PROS AND CONS OF CONTAINERS.

It’s incredible to think that something as pervasive and integral to the world
economy as shipping containers didn’t even exist just a few decades ago.
And then to think that, thanks to the ingenuity of a few forward-thinking
individuals, we now see containers in a whole new light as building materials.

Shipping containers are special, but they aren’t perfect. Thanks to our years
of experience, we can appreciate many of their great benefits while still
recognizing where they can sometimes fall short. Thankfully, we also have
insight on how to overcome many of these perceived negatives.

Our intent here is to highlight the origins of containers: first as a method for
transporting goods, and more recently as a means of building. Then we’ll
discuss some of the pros and cons of using containers for your next
construction project.

Whether we talk you into using containers, or out of it, we’ll consider this
article a success if you have a better understanding of the entire picture and
can make the best, most informed decision for yourself.

History
The shipping container, like most new products, was created to solve a
problem: how to transport goods quickly and safely across both land and
sea. Of course, humans had been doing just that for thousands of years, but
usually in ways that were quite inefficient.

The crucial innovation of containers was that they were:

 Big enough to hold several thousand cubic feet of goods, but small
enough to fit on a truck and drive on normal roads

 Strong enough to survive an often treacherous journey at sea, but light

enough to be moveable with cranes, forklifts, and other material handling
equipment

 Uniform enough that any truck or ship could hold any container, but
flexible enough that they could be used for dry goods, refrigerated goods,
bulk liquids, etc.

Thanks to the work of people like Malcolm McLean, in just a few short
decades, the world has been completely transformed by the economical
transport of goods from distant countries.

Imagine if you could travel anywhere in the world and use the same type of
electrical plug, or make purchases with the same currency. Achieving this
level of standardization across the world is very difficult, but that’s exactly
what shipping containers accomplished!

One thing McLean may not have foreseen was the buildup of excess
containers over time due to trade imbalances. That and other factors led
pioneers to explore transforming shipping containers into useful buildings in
the 1980s. Today, thanks to the ingenuity of both professional designers and
ordinary people just like you, we have thousands of examples of incredible
container structures.

To learn more about the fascinating backstory of these cargo boxes, read our
article on the incredible history of shipping containers.

What Are Shipping

Container Homes and
Buildings?
Contrary to what some may think, the category of buildings that fall under
shipping container construction is quite large.

There are single-unit container cabins, container tiny-houses on wheels, and

huge container homes built with adjacent walls removed for larger interior
spaces.

The Mill Junction student apartments in Johannesburg, South Africa uses containers placed on top of old grain

silos!
There are all manner of container hybrid buildings that blend containers with
traditional construction including traditional buildings built on top of
containers, containers assembled on top of traditional buildings, traditional
buildings with containers inside of them, and traditional buildings with
containers jutting out through them.

There are container buildings with exterior cladding and interior walls that
make it effectively impossible to tell there’s a container underneath at all
unless you were watching during construction.

There are containers arranged in uniform piles creating large rectangular

assemblies, and containers turned, twisted, and stacked in organic ways that
are anything but boring.

In short, containers don’t neatly fit into any narrow building category
because they can be made to look like and do just about anything with
enough work.

So, instead of trying to define container buildings by how big they are, how
they look, or the type of people who might be attracted to them, we simply
describe them only as what they are: structures build, at least in part, which
shipping containers.

It’s a mistake (albeit a common one) to assume that a container building

implies a very narrow view of just one of the possibilities we mentioned
above. We’ve found over time that this myopic view of containers ends up
confusing everyone from the general public, to building officials, to future
neighbors and friends. We touch on this issue and how to work around it
further in some of the articles in the Learn section of the website.
In a perfect world, if you say the term ‘shipping container building’, someone
listening should think “well, that could be almost anything, so I’d better find
out more details”.

It’s kind of like how saying ‘boat’ could realistically many anything from a
rowboat, to a Chinese junk, to a massive luxury yacht.
We’re pushing to make ‘container home’ an intentionally broad term in order
to leave room for innovators and people who push the limits of design in
multiple directions!

Benefits
Container homes have a lot of great qualities, but they certainly aren’t for
every person and every situation.  Let’s begin by talking about some of the
specific qualities of shipping container that you may find advantageous.
Further down, we’ll highlight some of the challenges you might face with
containers.

 
Affordable
While not always cheaper than more traditional types of construction, many
people do find that building with containers does save them money. This can
be caused by a combination of factors such as design choices, overall size,
and amount of DIY labor.
Containers have certain advantages over traditional construction, and if you
harness those in the right way, there can be economic benefits. The trick is
to try to accept containers for what they are and work with them instead of
against them.

