Shipping container home?

[Tupelo Honey]

Originally Posted by Tupelo Honey

This sounds simpler than the membrane roof I'd run across in previous research... link?

This from my thread. I always knew we would need a roof if for nothing else, for appearance sake, but kind of want decking up there with insulation underneath probably. I always thought we would need a poured concrete foundation. It was a container seller in my building vicinity that made me question that. Obviously we need to level with some material but several potential placement sites are pretty much solid rock up there. Again, we intend to get better information before making a final decision on foundation or roof.

[Renaissance Ronin]

Originally Posted by Tupelo Honey

This from my thread. I always knew we would need a roof if for nothing else, for appearance sake, but kind of want decking up there with insulation underneath probably. I always thought we would need a poured concrete foundation. It was a container seller in my building vicinity that made me question that. Obviously we need to level with some material but several potential placement sites are pretty much solid rock up there. Again, we intend to get better information before making a final decision on foundation or roof.

I often use SIPs, with a waterproof membrane over the top of them, to give me a place to put decking so that the roof can be used as a terrace, a garden, or even a "High above everybody else" spa location.

The beauty of this system is that you end up retaining your ability to collect rainwater in your water retention system. A cool rain chain or gutter downspout can direct that "captured water" to rain barrels, or an irrigation system.

You already have to build a roof, so why not just let it double task?

Just don't sue me when you fall of that roof, huh?

[Tupelo Honey]

Originally Posted by Renaissance Ronin

I often use SIPs, with a waterproof membrane over the top of them, to give me a place to put decking so that the roof can be used as a terrace, a garden, or even a "High above everybody else" spa location.

The beauty of this system is that you end up retaining your ability to collect rainwater in your water retention system. A cool rain chain or gutter downspout can direct that "captured water" to rain barrels, or an irrigation system.

You already have to build a roof, so why not just let it double task?

Just don't sue me when you fall of that roof, huh?

We plan to have a railing/barrier and maybe a
slide and a fireman's pole as well. We search for balustrades but they are pretty pricey so have also considered 4' chain link or even the cut out portions of the corten to use as panels for the railing. Our safety test is: would we want our (eventual) grandchildren up there?

[Renaissance Ronin]

Originally Posted by Tupelo Honey

Question for Ronin: what do you find the average cost and transport on these to be? Do you know of any particularly good sources you can share?

One of the brutal facts about ISBUs is that unless you are close to where they are obtained the shipping and delivery kills you. Placed on a tilt-bed and then hauled by a thirsty tractor, it can cost $500 -$600 dollars to get a 40' or better box to your construction site.

You CAN rent a tilt-bed. Combined with somebody who drives a rig and needs a load, you might save a few dollars.

You CAN use that box to haul freight to a place closer to you and THEN make your delivery connection. Freight load brokers can help here.

Or, start with smaller boxes. 20' ISBUs can be handled quite effectively by "the common man" quite affordably.

And instead of all the "infighting" think "outsourcing". The boxes that you want probably aren't in stacks in railroad yards or shipping ports. WHO buys these boxes in bulk? What do they do with them? Where do they go? Follow the trail, and you'll find affordable boxes. Hmmm...

[viverrid]

Originally Posted by Renaissance Ronin

It won't burn down. It take a lot to get a steel house to melt. THOUSANDS of degrees of fire.

Now now, don't let your zeal push you over the top. I used to be a steel designer & fabricator and am quite familiar with steel structures. It's not MELTING that is the threshold.

If it is a house, LONG BEFORE the steel "melts" the contents (and your exterior or interior insulation) will have outgassed and burnt off. Steel doesn't have to 'melt' to be weakened and deformed. The long trusses in the World Trade Center didn't have to get hot enough to melt (the nano-thermite conspiracy believers don't seem to realize this), just to have their yield strength compromised, which doesn't take much heat at all.

I have bent big beams with just a hand torch; you don't have to melt them!

[Renaissance Ronin]

Originally Posted by viverrid

Now now, don't let your zeal push you over the top. I used to be a steel designer & fabricator and am quite familiar with steel structures. It's not MELTING that is the threshold.

