I’ve always had this fascination with shipping container homes, a simple google search and you get hundreds of renders, ideas and tiny house lovers singing the gospel on how amazing container houses are, this got me thinking, are container houses a better alternative to conventional building, and are they as many say the solution to the housing market crises, let’s break down shipping container homes and find out if its a worthy investment or if its just another lie.

What Is a Shipping Container Home

This is the straight forward part, a shipping container home is when you take a shipping container or containers and convert them into livable houses, or even a business, I have seen a few turned into really nice little bars, there’s a ton of people out there with beautiful container homes which proofs that it has a following, I love the idea of having container home myself.

What Are The Benefits of Shipping Container Homes?

I know I am supposed to state the advantage and then give an explanation to why that advantage makes sense, but the truth here is that it not that simple, let’s look at the first advantage everyone starts with and that’s is that shipping container homes are:

1. Affordable

Affordability of a shipping container depends on the distance you transport is, it’s going to cheaper if you live next to the port that you get it from, the further you are the more expensive it is, don’t get me wrong containers are cheap, but convincing someone inland to get one will be a bit more difficult when they find out how much it cost just to get the container to their location.

2. Sustainable

Sustainability is not an argument I would use because sustainability means to avoid the depletion of natural resources in order to maintain an ecological balance. the argument I always made was that using a shipping container to build a house is recycling until I got the counter-argument on how the material is not renewable and that every time you use a container another one is made, things can never be simple in this world anymore

Even so, Recycling a container in this way is always better than going to the smelters.

3. Easy To Use and Durable

That is true container home construction is not only easy its fun, its one of the few DIY’s people actually enjoy, and you and your partner can actually pull it off, but then there’s the difference between the easy and right way.

A container is designed as one unit to ensure that it’s structurally strong, cutting a hole into it makes it less structural, which means you’ll have to buy steel columns to make sure that everything works out.

you know what, I don’t care it’s different, its what I want to do and I would simply do it to stick it the man.
I will rather go this route than pay a 30-year mortgage on a poorly built house.

Which brings me to my next question:

Are Shipping Container Houses Cheap?

Well yes and no, what you should know is that a shipping container home is an alternative to conventional housing, look at it as a choice, it should be your choice, do not just follow blindly, the first thing you should look at is the percentage of the money you safe by building your house, the best use case for a container home is a tiny house, the tiny house movement is where you find the best examples designs of container homes another route you can take is by looking at prefab container homes, compare the square feet and cost of that prefab to the square feet of conventional housing. be careful prefabs will cost close to a regular house.

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We’ve put together a list of resources below that can help you build your own container home

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How Long Do Container Homes Last?

containers are built to be in service for a long time they are built to last anywhere between 25 to 35 years, or even longer when ventilated and maintained well, your biggest priority will be the metal sheets covering the shipping container, take care of them and you’re good to go

So Are Shipping Container Homes The Solution to Housing Crises?

No, it’s not, the housing crisis is man-made, its got so much politics and big corporations puppeteering it that solution like container homes will not dent it in any way,

What do we care as long as you get your little container on that piece of land you got cheap, you can change the world step by step

I am gonna leave you some books that can help you build your own shipping container home, that is if you’re interested.