To read more about the design and construction decisions that help make
container buildings cost-effective, read The Honest Truth about Shipping
Container Home Affordability.

Sustainable
When people think of being ‘green’, ‘eco-friendly’ or ‘sustainable’, one word
usually pops in their minds: recycling.  But ‘Recycle’ is actually the last step
in the hierarchy of waste management as expressed in the 3 R’s (Reduce,
Reuse, Recycle).

Shipping container construction is a great example of ‘Reuse’. It introduces a

second useful lifecycle for used shipping containers that are no longer
suitable for their intended purpose of carrying goods.

In addition, when coupled with the ideas of minimalism and tiny houses,
containers can also address ‘Reduce’ through decreased usage of building
materials and natural resources.
To learn more about the green side of container construction,
read Supercharge Your Sustainability with Containers.

Strong
Given that they are made of steel and intended for long journeys across the
open ocean, it’s no secret that containers are built to be extremely strong.
Their ability to withstand wear and tear, handle extreme loads, and last for
decades also means that cargo containers have related benefits when used
for construction.

Whether you’re concerned about withstanding mother nature, keeping your

family and possessions safe, or just building a home that will last for
generations, a shipping container building offers some compelling
advantages.

If you’d like to better understand how the toughness, stability, and longevity
of containers will benefit you, read Container Homes are CRAZY Strong (And
Why That Matters).

Unique
Empty shipping containers are intentionally made so that they are exactly
the same size and shape as millions of others. So how are they unique? In
the same way that every painting is just a canvas with some paint on it.
What’s unique isn’t the material itself, it’s what you can do with it!

On the surface, it may seem ironic that a utilitarian item made to be uniform
can result in incredibly unique houses and buildings. However, when you
think about all the ways they can be modified, combined, and utilized, you
realize how endless the possibilities really are.
For more information about the distinctive design possibilities of containers
read Six Ways Containers Homes are Wonderfully Unique. 

Flexibility
Separate but related to the unique options of container design is their
inherent flexibility. Thanks to the existing infrastructure that moves them by
sea, road, and rail, containers have tremendous flexibility in how/where they
are built, how they are moved, and even how they are used.

Want to have your container building fitted out in a factory, then shipped to
your building site ready to assemble? You can do that. Would you rather
work on your containers as a DIY project, spreading your construction over
months or even years, while knowing that your building will be safe and
secure through it all? You can do that too.

We highly recommend homeowners and other interested parties explore

some of the interesting options this flexibility gives you by reading Eight
Ways the Flexibility of Containers Will Blow Your Mind.

Challenges
It’s no secret that we’re big fans of shipping containers. However, we want to
be as objective as possible and help you make good, well-informed decisions
about using shipping containers.

There is a fair bit of bias in the online world of container homes and concerns
about containers are sometimes glossed over.  We’re not here to trick
anyone, and we want everyone to go into a decision this big with their eyes
wide open.
In this section, we share several of the common objections about using
containers for construction. We’ve done our best to be fair about these
legitimate concerns.

However, we’ve specifically chosen the word ‘challenges’ in this section for a
reason. While what we talk about below could easily be labeled as
downsides, cons, or other negative words, we choose to frame them in a
different light. 

Challenges are simply problems to be solved, while more negative words

imply a more fatalistic view in which nothing can be done.

If the benefits we discussed above resonate with you, then most of the
challenges below can be overcome. If you want to see how to do that, we
discuss ways to mitigate many of these supposed negatives in
the Learn section of our site!

Room Widths
While shipping containers come in a variety of lengths and several heights,
they basically only come in one width. With the exception of 53-foot
containers available in the United States, virtually all shipping containers are
8 feet wide.
After taking into the account the interior walls and insulation that are usually
added, you end up with an interior room width just a bit over 7 feet. If you
aren’t good at visualizing spaces or haven’t spent time inside a container
building, you may have trouble understanding the importance of this
measurement.

Trust us when we say that’s narrow. And if for some reason you don’t trust
us, you can trust the 2018 version of the International Residencial
Code. Section 304 of the IRC calls for all habitable rooms (a space for living,
sleeping, or eating but not kitchens, bathrooms, halls, or storage/utility
spaces) to have a floor area of at least 70SF and a width and length of at
least 7 ft.
What this means is that a shipping container would be in compliance with
the code, but it’s close. Whether your particular area uses the 2018 IRC is
kind of beside the point. The thought here is that these standards are
created to ensure the safety, health, and livability of occupants. While you
aren’t in any danger, you may find yourself frustrated if you’re transitioning
from a larger house with wider rooms, or if you have a big family.

Thankfully, it’s pretty straightforward to place shipping containers next to

each and cut out portions of the walls. This creates rooms that are 2x, 3x, or
even 4x wider than normal, depending on how many containers you use.

