Would you buy a coffin online ?

What_a_rip_off

meritaten wrote: »

I have my lovely wicker coffin all picked out and a printout for hubby! I want mine garlanded with fresh flowers............looks so lovely - and my burial site is picked out too! also printed out for hubby. all that remains is for him to hire the transit van............... and its sorted! if they want a party after thats up to them! I may attend, I may not, lmao, depends on whether there really IS an afterlife!

Always like a good celebration of life afterwards, our family ones have been a right good knees up. A perfect way to relax, unwind, and share the memories...

Nothing worse than a wake thats as about as much fun as a party in a mortuary.... and I've been to afew.

What_a_rip_off

Just found out a friend of a friend works in a mill. Apparently they have a lot of offcuts which would only be mashed into pulp and used in wood stoves.
He's going to see if the off cuts are large enough to be used... fingers crossed, will find out tomorrow

My only problems is I'm not to good at DIY !

Savvy_Sue

sparkleworld wrote: »

If a bride was quoted £300 for 1 flower arrangement she'd probably have a screaming fit but when quoted for an arrangement to go on top of the coffin nobody flinches as they don't want to be seen as a skinflint or that the deceased person is not worthy of that amount of money.

If we spend that much on flowers for my mother, she'll be spinning in her coffin! She doesn't really like cut flowers because they only die.

However, for Dad, we went to a 'normal' florist - well, my sisters did - and they couldn't have been nicer, and we had a lovely 'flat' arrangement from Mum, incorporating some of the things she'd had in her wedding bouquet (because it was just before their diamond wedding anniversary that Dad died); a bouquet from us children, and a basket with bulbs in from the grandchildren. Only Mum's arrangement stayed with Dad, we brought the other two away with us, the bouquet lasted weeks, and the bulbs went into the garden when the weather was better. I think we paid less than £75 for all of that.

escortg3 wrote: »

Are you researching to see whether there is a business opportunity here.

Now THAT is MSE! :rotfl:

Love the coffin shelves, but no point getting any, there would be too many books on them when we needed them!

righter

We buried our son 18months ago,because we had a ferry crossing we had to buy two coffins. a wooden one for the boat,and a cardboard one to bury him,at home on our land.

When we first rang the green coffin manufacturer,they though we were a funeral directors and quoted a price way below the one we eventually were quoted when they realised we were not.

Finally we bought one via the fd,cheaper than the private price quoted.

It came assembled...which was a nuisance. I also worried about the bottom falling out at the graveside,so my husband added a plywood bottom,I think in hindsight it would have been fine,as there is strapping that goes all the way under.

If my son had died at home,we would have made the coffin,and will have our children do so for us.

I think the funeral trade is the biggest rip off,but most people are not in a position to do anything for themselves.

check the Natural death centre,who do hand book on DIY funerals.

What_a_rip_off

righter wrote: »

We buried our son 18months ago,because we had a ferry crossing we had to buy two coffins. a wooden one for the boat,and a cardboard one to bury him,at home on our land.

When we first rang the green coffin manufacturer,they though we were a funeral directors and quoted a price way below the one we eventually were quoted when they realised we were not.

Finally we bought one via the fd,cheaper than the private price quoted.

It came assembled...which was a nuisance. I also worried about the bottom falling out at the graveside,so my husband added a plywood bottom,I think in hindsight it would have been fine,as there is strapping that goes all the way under.

If my son had died at home,we would have made the coffin,and will have our children do so for us.

I think the funeral trade is the biggest rip off,but most people are not in a position to do anything for themselves.

check the Natural death centre,who do hand book on DIY funerals.

Sorry to hear of your loss. Sounds like a nightmare, bad enough trying to sort one coffin out let alone having to source two and then arrange it yourself.
I will have a look now at the natural death centre and see what advice they can offer. Thanks for that tip.

BFDMBIE

I work for a funeral directors that supplies coffins online, and people do buy them this way. Regarding size and quality- we always send out the size requested by the client and the coffins meet requirements set by the cremation authority.
The main thing with buying this way is that it has always been tradition for the funeral director to supply the coffin and as such until the general public ask for different that is probably how it will stay.

With regard to cardboard coffins, we as a company also supply and use these. There is a great deal of interest in the use of cardboard coffins for funerals but the main stumbling block with them is usually the way they look. Our funerals using cardboard coffins have the look of a traditional funeral from the use of a coffin cover.
The Cover is re-usable and only the cardboard coffin inside is cremated.
If anyone requires any information or has any questions regarding purchasing coffins online, or cardboard coffins, i will be more than happy to try help you.

