Shipping container homes are becoming ever more popular. Stephanie and Clark Evans built their shipping container home in the Chicago suburbs over the span of three years. They turned seven 15-year-old cargo containers into a 3,200-square-foot home. The home design plan initially attracted much negative feedback but was eventually seen as a masterpiece. &#;In the beginning, people just didn&#;t understand it, and no one 100 percent supported it,&#; Stephanie said. &#;But as progression goes on, a lot of people who hesitated about it at first started to come on board. People came to see it for what it was, and not just an extravagant trash can.&#;
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1. Cost-Effectiveness &#; Shipping container homes can go for as low as $10,000. They are able to be purchased for so low because they require fewer building materials and less labor is needed to construct. Customization costs can also be lowered by DIYing different parts of your home.
2. Building Time &#; Homes can be built by experienced contractors in under a month. In contrast to this positive, hiring a professional to build your home can increase build costs significantly. To avoid these costs, you can purchase a prefabricated container home and modify it to fit your home preferences.
3. Customizable Home &#; Shipping container homes are easy to modify. Using a mix of different-sized containers, you can create any layout possible. You can also adjust your home size as time goes on by adding containers to increase living space. This is perfect for growing families!
4. Sturdy Architecture &#; Corten steel is often used by manufacturers to support the homes. This steel is self-healing and protects cargo during transport. This material is also more likely to withstand poor weather than the traditional house.
5. Mobile Abilities &#; Shipping transportation services such as FreightCenter can ship your containers to your preferred destination. This makes moving a breeze!
1. Building Permits &#; With the idea of shipping containers being relatively new, it can be difficult to obtain the necessary building permits. Contact your local city planning office for information on their building codes, zoning restrictions, and permitting requirements for container housing.
2. Electrical Applications &#; When dealing with electrical components of a shipping container home, they often are easily visible inside of the house due to the lack of space in between the &#;walls&#; (space between the containers). Electricians can often prevent the aesthetic look from being negatively affected by the electrical components by using coverings and tubing throughout the ceiling and walls
3. Reinforcements Needed for Expansion &#; The more expansion done to the container homes, the more 4×4 steel beam reinforcements you&#;ll need. If the lower container has cut-outs for windows or doors and there are plans to place more containers on top of it, then steel beams will also be needed.
4. Lack of Insulation &#; Shipping containers do not have insulating properties. When the homes are being built, there is no space for insulation materials. To insulate a shipping container home, you can use spray foam, cork board, and wool or cotton.
5. Potential Hazards &#; When shipping containers have been used, they can contain harmful chemicals or other materials. They often are also treated with zinc paint coat to prevent corrosion. Shipping containers spend most of their lifetime (before being used for homes) near the ocean, which is a perfect recipe for corrosion and rust.
Shipping container homes range in size and cost. The average cost to build is around $10,000 to $35,000. Larger, more complicated designs can reach upwards of $175,000. Desired amenities or materials can also increase costs.
While building costs are relatively low for a shipping container home, you still need to consider where the home will go. Unlike tiny homes, which often remain on a trailer, a shipping container home typically stays in one place. With that being said, you will need to own the land to place the house on.
According to the USDA, the average cost for an acre of farmland in was $3,160. This average number increases significantly when looking at land in more populated areas.
Keep in mind that not all types of land are convenient. Raw land lacks road, sewer systems, and electrical grid access. It is also crucial that your home is placed in a residential living zone, not a commercial structure or farmland zones.
Once you have purchased your land, the foundation can be laid for your shipping container home. A trench foundation is often found to be more affordable, where the concrete is poured into a shallow hole in the ground. A slab foundation is laid when the ground is soft and extra reinforcement is needed.
A pier foundation is another option that can be used. It includes a series of cylindrical columns to support the home placed on it. This causes the house to be elevated a few feet off the ground while preventing it from sinking into the ground. About $5,000 can be expected to be spent on laying the foundation.
The next step is to find your container. You can choose between new and used containers. New being a &#;one trip&#; container (the trip to your house) and used being in service for a few months up to a few years. Used containers can be purchased for about $2,000. New containers range up to $8,000.
Shipping container homes often are placed on their foundation using a crane. Using a crane has many benefits, such as safety, ease, and speed. You can hire a local builder or rent a rough terrain forklift to use if you don&#;t have access to a crane. You can use a large crowbar after placement for final adjustments.
