How to start your shipping container building project

building a structure out of shipping containers is a fast easy cheap way to put up a strong fire and wind resistant building they work really well for shop and storage areas but can be finished in two living space as well I think containers are best utilized as the sidewalls then a roof can be built covering the area between them you can build your building any size you want and easily add additions in the future with more containers shipping containers come in different sizes they are eight feet wide 10 20 40 or 45 feet long the standard height is 8 foot 6 inches high cube containers are 9 foot 6 inches tall the most common and cheapest containers are 40 foot standard height to start your container project the first step is to figure out what you want your building to look like start by building some model shipping containers and play with them like Legos until you have a design that works well for your needs and for your budget this is the model I built to show the engineer what I wanted to build out of shipping containers it's pretty crude but it does the job so it's got the two 40-foot containers stacked on top of each other spaced out 24 inches apart there's a framework of steel i-beams in here I think this was a W 18 by 46 and then these are six by six square tubing quarter inch wall and it shows the loft area which these are span creep panels that make up that floor this back walls is carved this block the front wall is block and then the span creep panels which go on the roof once you know how you want your containers laid out make a more detailed model I have been using Google Sketchup to design my projects before building anything is a free computer program that allows you to easily build models of anything you can share your project with your architect or engineer while you're in the design phase then you can print out a detailed photo of your building when applying for your building permit in Google Sketchup there is a library of items like shipping containers vehicles or anything else you can think of that you can import into your sketch to get a good idea on how your building is going to work for your needs there are plenty of video tutorials online that explain how to use this program once you have your plans impairment start by leveling the spot where you want your building to be it should have a thick stone base under it and should be built up high so the water runs away from it your building should be on a concrete slab I do not just like setting containers on the ground or gravel build a forum to pour your concrete set steel plates with rebar into the concrete where you want to container corners to be that way you can just weld the containers in place on your slab I wanted my building to be fire and windproof so I used precast concrete panels for my second floor and for my roof these precast concrete roof panels are called span Crete mine were eight inches thick 25 feet long they are available in any size they were cheaper than a traditional roof and much easier to install they can be set with a crane and one day they are zero maintenance and they will probably last forever once the span Crete roof was set it was time to pour concrete on top of the containers to finish the roof I hired a pump truck for this that made it very easy to get the concrete in place you can just get span creep panels the width of your entire building so you won't need to do this step I got a really good deal on these 25 footers that were leftover from someone else's job once the roof was finished it was time to start with the walls I got surplus block cheap from a block place because they were all different colors I filled all the block solid with concrete and rebar this makes block walls much stronger if I was building this again I might use two more containers for the back wall instead of block as the blocks were a lot of work an airless paint sprayer works well for painting containers or anything else big fast I used rust-oleum paint and a three part liquid rubber roofing on the roof from Ames at this point I had a finished building but there was still a lot of little detailed work inside that took much longer than building the actual building now that my container building has been finished for a few years I am very happy with the decision to build it this way I feel that container buildings are superior than traditional construction because they are faster cheaper and easier to build good luck with your shipping container building project

Channel: Andrew Camarata

Views: 1,596,542

Rating: 4.9079185 out of 5

Keywords: shipping container, sea container, container garage, new building, DIY, off grid building, build garage, build a castle, modern castle, spancrete, connex box, build workshop, build house, fire proof building, wind proof building, cheap building, hurricane proof house, hurricane shelter

Id: Ti5iRtYYqJg

Length: 6min 20sec (380 seconds)

Published: Tue Aug 15 2017

Reddit Comments

[u/FarkMcBark]

Lord Container-Castle tells all on how he achieved supremacy over the land. Another video of his lovely castle.

[u/freespace303]

Nice! Youtube suggested this video to me while watching that. Looks like a more in depth look into the building process. Do want!

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bGlJDxN2zlE

[u/ThunderCuntess]

I don't know why he would put a roof up there like that. His scenery is unbelievable