Living in a Shipping Container...

[grizzlyj]

Hi

Good luck if you go through with it!

A friend of mine went to help out after after the tsunami IDing dead peeps. The authorites welded together about 40 containers, then cut most of the sides out, lined them, A/C, water etc and was essentially a conveyor belt for all the different ID processes for those that were found. Insulated and A/C but still too hot

Just with regard to burying them, containers may not be designed to take a massive side load on the walls, they may bend a bit, but so what?

If you dug into a hillside to give you a buried house with one open windowed side the single sided shutters to concrete the retaining walls would be pricey. Or, dig a hole, place several containers side by side with a gap to the dirt face, pour perhaps a four foot depth of (waterproof?) concrete all the way round, push reinforcing mesh down. It would have to be a suitable soil that'll stay there short term and you can dig neatly. Next day the same till its all full up. 4 feet of liquid pressure isn't much, and if it bends then what? You were going to line it anyway? I think it would work if the containers were touching and aligned, strong point to strong point. The outside walls might bend, and when its gone off cut the interior walls out (not the frame!) and make it look purty

Having used these containers on building sites, even in the middle of housing estates in the UK, I wouldn't say security is a strong point though!

Cheers

Jason

 

[jeepdreamer]

Bury is a no-no

Yeah, while the concept of burying an ISBU (container/connex) is a nice thought it is a no-no. Taking advantage of the thermal mass would be great but the container will not support the side load pressure. And while you could likely build all sorts of sub-structure walls, reinforcing, etc...that would quickly eliminate the best of the advantages to building with these..affordability.
I would be willing to wager that if one's spouse were to be placed in some of the model ISBU homes that are being built now days there would be little unwillingness. People tend to conceptualize it as a small, dark, box that would feel cramped. Not really the case with good design. A high cube container is the same height inside as most modern designed regular houses. And while your only working with basically 8 feet of width...that is easy to design around.
Radiant heat will indeed be able to be done. While some thought needs to be given when planning the foundation and what have you...it is easily done. Plus, the floor of the container will be coming out anyway. Despite being made of some near exotic wood species...it is far to ingrained with pesticides to leave it as is.
I'm still planning on my design using my two 40' high cubes set parallel to each other about 16 feet appart. I can stick frame the space inbetween and take advantage of the strength of the containers to support the roof load. I would hope that when it is all said and done that it looks like a happy little cabin in the mountains of Colorado....

 

[Ray Hyland]

What I want to do is take a bunch of containers and weld them together and then drop a small prefab cabin on top.

That way I have locakable storage for "stuff" down below, and a nice instant "pad" for a small cabin. Leave enough room for a little deck and you are set.

I find we actually "live" in very little of our house, the rest is used to store all our stuff.

Dirt bikes, canoes, mowers, land rover gear, tires, mattracks, sporting gear for 3 boys and two parents... that's a lot of stuff.

In the house we basically need kitchen, family room, sleepig area, washroom. That's it.

Anyways, still thinking about it.

Ray

 

[kellymoe]

This is in my long range plan also, to build a small place using a shipping container or maybe out of straw or heck maybe both. Keep the dream alive.

 

[Tim A]

At work, we outfit 40'ers as "portable" workshops complete with full 110V wiring, lights, full fridge, shelving, drill press, and air conditioning.

I like to think I could park a couple seavans on a wooded lot and make a simple home out of it. Another expense I'd have to factor in would be divorce because there's no way my wife (who I wouldn't call "high maintenance") would live in a shipping container! :coffeedrink:

 

[ETAV8R]

Was going to build something like this.

Who has seen Tron: Legacy? The character Sam Flynn lives in a few shipping containers almost the same as in this pic.

 

[McZippie]

In the '50 it was popular to used cement blocks to build a garage or basement and then lived in it, until they could afford to build a house.
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