The Shipping Container Movement

 

Just like that, with the click of a button on your computer or a quick phone call, and you can have your very own shipping container home ordered. That’s right, that large steel box you see on construction sites and at shopping plazas can be made into a custom home built just for you.

 

 

These days the median house in FL will put a dent in your wallet to the tune of $245,000 or more. Shipping container homes now offer a cheaper solution for the home-buyer. A well-conditioned shipping container can cost anywhere from $2500 to $6000. A 40’ storage container can provide 160’ square feet of space, so with eight of these containers together, they can make a 2-story house at about 1300 square feet. Not all container homes are inexpensive, but they can be more affordable than your standard brick and mortar home.

 

 

Besides the cost-savings and being a hot trend in housing, there are many pros to having a shipping container home. You can purchase a pre-fabricated home, cutting your construction time down significantly. The cargo boxes are used for transporting goods, right? So, the mobility factor comes in handy since they can be transported via cargo ships, train, and trucking companies. Container homes are also being marked as environmentally friendly. There are thousands of these shipping containers no longer in circulation and they are now being up-cycled into living spaces. But before you get too excited, there are a few major obstacles to having a custom-built storage container home come to life. Since this is new territory in the construction world, many of the local building codes don’t know how to handle the containers and therefore do not approve them. Furthermore, zoning laws may also be against having shipping containers in a residential setting.