Cargo Containers – Pro’s And Con’s
How about a shipping container cargo home for your next house? Sound interesting?
Lets being with saying that by building your next house out of a used cargo container, you will also be recycling one of the millions of these rotting, steel, corrugated cargo units just sitting in ports all over the globe.
When we recycle huge amounts of global steel waste, we are minimizing the earths commercial waste product and putting a good use to it rather than letting it site for decades doing absolutely nothing. With a little sweat and elbow grease, we can easily convert these container cargo units into livable structured environments for entire families and even villages to call their own homes.
Shipping containers can be an excellent resource for recycling into homes especially for poorer countries that have experienced major global catastrophes and cannot dig themselves out of this disastrous hole that mother nature created.
Some of the positive aspects of using cargo containers as homes are:
Strength and Support – just the support alone can withstand such hazards as tornadoes, hurricanes and even earthquakes !
These container units are known to even be stacked up on one another up to ten ISBU’s high which can literally create entire towns or villages!
From a expense point of view, shipping container homes can be an excellent money saver compared to our standard wood-home construction methods.
Also, the pace of constructing a container home would be significantly faster if you have a team of experienced welders and a good engineer handy.
We, here at HouseContainers.com, have a CD/Book for sale which would be an invaluable resource to get you started on a background leading into the process. The CD is NOT a step-by-step guide on building a container home but more like an experience that we went through to make it happen. The book/CD has countless amounts of vivid photos and valuable information for any container home enthusiast to break the ice. You can get the book here at: http://containerhouse.info/container-book-cd/.
Now, we must mention some of the negative points to container homes:
Experienced Help – Doing this all by yourself would NOT be recommended! Having an experienced crew handy would be the preferred way to go.
The Temperature factor – If there is not significant air flow through out the container home, it WILL get unbearably hot inside making it very uncomfortable. The way around this is to have "Cut outs" creating the proper ventilation necessary. Many container units already have cut outs in place when you order the unit especially if you say that you are using the unit for constructing a home rather than a storage facility.
Pricing – Even though we mentioned that it is very affordable, the part we did not mention was the transportation. It can add up depending how far the container needs to go and how it will be moved onto the final location of your property. Either flat bed truck or crane. We offer free price quotes on transportation and actual prices of the containers which are usually 20ft or 40ft. Some companies will charge you crane and/or flat-bed-tilt-truck fees and even per mile. Since this market is growing and becoming more popular every day, we can take care of this matter for you as long as you provide us with the proper information. To get started on this, please visit our Price and Quote site at:
http://containerhouse.info/need-a-container.
With all this being said, it is noticeably clear that there are more pro’s than con’s when considering making your next home out of used shipping containers. I wish you the best of luck on your decision and remember to have a look at the two links I provided for you to get you started!
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like me
When you expand by joining two containers side by side and then take out the two inner walls. What is the join? Straight weld? Other method.
Do you then install a full cover roof and do you insulate underneath the material.
Foundation: Do you weld plates on the 4 corners to a plate attached to a J bar which is inside the pour of the cassion? Which is best cassions or a perimiter foundation. Should you also bolt on with say a one inch cadium bolt every say 40 inches? Notice the price of the 40 ft hi boys is going up. What should be the proper price here in the Los Angeles. We seem to have no bank financing for construction available here in Los Angeles. We will be using a private lender which is very expensive.
Good luck with your projects. We will be using AutoCAD to adjust plan to full fill all personal requirements. Makes it possible to supply architectual inserts prior to construction. This way you get just what you wantto full fill all your special wants.
Thanks L.Foster
Thank You Lucius for you very inquisitive question
For the majority of the answers you seek, I would highly recommend my brothers website titled: ContainerHomes.net. Here, you will not only find the answers you are looking for but
also much more detailed information regarding shipping container homes and construction methods.
Thank You,
D Lee
Container House