You will need to remove metal from the containers to place windows, door openings, electrical sockets, etc. There are many options for cutting through steel, including using a plasma cutter, cutting torch, grinder, or even a jigsaw.
It is crucial to contact professional help when removing parts of the container because too much removal can affect stability and safety. All gaps made by cutting will need to be sealed to protect the home from potential outside elements.
After the shipping containers have been delivered, modified, and secured into place, there are several steps left before your shipping home is move-in ready. These steps usually include finishing off windows and doors, including framing, flashing, thermal breaks, and glazing. All openings should be framed with steel to ensure durability and not be weaker than any other points in the home.
After the house has been fitted, insulation, heating and cooling, plumbing, and electrical systems should be installed, including all necessary fixtures. Oftentimes, Supertherm ceramic coating is applied to the outside of shipping container homes to help insulate them.
Plywood is used to build the flooring, which is then covered with the desired tile or carpet. The walls are finished with drywall as if it were a regular home. Only after all of this is it time to install large fixtures and appliances and start outdoor landscaping.
Photo Property of Zack Smithey
In Zack and Brie Smithey constructed their three-bedroom, two-and-a-half-bathroom, 3,000-square-foot shipping container home. The Smitheys were attracted to shipping containers because they offered a chance to recycle and to show off the couple&#;s unique style. But keeping the project on a budget meant doing almost all the work themselves&#;their work resulted in a gorgeous 8-container home full of quirky, fun, upcycled details.
No matter your experience, a shipping container home is a fast-to-construct, cost-effective, and sturdy yet mobile home that you can customize to your heart&#;s desire. Before building, it is essential to remember all the difficulties of constructing a shipping container home.
There are permits, wiring, plumbing, appliances, and even health hazards, all of which can make the building process more difficult than expected. Whether starting from scratch or enlisting professional help, shipping container homes are eco-friendly options where you can live big in your small home.
Once you have located and purchased your shipping containers, that&#;s where FreightCenter comes in. At FreightCenter, we can help you move everything, including your shipping containers and even container homes. Our carriers and freight agents can help you through the shipping process, ensuring a smooth ride for you and your shipment. Use FreightCenter&#;s free online quote tool to begin, or call one of our shipping experts at 800.716..
People worldwide seem to be increasingly fascinated by the idea of tiny homes and alternative lifestyles, including dwellings constructed in ways you would not expect. One of these unique living phenomena is shipping container homes.
But what are the pros and cons of such a lifestyle choice? Let&#;s dive a little deeper into the whole idea.
As the world has been taken by storm in recent years by the innovative designs of tiny homes and alternative living situations, shipping container homes are also becoming more popular for those looking to live a different lifestyle.
But what is a shipping container home, you might ask?
Well, they are basically what the name suggests: a dwelling constructed within large, metal shipping containers&#;the same style of shipping containers commonly used in transporting goods overseas on freighter ships or across countries on semi-trucks or train cars.
These containers are primarily available in two distinct sizes for transforming into a home&#; 20 ft. by 8 ft, or 40 ft. by 8 ft. The key difference is the square footage inside, as the former provides 160 square feet, while the latter gives 320 square feet.
Depending on what you do with these shipping containers, they can be turned into entirely self-contained small homes, an independent workspace, a personal studio, or even combined with other containers to create entire multi-level houses.
But what are the advantages and disadvantages of living in such a space? Let&#;s discuss some specifics associated with alternative living in homes made from shipping containers.
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If you are interested in the lifestyle of downsizing from a traditional house to something smaller and more versatile, such as a shipping container home, it might be the right choice for you. But let&#;s go over the pros of this decision first.
While this is no guarantee, shipping container homes tend to cost less than traditional housing in the long run.
Not only are shipping containers usually cheaper to purchase by themselves, but they are also less expensive to turn into a decent dwelling customized to your exact specifications.
If you keep the overall structure of the shipping container intact when turning it into a home, they can be easily transported across countries and even oceans&#;making it easy to embrace mobility and move wherever you want.
This is done by shipping companies that can offer transport services even for modified shipping containers, delivering them worldwide by boat, truck, or train.
The options for customizing and modifying your shipping container home are nearly endless. You can select multiple containers to create a multi-story structure or combine different container sizes for an individualized layout.
Additionally, shipping containers are reasonably easy to modify internally, as well. You just need the right tools to cut holes for windows, doors, and stairwells into the container itself to create the perfect dwelling for you.
