What To Know
- Yet in reality, the range of sizes extends from a short ten-foot-cube all the way up to a 40-foot plus container which can be adjoined at the end to create a length which surpasses most typical regular brick and mortar homes.
- In the era of “starships” being told alongside terraforming Mars, making a custom home or office out of a shipping container doesn’t hold the unsure stigma that it was once given a decade or so ago.
Shipping containers are all the rage in the modern construction era. At a time when technology is at the forefront of everyone’s mind, and new apps consume the vortex of buzzwords whirling around the internet, there is also a simultaneously (more physical) craze that is taking the modern era by storm: shipping containers. Ranging in everything from the ever popular “tiny homes”, to unique indoor office rooms for startups, to purely outdoor farmer offices, and even to small urban shops selling retail goods, shipping containers both new and used are proving to be vital in today’s construction world.
One sunglass retail outlet in Brooklyn is able to charge a $40 premium on his shades due to the cool factor which shipping container stores currently command in the public eye; his shop only occupies 160 square feet. Also proving that bigger isn’t always better (at a time when median house values are currently around $245,000), tiny houses are much more affordable than regular houses at a median cost of less than ten percent of normal houses: just $15,000. Rather than taking a stab at cutting their own door frames and window frames, many tiny homeowners are opting to go with custom-built shipping containers which are pre-fabricated. Conexwest, for example, is one such company who has been building custom shipping containers for clients’ needs for over seven years. They have helped all kinds of shipping container business owners bring their ideas into reality, ranging from restaurants, to offices, and even air traffic control towers. As far as creativity goes in modern construction, the sky is truly the limit.
Many of the best shipping container construction companies will arrange delivery of containers straight to site and will also include on-site services like a pre-placement of water-proof ground tarps to prevent rusting of the containers. Or in the case of the education and schooling communities, containers can even be fabricated to become fully mobile on wheels, with a trailer hitch. So, when we think of a shipping container, we are often thinking of a 20-to-30-foot container. Yet in reality, the range of sizes extends from a short ten-foot-cube all the way up to a 40-foot plus container which can be adjoined at the end to create a length which surpasses most typical regular brick and mortar homes.
Perhaps the most overlooked or unknown facet of shipping containers is that some are certified in terms of weight load and condition, so as to not rust over time compared to more worn-down units. What was once seen as an atrocity in urban construction and development, or a blight on the block, has finally become viewed as a prized artistic addition to the community. The decision to use shipping containers is one which displays the owners’ creative and adventurous spirit. In the era of “starships” being told alongside terraforming Mars, making a custom home or office out of a shipping container doesn’t hold the unsure stigma that it was once given a decade or so ago.
