What to look for when buying a Shipping Container, for building a home

What to look for when buying a Shipping Container, for building a home.

Let’s go over a few basics. The containers are called Connex Boxes. They are constructed of a metal known as Cortin, which is very strong and rust resistant. They come in several sizes. The standard width is eight feet. There are three height options; Half Cube at four feet, Full Cube or eight feet and High Cube or nine and a half feet. As far as the length they come in 20 feet, 40 feet, and 60 feet. There are variation and custom sizes, on all of these numbers to accommodate different products.

They come insulated and not insulated. The floors are made of hard wood. The doors are standard on one end, full height.

Due to their extreme strength they are a great candidate for creative structure design. The following is personal observation and assumptions on perspective uses for housing. I am in no way an engineer or qualified to discuss structural issues of heavy construction. But I have done a lot of building and been successful. I use my own common sense and am responsible for my own failures. In other words if this article leads you to try something dangerous or foolish you’re on your own… no guarantees.

These amazing boxes are inexpensive, strong, and versatile and can be stacked in an almost unlimited array of different forms.

When buying, I look for straight boxes that have not been patched excessively with floors that are not chewed up and doors that open fairly easily and gaskets that are not shot. The person selling will tell you that you will not find one like this, but the extra time you spend on finding a straight box will pay off later.

I’ve found that you can cut in windows and doors just about anywhere you desire. You will want to have a level pad ready with access for the large semi- truck and lowboy trailer. I’d say a straight shot at least 80 feet long and 16-20 feet wide. I landed mine within 10 feet of its final destination and then a friend with a large backhoe pushed it into place. I then used a six-ton bottle jack to raise the box and used large concrete shims to set the box level. Then I poured a concrete curb for the box to rest on. Next time I’ll do all the curb work first, with deep reinforced footings that have weld plates and a copper grounding cable.

I chose the High Cube because the extra height allows room for mechanical and an insulated drop ceiling. I don’t like the insulated boxes because they are often manufactured in countries with lax material standards and so I question the spray in foam as far as environmentally and our personal health. Also some of the insulated boxes are not made of cortin and lack the structural strength to alter and stack in any way desired.

That’s the basics if you have comments, corrections to my information or any thoughts please forward.

Warmly

Mad Coyote Joe

Just a thought!

Okay; this is the new deal you run for an office in my country you can have 10 times the average salary (yes I fucking understand the average) in each state you are running in. So Arizona that’s about $250,000 or for president that’s 52 times the national average times 10 or about $15,000,000, Give these fuckers an Americapass and they can hit the rails. We need to take the corporations out of the ballot box. They can raise money at a rate of $25 from citizens maximum… no corporate money… that’s right none. They are fucking the workingman beyond anything that Ian Rand could have ever dreamed of. It’s our government not corporate America’s. If they think that it’s worth 200 million dollars to get a $500,000 (or what ever it pays) per year job then you can ride around on trains and tell us why. We will provide city parks and public access TV for you to sell us on why you’re the one that I want to vote for! Just think about It, real candidates actually selling us on their ideas, without writers base on demographics. No… at these prices they’ll have to make it up themselves!

Just a thought!

Joe

Cooking School update

In building the cooking school there are several issues that I need to deal with. I’m building a venue that will serve as a school, an event location, as in weddings, meetings, perhaps a gallery, also we are looking at television and photo shoots maybe even exercise, tai chi, or even lectures and workshops. I’m, by nature, a packrat I love to collect things that others have discarded and then reuse them in construction or sculpture. This is a challenge as, I’m having to toss out things that may have a future use, but the business comes first.

I have divided our property into three outdoor and four indoor areas. Our home and the packaging room for our spice company, the connex box which will be used as an art studio, a garage and a storage area and the classroom and kitchen are all indoor venues and out door we have the cooking set and bakery, the main yard and a 16 car parking lot. My plan is to finish the bakery and cooking set first so that we can start outdoor cooking classes this spring. We will use the money from these classes to finish the other venues.

I’m working on the connex box, which I want to make look more like a little adobe building and less like a shipping container.

I'm using a CIP or cast in place adobe system of my own design.

I was given the dirt for my adobes and after inspecting it I became worried about the ratio of sand to soil.

Most of the information floating around the web and in the various books on adobe construction in our library agrees that adobe needs to be a minimum mix of 30 % clay and 70% sand and no more than 50/50. After doing a standard water / soil test my dirt looks like it’s about 80% sand 20% clay.

So I made two test blocks as I have two different piles of dirt. You can see the rings from the cardboard drink case I used as a form,

My system has additional reinforcement in several different areas that standard adobe is missing.

First it’s attached to the connex box, second it has a chain link fence diaphragm, third it has a two-inch hi density foam exterior that is tied to both the box and the fence. After making my test blocks I believe that it will be more than strong enough.

However as an added binder I’m going to add a shovel of gypsum to each wheelbarrow, which will be about 5%. I’ll let you know how it works out.