Though they are not made of particularly eco-friendly materials, it&#;s still an environmentally conscious decision to turn a shipping container into your home.
Instead of letting it lie around a shipping yard and go to waste or becoming refuse in a landfill, you are giving this object a second life as a home.
It&#;s much easier to heat and illuminate these small spaces than to warm an entire house. You will impose fewer supply needs on the infrastructure and environment around you and have lower utility bills as a result.
Plus, it takes less energy consumption to transform a shipping container into a home than it does to build an entirely new residence from scratch!
Considering the steel that these prefabricated shipping containers are made of, you don&#;t have to worry about burglars gaining access to your alternative dwelling. It is quite hard to successfully break into a metal box, after all!
And, when you are away from your little home for an extended period, you can simply lock up the outer doors&#;if you kept the original storage container door&#;and rely on the security system that allows these containers to ship expensive goods around the world.
As mentioned, these units are generally made of reinforced or galvanized steel, allowing them to be shipped across massive distances and often under the influence of terrible weather conditions.
As a result, shipping container homes benefit from being incredibly hardy and durable, with low instances of your typical residential wear and tear.
If you want to renovate a traditional residence or add more rooms to an existing building, it will typically cost quite a lot of money.
But with shipping container homes, you can easily add to the structure and customize it in a way that can evolve with an ever-changing lifestyle or family size. The base price is the same for each container; it just depends on what you do with it.
When building a typical multi-story residence that one might find in the suburbs, there is always a long waiting period for the house to actually become a livable space and not just a construction zone.
But the time is significantly shorter in terms of shipping containers being turned into dwellings. They already have walls, floors, and a roof, so you can skip several steps of the process and get your home created sooner.
There is really no shortage of shipping containers in the world. Because the manufacturing and agricultural sectors rely on these units to transport and receive goods all over the planet, they are common and easy to find.
And just because a shipping container has been retired by a transport company or manufacturer doesn&#;t mean that it is unusable&#; it can still be transformed into a dwelling after its time as a cargo bearer ends.
And while there certainly are benefits to living in an alternative housing structure, like a shipping container home, there are also disadvantages to this lifestyle. It&#;s time to examine some cons of this alternative living style.
Shipping containers are not built with modern appliances in mind, so altering them to include your typical home setup of dishwashers, stoves, ovens, washers, or dryers can be difficult.
You will need to put in a custom electrical system, as well as special plumbing to make toilets flush and water run, which needs to be done by a specialist in this field and will cost more than a DIY job.
You generally need very specific permits and zoning permissions for turning a shipping container into a home, as they are technically classed as a non-permanent structure.
And some municipalities won&#;t even let you set up a shipping container as your home, depending on local housing regulations. So, it can be difficult to figure out the fine print on finding a place to put your alternative-style dwelling.
Not everyone can work with shipping containers, and specialist contractors or builders who have experience with turning these units into a successful living spaces can be difficult to find and expensive to hire.
Shipping containers are made with fairly thin metal walls, so you need to insulate them well before they become livable.
However, unless you want to build out the walls a bit, you will likely need to use a thin insulation layer that will fit within the narrow confines of the container&#;s dimensions, like a spray foam that doesn&#;t provide as much insulation as other options.
Because of the metal construction of shipping containers, it can be hard to achieve temperature regulation inside the structure, particularly in very hot or cold climates.
It takes a lot of insulation and airflow to help maintain control of the temperatures, so setting up your dwelling in the far North or a tropical location might not be the best idea.
Depending on the types of cargo your shipping container was previously used for, it can bring health hazards to the fore.
Some of these shipments could have contained toxic substances, dangerous cargo, or even spillages, not to mention treatment with insecticides or other chemicals that such containers will undergo during their years of service.
Your safest plan of action would be to have the entire container sandblasted by a professional company. This will remove any hazardous materials or residue in the unit and significantly add to your budget.
With shipping containers, even though there are two main sizes available, what you see is basically what you get. And while you can stack them and attach other units, the space will always be rectangular and the dimensions rigid.
And depending on how many storage containers your home is made of, the space may be noticeably smaller than what you are used to. So before you make the transition, consider all aspects of tiny home living to decide if it is right for you.
While these containers are definitely sturdy and made with durable metal materials, they still might need some reinforcement and structural augmentation, leading to extra building costs and layout constraints.
This is particularly necessary if you have altered the base model with many openings, modifications, or cuts to the metal, as this weakens the entire structure and creates a need for outside support.
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