There are many reasons why now is the time to start thinking about being green when you consider buying or building your next house. That’s why many people are looking for used shipping containers for sale for a more environmentally friendly home. Shipping containers have huge advantages over traditional buildings which make them an appealing option.
There are approximately 17 million shipping containers in the world, but only about 6 million of them being are currently being used. This means there are many unwanted containers that need a new purpose, and using them to build your next home will help to reduce this number.
They Are Green
The first reason many people are choosing to build with shipping containers is because they offer a greener building material than traditional ones. This is because you’ll be using something that would otherwise be sitting unused, instead of having something made from scratch.
By recycling shipping containers, you could be saving up to 3500KGs of steel going to waste with each container you use, they also reduce the number of traditional building materials you need. While some people might say that it’s more environmentally friendly to melt steel and turn it into something else, they would be wrong. It actually takes an incredible amount of energy to recast steel and isn’t financially viable in many cases.
Off-Site Building
The biggest advantage that shipping containers have over traditional buildings is that you can have your shipping containers built off-site and moved onto the land once they have been finished. This a great option for many people who find that the land they have is not accessible as a building site due to the size or restrictions on noise and traffic.
Thanks to shipping containers already conforming to standard shipping sizes, they are also extremely easy to transport. You can have the modules of your house transported anywhere in the world by ship, trucks or rail. This gives them a huge advantage over traditional houses which have to be built on site. It also means that if you want to move to a new location but don’t want to leave your home, you don’t have to. You can take the containers off the foundations and have them transported to your new location. This will cost significantly less than purchasing a new home.
Price and Build Times
The biggest advantage that shipping containers have over traditional buildings is the cost. Shipping containers can be bought extremely cheaply, and on top of this, labor costs tend to be cheaper overall than with conventional construction. There are examples of homes which have been built from shipping containers where the full price for the materials and the labor have come in at under $40,000.
While shipping container homes have to be built out of modules, this doesn’t increase the price and you can still build a sizable home with the overall cost per square foot coming out much cheaper than the equivalent home.
Additionally, it takes far less time to build a shipping container home from scratch. This is because when you use shipping containers you already have the floors, walls and ceilings. You just need to insulate, modify to suit your needs and decorate. Once you have this done it is a simple case of assembling the modules on site which can take as little as 2-3 hours.
Safety
Thanks to their steel build, shipping containers make incredibly safe homes, they are waterproof and windproof, making them ideal for use in areas which have problems with hurricanes. They are also far more resistant to damage than conventional housing.
Overall, you can see that building your next home out of shipping containers can create something unique, which costs less than a conventional build and is more environmentally friendly. If you are considering using shipping containers for your house project, then contact a reputable shipping container supplier. They will be able to give you the best and most up to date information and may also be able to complete modifications for you, either on their site or through their partner companies.
Sources:
Pros and Cons of Building a Shipping Container Home, ContainerHomePlans.org
Shipping Container Homes, BobVilla.com