You also have the option of enclosing the area between two parallel but
separated containers, giving a wider space for living areas and focusing the
space that’s actually inside the containers on things like bathrooms, storage,
kitchens, etc.

Insulation Location
Containers are interesting in that the corrugated metal ‘sheathing’ also
serves as an integral part of the structure. This effectively means there is no
cavity inside the walls in which to place insulation, unlike a typical wooden
wall with studs.

Therefore, the insulation has to be placed on either the inside or outside of

the corrugated metal sheathing. This is, of course, assuming you need
insulation, which is true for most cases but not all. 

Due to the fact that most insulating materials are generally somewhat
unsightly and not very durable, you typically end up covering insulation in
some way. If you put insulation on the interior side of the container, you’ll
need an interior wall surface over the top of it to provide a better aesthetic
appearance and give an easier place to mount cabinets, light switches, etc.

If you put insulation on the exterior side of the container, you’ll need exterior
cladding on top to better protect it from mother nature and provide a more
visually appealing look. In addition, you might want interior walls anyway
unless you’re ok with corrugated metal walls inside your home.

Neither of these options inherently ‘bad’, but they are important to consider
as they represent some tradeoffs you may need to make when thinking
about your design. 

You can find more details about situations in which you would and wouldn’t
need insulation, as well as discussions on the merits of interior vs exterior
insulation in some of the articles in the Learn section of the website.

Utility Spaces
Unless you’re in an industrial building with surface-mounted conduit and
exposed ducting, you’re probably used to having all of your mechanical,
electrical, and plumbing lines hidden behind walls, ceilings, and floors.

For the most part, this is possible with containers as well. For instance, most
electrical lines have a small diameter that is easily conceilable in a wall. The
same is true for plumbing except for drain, waste, and vent (DWV) lines.
DWV lines are thicker pipes, usually PVC, but they can often be run vertically
where they penetrate the floor or ceiling and don’t require a thicker wall
cross-section for the whole house.

Central air conditioning (and occasionally, heating) presents its own

challenge that can be especially problematic for container buildings. The
evaporator unit typically sits inside a traditional house in a ceiling or closet
space with a spiderweb of air ducts reaching to all corners of the house.
These ducts are often about a foot in diameter, and thus they can’t
effectively be run inside of walls.

Instead, air ducts are usually run in ceiling cavities for homes with slab-on-
grade foundations. In houses with crawl spaces or basements, the ducts are
sometimes run underneath the house.

Even when using high-cube shipping containers, there really isn’t enough
clearance to run ducting in the ceiling while maintaining enough roof for
insulation, light fixtures, etc. The problem is only worsened when you use
regular-height containers.

As it turns out, the issue of ducting is fairly easy to get around. Duct-less or
split-unit HVAC systems have been growing in popularity, and outside of the
United States, are actually the standard choice anyway. These units don’t
require any ductwork at all, but simply have a wall-mounted
evaporator/blower that is connected with a small refrigerant line to a
condenser/compressor unit outside.

Larger buildings may require more than one unit, but this can actually save
you money by allowing you to easily control the climate of just the rooms
you’re using.

If for some reason you do want a central HVAC system, you could run the
ducting underneath the container by using a foundation system that elevates
the container off the ground. Or, you could build a secondary roof system
(perhaps, to get larger roof overhangs or to provide more roof slope that will
reduce snow collection) and run ducting between it and the corrugated metal
roof of the container. Neither of these are popular options compared to the
simplicity of the ductless units discussed above but are certainly possible if
desired. 

If heating is more of a concern than cooling in your area, you have options
like in-room radiators or radiant flooring that can provide heating from a
central boiler with only small water pipes instead of large air ducts.

Needless to say, there are a lot of available options for how you handle
utilities inside your container, so this isn’t really a show-stopping problem for
most builds.

Building Code Confusion

Shipping containers are confusing to some building officials. Even if you
know the rules, they differ depending on where you are and if the container
home was built on-site or off-site.

Arguably a bigger problem is code interpretation. At some point, determining

if what you’re trying to do is in or out of compliance is determined by a
human being.

Early adopters in any domain often struggle for regulations to catch up, and
containers are no different.  But thankfully, containers have been growing in
popularity for well over a decade so most people have at least some
familiarity and it’s almost unheard of for a container home to just be
forbidden.

In order to comply with the rules in your area, like building codes, you may
need to make some modifications to your initial design. But as thousands of
people have already proven, you can get one built.

In the future, as the International Code Council actively works to incorporate

specific language about container construction into the model building codes
in the coming years, any ambiguity left in the process should start to
subside.

