They are a fantastic building material, and when used correctly, they offer several advantages over traditional building materials and methods. In this article, we will cover the primary benefits of container homes. We will also discuss how to maximize each of these benefits.
The Key Benefits of Container Homes
Durability and Strength
An often overlooked advantage of containers is their durability and strength. Consider this: containers are designed to transport valuable cargo through extremely harsh weather conditions. While at sea, containers can endure winds of up to 100 miles per hour and waves over 50 feet high.
In the video, you can see containers being rocked from side to side by a massive storm, yet they all remain intact. Even when the ship experiences a shipwreck, the containers stay intact.
This durability and strength are usually considered “over-specification” when they are converted into homes. This means that containers are strong enough to be used as homes, especially when compared to other eco-friendly building materials like recycled plastics or straw bales.
However, to maintain this toughness, we recommend not cutting too much steel from the containers. Removing sections of the walls for doors, windows, and room openings affects the structural integrity of the box and requires the addition of additional steel beams to carry the load that the removed metal supported.
You should also ensure regular maintenance on your containers to prevent rust. You can read more about this here.
Flexibility (Off-Site Construction)
A significant advantage of building with containers is that you can turn them into homes off-site, as we explained in detail in our article here.
If you plan to live in a remote area, traditional on-site construction presents numerous challenges:
- Contractors are hard to find or expensive to transport,
- Shipping your materials and supplies is costly, and
- The availability of necessary electricity and water for construction can be limited.
- Instead, you can convert your containers into a home in an urban area and then, once the manufacturing and modifications are completed, transport your finished home to the final site.
This allows you to live in places where traditional brick houses could not be built. If you intend to live in nature, the cost of transporting building materials and paying contractors to travel to that location can be much higher than sending the finished container converted into a home to the site in a single trip.
Eco-Friendly
Another fantastic advantage of building with containers is the environmental benefit. When people were asked why they wanted to live in a container home, the second most common response was that it’s environmentally friendly.
In recent decades, the number of people becoming more aware of their environmental impact has accelerated. People are looking for ways to reduce their carbon footprint and become more environmentally conscious. A fantastic way to do this is by building your home with recycled materials.
Every time a standard 40-foot container is recycled, approximately 7,700 pounds of steel are reused. It’s estimated that around 500,000 containers are abandoned each year. Additionally, there are several million shipping containers that have already been retired. That’s a lot of discarded building material.
So, if building a container home uses five standard containers, approximately 38,500 pounds of steel will be recycled. Not to mention that when building with containers, you’re not using other environmentally harmful building materials.
Affordability
Undoubtedly, one of the most important reasons why people build with containers is because they are very affordable. Take a used 40-foot container as an example. They cost around $1,800 and provide approximately 320 square feet of floor space.
You only need to gather 3 containers, and you have nearly 1,000 square feet for less than $6,000. In a time when more and more people struggle to buy their first home, container homes are a very intriguing proposition. However, this is where container versatility comes into play.
Portability
Let’s start with a caveat: the truth of this statement depends on the design.
That said, container homes can be built to be portable. To make a container portable, you need to do two things:
- Bolt, not weld, the containers to the base and to other containers (if your design involves more than one)
- Keep container cuts to a minimum.
If you cut significant pieces of steel from the containers, you will reduce their structural integrity. This prevents them from being stacked and transported without substantial additional steel reinforcement. This portability can be a great benefit if you want to own your own home but need to move frequently.
All you need to do is find suitable utility connections for your container each time you move. One man took this idea to the extreme and built a complete portable container that he sends worldwide when traveling for work. The side of the container even opens to provide more space!
His home has a bunk bed, a sofa, a kitchen, and a dining area, and when not in use, it can be closed since the original doors have been left on the container.
Quick to Build
Another significant advantage of building with containers is that the finished assembly can be done fairly quickly. One reason container homes tend to be faster to build than traditional homes is that the main structure of the house is usually complete when the containers are delivered. Each container can be prefabricated in advance and then transported to the site before being put in place.
Unique Style
It’s fair to say that container homes often have a distinctive look. It’s hard to capture this in a single word, although people have tried: Industrial, Robust, Modern.
Some people love the appearance of container homes, while others simply don’t. The important thing is that if you don’t particularly enjoy their external appearance, you can change the facade with an external cladding. With this, it can look completely different, and others will never know it’s a container construction.
They covered their containers with wood, and it doesn’t even look like a container. Furthermore, depending on the type of cladding used, it can enhance the insulation properties of your home.
In Conclusion
We hope this article has helped explain some of the key benefits of building with containers rather than other more traditional building materials. For us, the two main benefits are the unique style and affordability.
While there are certainly situations where you shouldn’t build with containers, read our article here for more on that. Why are you interested in building a container home? Let us know in the comments section.
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