Glasshouses do not come down gently. The frame holds together until it does not, the panes are older and more brittle than they look, and the concrete base underneath is invariably better built than the structure that stood on it. Sorting greenhouse removal skip hire in Longton before the dismantling starts is what keeps a summer job from turning into a fortnight of stepping around broken glass on the lawn.
Take the glass out before anything else moves
This is the rule, and it is the one people break. The temptation on an old greenhouse is to push the whole thing over and deal with it on the ground, which turns every pane into fragments spread across the ground you have to walk on for the rest of the day. Panes come out one at a time, from the top down, with gloves and eye protection on and somewhere flat to stack them as they come.
Older horticultural glass is thin and has usually been in place for decades with the putty long gone. Expect a proportion of it to break no matter how carefully it is handled, and have a plan for the pieces before you start rather than after the first one goes. Around here where the growing tradition runs deep we see a lot of glasshouses of real age, and the older the structure the more brittle the glass tends to be.
Putting glass in a skip safely
We take glass, and there is no problem with it going in a skip provided it is handled properly. What we ask is that it is contained rather than loose. Whole panes stacked flat and low in the skip, broken pieces boxed or bagged in something that will not tear, and nothing balanced against the sides where it can slide when the skip is lifted.
Tell us at the booking stage that there is glass in the load. It changes nothing about the price and it means our driver knows before he arrives, which matters when a skip is being chained and lifted onto a wagon. Our guide to waste that does not belong in a skip covers the material we cannot take at all, and glass is not on that list, but the way it goes in matters.
The frame, the staging and the base
Aluminium frames are worth separating rather than throwing in with everything else, because clean aluminium is a good recovery stream. It comes apart at the bolts more easily than most people expect once the glass is out, and stacking the sections along the side of the skip rather than tangling them into the middle keeps the load workable.
Timber staging, old growing benches and any shading or netting go in with the general load without difficulty. The base is where the weight sits. A concrete base or a course of engineering brick around the perimeter is dense material and it needs breaking out and loading flat. That is the part that decides the skip size, not the greenhouse itself.
Polytunnels are a different job
On the smallholdings and growing plots around this area, polytunnels are as common as glasshouses and they produce a completely different load. The sheeting is bulky, light and awkward, and it wants folding and tying rather than stuffing in loose, because a loose sheet in a skip catches the wind and ends up in the next field. The hoops are steel and separate out well, and the timber base rails are usually the only heavy part.
A tunnel produces far more volume than weight, so the sizing conversation goes the opposite way to a glasshouse with a concrete base. Ring and describe what is coming down and we will size it for what it actually is.
Greenhouse removal skip hire in Longton and getting the size right
For a domestic greenhouse with a modest base, our 4 tonne midi skip is usually the right answer, and our local note on whether a midi skip is the right size for your Longton project goes through where that size stops working. For a larger structure, a run of staging and a full concrete base coming out, an 8 tonne builders skip takes the base without any risk of running over on weight.
Placement is rarely difficult on properties around here, most of which have room to stand a skip off the road. Where it has to sit on the highway, Lancashire County Council is the highway authority and the permit is thirty six pounds per month, arranged before we deliver.
What comes back out of the load
A greenhouse strip is a good recovery load. The aluminium, the steel hoops, the clean glass and the hardcore from the base all separate at our own recycling centre, which is how we handle environmental and recycling on every load we bring in. Very little of a dismantled glasshouse needs to be buried if it arrives in reasonable order.
We run this side of the Ribble daily and do the same work for growers and householders across Tarleton skip hire addresses and up through Penwortham skip hire properties, where the same glasshouses and tunnels are coming down for the same reasons.
If a greenhouse or tunnel is coming down this summer, ring our team on 01772 364399 or send the details through our contact page. Tell us the size of the structure and whether the base is coming out, and we will get the skip right and know to expect the glass.
