Shipping Containers For Sale

Archive for the ‘Housing Units’ Category

Since 2001 a British firm, Urban Space Management, has been leading the way in using containers as housing units. They originally needed some live/work space units and devised the concept of building these from used shipping containers.  The result – Container City. They quickly added more floors and today have container cities in place around the world.

Of course the first advantage container housing units offer is portability. Being able to relocate them via truck and crane adds to the versatility. The next advantage is the cost. Per square foot, shipping containers offer some of the best value building available, not to mention the green benefits of being totally recyclable.

These containers are fully insulated, wired for electricity and come complete with plumbing in the kitchen and bathroom areas. They are totally self contained and can be opened up and other containers joined to give very large, flow through living areas.

Another application is on land where the use is short or medium term. Once the building is no longer needed it can be easily removed and the land used for other purposes. Temporary accommodation in time of natural disaster, visitor housing for main sporting events like the Olympics and other uses quickly spring to mind.

Oil fields, mining camps, refugee camps and even urban schools needing more classroom space can all benefit from adapting sea containers to housing requirements. An Australian inventor, Sean Godsell, has even designed a unit that has its own roof, water catchment and solar energy panels as well as built in furniture and plumbing inside. Called ‘Future Shack’, the entire unit can easily be packed and shipped or pre-positioned anywhere in the world ready to meet any challenge.

In Far North Queensland there is a rainforest research station built from 20 foot shipping containers. It was strong enough to survive Category 5 Cyclone Larry with local wind gusts up to 283km/h (175mp/h). Another Aussie application is a FUBA (Fighting In Built Up Areas) training facility made up from containers laid out to provide an urban, multi-storey training environment for anti-terrorism training for the Australian Defence Forces.

Countries that import huge quantities of manufactured goods from China and elsewhere such as the USA have a glut of containers piling up in harbor side yards on both coasts. These containers cost less than US$2500 to make and returning the empty container would cost between a third and a half of that initial expense. Far better to sell them as second hand or used units and then convert them to other uses.