Locating Experienced Contractors

Most people, even DIYers, end up getting some help from outside
contractors. It’s rare that someone has the time, skills, and equipment to do
every single task with building a container home, though it certainly does
happen.
As you think about the possibility of hiring contractors to help with certain
tasks, you have to decide how what level of experience you want and how
involved you want to be.

If you’re looking for a ‘set it and forget it’ option, with contractors that don’t
need much supervision, it’s best to locate a contractor that has experience in
working with container construction before.  It’s not that it’s difficult, it’s just
different. Depending on where you live, finding someone with this
experience may be difficult, which is why we’ve listed this as a potential
challenge.

However, there are over 100 companies around the world that now
specialize in shipping container construction, and many more that work more
as subcontractors with a particular trade, but have worked with containers in
the past.

Assuming you can’t find someone with experience nearby, all hope isn’t lost.
It just requires you to be very specific with contractors about what you want
and to check up often on progress to ensure that your ideas are being
executed correctly.

Look for contractors who seem genuinely interested in your project.  People
that are mentally invested in your container home will usually avoid cutting
corners and do any research needed on their end to ensure they do things
the right way.  Our “How to Build a Shipping Container Home” eBook can
also be a big help in ensuring you don’t get taken advantage of by an
inexperienced or dishonest contractor.

Controversial Appearance
It’s an unfortunate reality that some people don’t appreciate container
homes as much as you might. A lot of this stems from a lack of information,
although it’s becoming less and less of an issue with the increased media
coverage of amazing container homes and buildings.

One of the great things about humans is that everyone can have individual
preferences. We are all different and have our own likes and dislikes, which
is a good thing. Otherwise, all of our homes would look exactly the same!

As we talked about at the beginning of this article, people occasionally have

a very biased idea of what a container home will be. They may jump to
conclusions, assume the worst, and create resistance. Perception can be
reality and it’s something you might face.

We’re certainly doing our part here at Discover Containers to help educate
and inspire people about all the creative ways containers can be utilized.

As a prospective owner and builder, depending on where you’re located, you

may have to take a similar role. We often tell people that by building a
container home, they are also signing up to be a container ambassador. It’s
a role that’s usually fun and introduces you to many curious and friendly
people who’ve only seen a picture of a container building and are excited to
see one in person. 

But, it may also require some less glamorous work on the front-end of your
project, where you may need to help show some of the various stakeholders
more about what you’re planning to build and how it will be an asset to the
community.
Every new container building that’s constructed helps to eliminate these
negative perceptions, and it’s quite possible you won’t face any problems
like this at all. But if you do, most people are able to be persuaded when you
can demonstrate that you’re building something nice that isn’t going to be
an eyesore or negatively affect their property values.

Safety/Health Concerns
A common concern among prospective container home builders is safety and
health. Whether it’s the possibility of pesticides in the floor, lead in the paint,
or electrocution from lightning, people have serious concerns about their
well-being if they choose to live in a container.

The truth is that almost all containers with a wooden floor due have
pesticides applied to the wood. And while your chances of encountering lead-
based paint are very low, the durable, industrial paint used in containers
could contain some other chemicals.

However, it’s important to understand that the mere presence of chemicals

isn’t necessarily dangerous in and of itself. It’s the exposure to chemicals at
certain concentrations and over certain time periods that may be
problematic. 

The good news is that even if your container DOES have chemicals in the
paint and flooring that are unsafe (and that’s usually more the exception
than the rule), you have several abatement options. First is removal of the
floors and sandblasting of the paint. This is labor-intensive, expensive, and
actually introduces new hazards are chemicals that were contained in these
materials become airborne. Specialized personally protective equipment
(PPE) is needed, and it’s often best to leave this to professionals. But, you
will completely remove any questionable materials for good.

A simpler and easier way is encapsulation. By covering up the floor and

walls, you keep any potential chemical off-gassing contained. As an added
benefit, you make the container look much better and you were probably
going to do it anyway.

As far as lightning goes, shipping container buildings really aren’t much

different than the safe metal buildings that are found in almost every city
and town in the world. They do require grounding to the earth, but that’s not
anything especially unique to just containers. By reading and complying with
the electrical code in your area or getting the help of a licensed electrician,
you can ensure that a container has no additional risk to lightning.

Summary
We hope that through this article, you’ve found some new reasons to
appreciate the world of shipping container building. We love them and hope
that now, you do too!

If you still have concerns about any of the challenges we mentioned, we

encourage you to further explore our Learn section. There, we spend more
time discussing ways to mitigate many of these challenges. 
For those who would like additional detail and examples for each of the
benefits discussed, be sure to visit the articles listed at the end of each
benefit section. These articles explain each particular benefit in-depth for
those who really want to learn all they can.