"100% of people who do not save money do not have any!"--Dave Ramsey

[JSH]

Originally Posted by Xist

The corrugated walls make things complicated. Unless they also insulate the outside, then requiring siding, but sheet metal on a metal box should be acceptable.

Glue on vertical wooden stingers to space out the wall, spray foam for insulation, cover with panelling of choice.

[Isaac Zachary]

I was talking to a guy just yesterday who said he looked into container homes and claimed it would cost about $300,000 just for the container home itself and shipping. That doesn't include the land or utility hook-ups.

But even if they're cheap, that doesn't solve the problem here because zoning laws and building codes prohibit them. The same goes for tiny homes. Zoning laws are often considered another cuplrit of the housing crisis, since they only allow for expensive, single family homes on large lots to be built.

[freebeard]

Glue on vertical wooden stingers to space out the wall, spray foam for insulation, cover with panelling of choice.

Lipstick [blah, blah] pig.

A rectilinear space is a mental strait jacket. Living in an hemisphere with an oculus is like living under the open sky.

You don't see many homeless people living in boxes. They prefer a high-tech mountaineering dome tent. The smaller the space the move important it becomes.


Glamping Dome Tent with Canvas Cover

Glamping, anyone?

[Xist]

I found a post about a prefabricated conex tiny house you could buy on Amazon, but it isn't available anymore. This page lists 15 different tiny houses for sale and the cheapest one that wasn't obviously a 10- or 20-foot conex was Custom Container Living Allegedly they start at $27,900, but this 20-foot conex tiny house starts at $36,900. This is the loft version, which looks like they welded half of another conex onto the top, although it says that it was made from a single container, so they used new corrugated metal?

Doesn't that defeat the entire purpose of reusing conexes?

That one goes for $51,900.

The first one made from a 40-foot container is $93,900.

The house that just sold was 144% bigger for 78% more cost and included almost 7,000 square feet of land and the connections.

I thought we had already discussed this, but searching for "conex" didn't result anything although I did mention that they tend to cave in when buried and freebeard mentioned expansive soil.

I didn't search for "Shipping container" because I have better results with one word at a time.

I wish that I knew why!

Okay, to summarize Curbed: permits are complicated. "According to an ArchDaily report, the average container eventually produces nearly a thousand pounds of hazardous waste before it can be used as a structure."

Oh bother! I thought this had more information! The last important thing I saw was "Shipping container homes are often faster to build than traditional stick-built houses."

According to this page a commercial Noobhobo conex house would cost 11% more than a traditional house the same size, although those numbers have changed dramatically recently:


Clearly I need to go back and specify "DIY."



They also have a boring table version.

Here

is the first breakdown of the cost to build a 40-foot conex tiny house, but he is a general contractor that I could find:

Conex shipped: $2,500
Impact windows and doors: $3,200
Insulation: $1,000 1" foamboards
Interior framing: $700
Electrical: $1,500
Plumbing: $1,800
Drywall: $720
Vinyl flooring: $750
One mini-split: $900
Cabinetry: $2,200
Countertops: $700
Millwork: $600
Miscellaneous: $500
Paint: $250
Total as a contractor:
$17,300

This is without any exterior work, site preparation, land, connections, etc.

Here he built a nice one:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cVVpqherci0

[redpoint5]

Originally Posted by JSH

Shipping containers become surplus for two reasons:

A. One-way trade. Depending on steel prices and shipping rates it sometime is cheaper to sell the container after a one-way trip instead of shipping it empty back to Asia.

Looks like the price for a 40ft container is about $5,000

The price to ship a 40ft container from China to the west coast is $4,500.

Ship a container from China to Los Angeles 20FT Container from: $3500
Ship a container from China to Oakland 40FT Container
from: $4500
Ship a container from China to Miami 20FT Container from: $4500
Ship a container from China to New York 40FT Container from: $5500

So it is a better financial move to sell a container than to deadhead it back to China. Basically the US shouldn't even be manufacturing these things since we're getting too many from China in the first place.

I still don't like the idea of using them for stationary living quarters because there has got to be more affordable and more aesthetic purpose-built units.

[freebeard]

....there has got to be more affordable and more aesthetic purpose-built units.

[Piotrsko]

Originally Posted by freebeard

Lipstick [BLAH,blah, blah BLAH,] pig.


You don't see many homeless people living in boxes. They prefer a high-tech mountaineering dome tent.

Homeless people are practical. High tech domes are what is currently being donated to the charities, so they are available in the second hand shops for perhaps $5. Nobody else wants them. You never see Sears best camping pole tents anymore.

Btw: what happens when you bury a bucky fuller dome?

[freebeard]

Depends. A conduit and canvas dome would not fare well. Hexagonal ceramic tiles or plates could be stout enough to take the overpressure.

[Piotrsko]

I thought they were pentagons made from equalateral triangles

Ok so probably obscure, but the comment was all about use of design suitability. Containers weren't designed to be buried.

[freebeard]

The icosahedral faces form a pentagon where they meet. The face center has one or more hexagons; more approximates a compound curve.

A low arched dome (less than 3/8ths) would only have one pentagon at the zenith. And that should be open.

Containers weren't designed to be repurposed. I suppose you could sink a container into the ground, cut the top off and fill it with water.