A welfare van is a converted panel van with seats, a toilet and a kettle in the back. A towable welfare unit is a cabin on wheels that arrives behind a vehicle and stays put. Both are legitimate kit; they suit different jobs, and hiring the wrong one wastes money daily.
Where the van wins
Crews that drive between multiple short stops in a single day, some utilities and highways gangs, get welfare that travels in convoy with them, no siting, no setup. If your gang genuinely works three postcodes before lunch, the van’s mobility is the product.
Where the unit wins
- Capacity and comfort: a van seats a handful around a cramped bench; a 12ft unit gives six people a proper canteen, a separate WC and a drying room, and the 20ft seats twelve with an office
- Cost structure: a van is a vehicle: tax, insurance, fuel, a driver tied to it all day, and it leaves site when that driver does. A unit stays on site working for a weekly rate
- The 3pm problem: when the van does the run back to the depot, site welfare leaves with it. The unit is still there for the late pour
- Weekly mobility: work that moves site-to-site weekly rather than hourly suits a towable unit hitched and moved as phases shift, mobility without paying to keep a vehicle on the road
The honest rule
Moves per day: van. Moves per week or month: towable unit. Static site: unit, no contest. Every unit in our fleet is towable, which covers the middle ground most crews actually live in, our choosing guide maps it to crew sizes.