Those of you who’ve read our articles for any length of time know that we’re certainly advocates for shipping container and fabricated container homes .They are a fantastic building material, and when used appropriately, they offer several advantages over traditional construction materials and methods. The main benefits of building or fabricating office or home with shipping containers follows

Durability and Toughness

An often overlooked advantage of shipping containers is their durability and toughness.Think about it, shipping containers are designed to carry valuable cargo through extremely dangerous weather. While at sea, shipping containers can be subjected to 100 mile an hour winds and 50+ foot waves. This durability and toughness is generally considered ‘over-spec’ when they are turned or fabricated into office or homes or what - so - ever . This means that shipping containers are more than strong enough to be used as office or homes or what - so - ever, especially when compared to other eco-friendly building materials such as recycled plastics or straw bales. However, while fabricating we maintain the level of steel structural tolerances during cutting of steel from the containers. Removing excess sections of the walls for doors, windows and room openings affects the structural integrity of the box itself and requires the addition of additional steel beams to carry the load that was held by the removed metal.

Flexibility (Off-Site Construction)

One big advantage of building with shipping containers is that you can convert them off-site, If you are planning to live in a remote area, building on-site comes with numerous challenges: contractors are difficult to find or expensive to have travel, shipping your materials and supplies is expensive, and the availability of electrical power and water necessary for construction can be limited. Instead, you can convert your shipping containers in an urban area and then once the fabrication/modifications are complete, you can transport your finished home to your land. If you’re intending to live in the wilderness, the cost of transporting your building materials and paying for contractors to travel that far may end up being much higher than shipping your finished container home to the site in one trip.

Eco-Friendliness

Another fantastic advantage of fabricating and building with shipping containers is the environmental benefit. Over the past few decades, the number of people becoming more aware of their impact on the environment has been accelerating. People are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint and become more eco-conscious.

Affordability

Without question, one of the biggest reasons why people build with shipping containers is because they are affordable. Take a used 40ft shipping container as an example. They cost around $2,500 and provide about 320 square feet of floor space. You only need to put 3 containers together and you have almost 1000 square feet for less than $8000.

Portability

Let’s start with a caveat here: the truth of this statement depends on the design. With that said, shipping container homes can be built so they are portable. To make a shipping container home portable we do two things: 1. Bolt, don’t weld, the containers to the foundation, and to other containers (if your design has more than one) 2. We will Keep the cutting of containers to a minimum. If you cut significant pieces of steel out of the shipping containers then you reduce its structural integrity. This prevents them from being stacked and transported without substantial additional steel reinforcement.

Fast to Build

Another great advantage of building with shipping containers is that the finished assembly can be done quite quickly. One of the reasons why shipping container homes tend to be quicker to build than traditional homes is that the main structure of the home is typically complete when the containers are delivered.

Unique Style

It’s fair to say that shipping container homes often have a distinctive look. It’s hard to capture this in one word, though people have tried: Industrial, rugged, modern