For those of us who have already fallen in love with the idea of living in a house made of shipping containers, this question might not seem strange. However, for some people, the concept of living in a container might appear rather odd.
That’s why, today, we’re going to take a closer look at this question and show you exactly why people choose to live in homes made from containers.
Survey on Living in a House Made of Shipping Containers
We conducted a survey among our readers and subscribers of this blog. The survey asked people: “Would you ever live in a house made of shipping containers?”
The three options were:
- Yes, they’re great.
- No way. That’s weird.
- I’ve never heard of such a thing.
And the second question was: Why did they want to live in a house made of containers?
In total, the survey received over 700 votes, and the results were as follows: An impressive 61.5% of people responded saying they would live in a container house. This was followed by 25.1% of people who responded that they would not live in a container house.
Perhaps those respondents should read 7 Awesome Reasons Why You Should Have a Container House!
Finally, 13.4% of people responded saying they had never heard of container houses.
Hopefully, these individuals will read our articles on this website very soon! We decided to delve a bit deeper and find out exactly why people do or don’t want to live in a house made of shipping containers.
To figure out why people want to live in homes built with containers, we sent an email to our subscribers and asked them some questions, including why they wanted to live in a container house. We received many responses.
What’s the Appeal of a House Made of Containers?
What has been surprising, however, is how consistent the responses have been, so we decided to divide them into five categories:
Price
The most common response we received from our subscribers was price. They said they would either live in a container house or would like to live in one due to the cost savings they expected to get.
We’ve discussed this previously in How Much Do Container Houses Cost?, where we showcased three container houses that were built for less than $100,000.
This doesn’t mean that all container houses are cheap. Quite the opposite, as we’ve seen container houses being sold for over $1,000,000 on the Real Estate site.
Eco-Friendly
Coming in second was the issue of ecology. In fact, there was only a small difference in votes between this and the price.
Many people want to have a container house because they want to build homes in a sustainable and environmentally friendly way.
Environmental awareness is a trend that’s not exclusive to construction but has been gaining momentum steadily over the past decade.
Every time a container is reused, we’re saving over 3,175 kilograms of steel for the planet!
Not only that, we’re also saving the use of other materials that we would need to employ instead of steel, like bricks or wood.
Moreover, the container could be melted back into steel and used for something else, but the beauty of containers lies in the fact that we don’t need to do any of that. We simply recycle the container into something beautiful.
Style and Appearance
The third most popular reason why people want to live in a container house is its appearance. It’s truly astonishing, isn’t it? They look incredible!
Containers can be used to create stunning modular homes. The use of containers has provided some of the most amazing homes of the 21st century to date.
Self-Sustaining Life
Next comes off-the-grid living. Living off the grid means living in a sustainable and self-sufficient manner.
Containers can be the perfect home for those who don’t need the electrical grid. Brenda Kelly’s off-the-grid container home was featured for living large in a small space. A home that was equipped with two 135-watt solar panels and a greywater system.
It’s harder to find a 40-foot container home off the grid, but that’s due to the nature of where we usually see off-the-grid homes, which are in remote and hard-to-reach locations.
It’s probably more problematic and costly than it’s worth to transport a 40-foot container to a remote location.
Container houses can be bought prefab, meaning you can just have your container delivered and it’s ready for use without the need for an electrical grid.
Construction Speed
The final reason we received from our subscribers was speed. Speed refers to the amount of time it takes to build a container house compared to a traditional brick-and-mortar construction.
Containers can be ready to inhabit fairly quickly. Take, for example, PT Tradecorp Indonesia’s offices, which recently constructed an office using two 40-foot containers for their administrative facilities.
It only took eight days to install them and have it finished. A traditional office block made of concrete would have taken much longer than that.
I’d love to hear your thoughts. Let me know in the comments below if you’d like to live in a container house and why.