If it is a house, LONG BEFORE the steel "melts" the contents (and your exterior or interior insulation) will have outgassed and burnt off. Steel doesn't have to 'melt' to be weakened and deformed. The long trusses in the World Trade Center didn't have to get hot enough to melt (the nano-thermite conspiracy believers don't seem to realize this), just to have their yield strength compromised, which doesn't take much heat at all.

I have bent big beams with just a hand torch; you don't have to melt them!

Yes, and long before that Steel House becomes a crematorium of collapse and carnage, that wood house will just be cinders and ash. THAT was my point.

A steel house, clad in metal roofing and cement siding (for example) doesn't feed the fuel chain for fire to exist, unless that house happens to be in the middle of a firestorm. As no-one in their right mind would build a home without clearing a safe distance around it (to prevent "fire jumping") your chances of surviving a catastrophic fire are lessened to a great degree. No fuel, no fire. No fire, no melting from extreme heat exposure that would weaken and then consume steel.

A house made from wood can "spontaneously combust" from heat exposure under similar conditions - since it provides fuel, that by its very "organic" nature is susceptible to lesser amounts of heat, before incineration occurs..

And I'm sure that as a steel designer and metal fabricator you see the logic in THAT. Right?

[reality checker]

I recently had a Morton 2200 SQFT shed (house) built to live in. The cost for the whole shebang freed me to add a 42X64 ft shed for the cost of conventional housing.

If you want to live in anything like a shipping container or 55 gallon drums welded end to end, go for it.

If you want a cheap dwelling that meets any building code and goes up quick and cheap, you may want to look at

http://www.mortonbuildings.com/cabin.aspx

The cost to heat the house in dec jan is about 45.00 or less per month with the geothermal system the Obama helped pay for. Ilive in Minnesota, -30 ° is the norm.

My house looks like a upscale home inside and a pole shed outside. Morton builds many of this type of building every year.

The design allows anything inside, there are no load bearing walls inside, high ceilings are cheap. lofts and second stories are also easy.

I can send pictures if you like, I would recommend Morton to anyone.

[Renaissance Ronin]

Originally Posted by reality checker

I recently had a Morton 2200 SQFT shed (house) built to live in. The cost for the whole shebang freed me to add a 42X64 ft shed for the cost of conventional housing.

If you want to live in anything like a shipping container or 55 gallon drums welded end to end, go for it.

If you want a cheap dwelling that meets any building code and goes up quick and cheap, you may want to look at

http://www.mortonbuildings.com/cabin.aspx

The cost to heat the house in dec jan is about 45.00 or less per month with the geothermal system the Obama helped pay for. Ilive in Minnesota, -30 ° is the norm.

My house looks like a upscale home inside and a pole shed outside. Morton builds many of this type of building every year.

The design allows anything inside, there are no load bearing walls inside, high ceilings are cheap. lofts and second stories are also easy.

I can send pictures if you like, I would recommend Morton to anyone.

I'm suspecting that people aren't taking into consideration the ability to build the home by "THEMSELVES", here.

While steel hangars, farm buildings, houses and cabins like the Morton stuff are cool, it's just not the same animal.

First, I bet you spent more than $50 a square foot for your finished home. The last time we had a client talk to Morton, the cost was considerably higher, by the time the Certificate of Occupancy was issued.

Second, I bet you had a pretty good sized steel crew erecting it for you.

ISBU Homes aren't for everyone. But they ARE a good fit for people who want to build a home out of recycled and repurposed materials, all by themselves, or with very little outside help. They aren't "Mainstream America", but again, most of the people who build them aren't aspiring to build deathtraps, they're struggling to build a home that they can afford, without being chained to a soul sucking, huge mortgage, or locked into doing it the way that Granddad did.

I've been doing this since 1977. And I've done is all over the rock, in some of the most inhospitable places on the planet. If I thought that Design-Build Steel buildings were the answer, I'd be doing it.

But in my view, they have their place, and other forms of housing and shelter fill in the rest of those gaps.

If you want someone else to build your house, then call Morton. I actually know about them. They're good folk.

But, if you want to build a home "out of pocket" in a place where you are free to do as you wish, and not as the homeowners association says, you may need to talk to someone else, about a different path.

And, that path CAN be affordable , sustainable, energy efficient homes, that started out life carrying Chinese TV's to Walmart.