BFDMBIE

Primrose wrote: »

I can't help thinking what a horrendous waste of resources it is to have a coffin that is burned, especially in these days when more cremations take place than burials.

It's obviously in the financial interest of undertakers to sell coffins to increase their prifts but why on earth can't a coffin simply be leased on a short lease, i.e. a 5 day hire? Then the corpse can be temporarily laid to rest in it for any pre-funeral rites, plus the actual funeral ceremony.

After that, if it's a cremation, the corpse could be removed from the coffin still encased in a simple body bag in which it had been resting, and put straight into the furnace. Then the coffin could be reused. When our forests are being chopped down,I hate the idea of wood simply being burned in a couple of hours when the original tree has probably taken 50 years or more to grow.

We use a Honeycomb coffin that is made from 95% recycled materials and is 50% lighter than a traditional coffin, as such the emissions are much lower and the impact on the enviroment is much lower.
With regard to coffin hire, the coffin cover that we use in theory carries out a similar purpose ( Although the cover is not hired to the client, the use of it is free), the cover holds a cardboard coffin that is used for the cremation or burial, when the funeral takes places the cardboard coffin is removed and the cover is used again.

Nearly 50% of the funerals we conduct use the coffin cover, i couldnt even start to calculate the amount of wood that has been saved in the 7 years we have been using the coffin cover, but as i put in my last post- until the public start asking for something different then funeral directors will continue to supply wood coffins for cremation and burial.

What_a_rip_off

BFDMBIE wrote: »

I work for a funeral directors that supplies coffins online, and people do buy them this way. Regarding size and quality- we always send out the size requested by the client and the coffins meet requirements set by the cremation authority.
The main thing with buying this way is that it has always been tradition for the funeral director to supply the coffin and as such until the general public ask for different that is probably how it will stay.

With regard to cardboard coffins, we as a company also supply and use these. There is a great deal of interest in the use of cardboard coffins for funerals but the main stumbling block with them is usually the way they look. Our funerals using cardboard coffins have the look of a traditional funeral from the use of a coffin cover.
The Cover is re-usable and only the cardboard coffin inside is cremated.
If anyone requires any information or has any questions regarding purchasing coffins online, or cardboard coffins, i will be more than happy to try help you.

I agree whilst the cardbaord ones seem practical, they don't look very dignified, and to be honest £160 (including delivery) seems a bit steep in my eyes. I know prices of raw materials always change and maybe these are units are two / three times thicker than what we normally associate with cardboard.

But when you think about it someone on here could get a veneer coffin for that price, yet when I asked a couple of local firms they quoted me £270 - £400 with a caveat that it would be cheaper if I used their services.

Am a bit miffed so far and am looking at making my own now.

Still interesting to see peoples views on the poll. Maybe its time for change.

What_a_rip_off

BFDMBIE wrote: »

We use a Honeycomb coffin that is made from 95% recycled materials and is 50% lighter than a traditional coffin, as such the emissions are much lower and the impact on the enviroment is much lower.
With regard to coffin hire, the coffin cover that we use in theory carries out a similar purpose ( Although the cover is not hired to the client, the use of it is free), the cover holds a cardboard coffin that is used for the cremation or burial, when the funeral takes places the cardboard coffin is removed and the cover is used again.

Nearly 50% of the funerals we conduct use the coffin cover, i couldnt even start to calculate the amount of wood that has been saved in the 7 years we have been using the coffin cover, but as i put in my last post- until the public start asking for something different then funeral directors will continue to supply wood coffins for cremation and burial.

Will add its nice to have an insiders view on this. Seems responsible way forward.

BFDMBIE

whatatwit wrote: »

Having skipped through the thread giggling....I thought that Savvy-Sue had seen a speedboat coffin :eek::eek:

When my uncle died, it took the funeral directors a few days to source him a coffin, he was a rather large man.
I did offer to make him one out of cardboard boxes....he would have appreciated the thought.

As previous posters have said, the crematoria do have rules and regs as to what they can burn, if you wanted a 'solid' wood coffin, then the charges increase as they take longer to burn than a standard 'cremation' coffin.

If a crematorium increases the charges for a solid coffin then they are pulling a fast one, its a set fee that is set by each local authority.