit outside it, so they have to be allocated in your own contract. What the supplier owes you is what the lift and the pad depend on: unit weight and lifting points for your confirmed model, the bearing and level tolerance it assumes, and a drawing the lifting supervisor can work from.
It can, when the office and canteen units come off the same platform as the dormitories, which is how the airport expansion department camp was built. Ask for the function list priced line by line, then ask the supplier to show the floor levels and connection details of both unit groups on one layout.
The units can be removed and reused, but foundations, drainage and ducts stay in the ground unless the specified system avoids them. Ask for the removal and reinstatement scope in writing before the layout is approved.
Send the plot plan, get a camp that fits it
Share the plot plan, the package split and the key dates. We will come back with a block plan, the container count and the loading order for the site you actually have.
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