And for what it's worth, I'll put one of my cold weather ISBU homes up against your steel building cabin, any day. I'm sure that your house is nice, but you might be surprised at both the results... AND the costs...

[swallace]

The shipping container home "industry" is a lot like the "modular" home industry of a few decades ago - loaded with potential but fraught with problems that limit the success of the concept.

The first major issue for the market is the definition of what makes a "home"

Structures like Ronin are trying to promote - defined as "as low as $50 a sq ft and DIY" where you take a container, cut a couple of windows and doors fit it out are better defined as a cabin, temporary accommodation unit or shelter than house.

Are these types of shelters cheap ? Heck yes they are dirt cheap but comparing them to a stick built house is irrelevant they are two different things, one is a shelter and the other is a house, its like price comparing a scooter and a small family car, they only do similar things.

That said the "container cabin" market actually matured as a business several years ago whereby today ( as with so many projects we used to build ourselves ) its cheaper and easier and faster to buy a fitted out container cabin direct from the factories in China than it is to build it yourself, there are 1000's of them online, try places like alibaba, I promise you will be over whelmed with choices.

The reason that the water get so muddied is ISBU advocates like to play the bait and switch to promote their own agenda and its being done here in this thread- they show wonderful photos of high end builds, beautiful stunning and expensive homes built with containers and then talk up the $50 sqft and DIY angle - amazingly the images they use have nothing to do with their businesses, in fact they don't even belong to them and in my opinion have no right to present these images with crediting the actual designer/builder.

Ronin you present yourself as a leader in this space having built 100 container houses why don't you post images of houses you designed/ built ?

All of the images on your site and in your "book" and in this thread belong to other builders - why ? and if you are going use other peoples images provide them credit !

You would gain a lot of credibility from people in this industry ( not people looking in ) if you showed us a house or two that YOU actually designed or built surely you have just one ?

Back to my point - Have you ever wondered why there is so much publicity and promotion for container homes and yet we see the same photos of houses rolled out time and time again - the truth is there are less than 120 real ISBU houses in the United States, the real builders and designers have created only a handful of projects each at this point.

The simple reason is that these homes are so challenging that they rarely get off the drawing board - want a single show stopper ?

The truth is that 99.99% of bank and finance companies will not go anywhere near a container built home – at least not today and as things stand not for the foreseeable future. So unless you have enough cash in hand to pay for your entire project you can pretty much forget a container home.

1200 sqft home - do you have $120,000 cash ?

The real world legacy of ISBU's will be the idea of standardized sizing steel framed modular building units that can be "assembled" on site - an extension of todays wooden framed modular home but we have a few problems to solve yet.

[Tupelo Honey]

First post, fake noob?

He actually has consistently recognized and given credit and called those showbase builds that were, for the most part, posted by other folks the "show ponies" of isbu building, and given realistic estimates of the cost of those glamour projects as well.

[ian408]

Out of curiosity swallace, do you have sources you can link to for the stats you cite? I'm curious. Being your first post and all.

Regarding loans, I'm certain any "alternative" where the technique is not well understood will receive a fair amount of scrutiny. Whether it's ISBU, straw or pre-fab stuff. I bet even traditional stick construction warrants a closer look these days. We could probably ask the guy building a concrete home what it was like to work with his lender.

[AngryScot]

Originally Posted by Tupelo Honey

First post, fake noob?

He actually has consistently given credit and called those builds that most other folks posted the "show ponies" of isbu building, and given realistic estimates of the cost of those glamour projects as well.

Quite possible, maybe a nice stalker of sorts.

I would like to see some examples too, not to still our new member but because I am interested in the design and concept and getting it from the designer can add a great deal of info.



edited to be a bit nicer?

[ian408]

Itchy trigger finger there Garry?

[AngryScot]

Originally Posted by ian408

Itchy trigger finger there Garry?

no, not at all. I just would like to keep this on track is all. I enjoy a good debate but I guess sticking the mod bit on the end I just wanted it to be known I would like a clean fight if any was to happen and no hitting below the belt


'
too strong? too soon?

[ian408]

Originally Posted by AngryScot

too strong? too soon?

There's nothing in either post that warrants the "warning".