Container homes are exactly what they sound like; homes made from the steel shipping
containers that you see carrying goods everywhere on trains, trucks, and ships. From these giant Lego blocks, people are building homes of all shapes and sizes.
The smallest container makes a tiny box of a home at about 100 square feet of floor space. Eight larger containers together can make a two-storey house at about 1400 square feet. Hundreds of container micro-apartments together can make a huge apartment building.
- Ease of transport and siting: A worldwide system exists for moving containers around, and once they reach your site they are relatively simple to set in place on a prepared foundation.
- Predictable cost: Most of the work is completed on a factory floor for a fixed price. Delivery to the
site, site preparation, foundation, assembly, and utility connections are the only variable costs. That said, container homes are not always less expensive. Estimates vary, and some put the savings at 5-10%, depending on what you’re comparing against. - Recycling: The environmental appeal of a container home is the idea that you are re-using a leftover product of the shipping industry to make a home. This can be a good thing, but as we will see,
it’s not always true or the best thing.
Some of the advantages, like short construction time and predictable pricing, are the same for all prefabricated and modular homes, not just those made with shipping containers. But container homes benefit uniquely from the worldwide infrastructure built to move shipping containers. Even container home skeptics admit they can be very useful in situations where local building expertise is lacking, or for emergency shelters that can be easily and quickly moved. In these scenarios, the versatility of container transport is a huge advantage.
Why are shipping containers being used to make homes, studios, cabins, and offices? Well, with about 14 million ‘out-of-service’ containers in the world, there are lots of them available. And playing with giant blocks has a definite appeal!
Besides trendiness, interest in container homes is also part of a wider interest in saving money with prefabricated and modular homes. Many potential homeowners are looking for lower construction and maintenance costs. There is also a perception that container homes are contributing to recycling.
