Shipping Container house, question for a structural engineer – builder

I have been been thinking about building a container house, using 4, 6m long shipping containers. Joining 2 end to end and another 2 the same, both lengths set 5 or 6m apart with roof set over to cover the lot. I want to cutout the long sides inner wall which would be left open creating an open plan set up. The Outer walls would be left whole. The questions are
a. Will the outer walls be strong enough to support a roof?
b. What’s the best type of roof flat or gabled to span from one outer wall to the other sides outer wall? Total distance 11- 12m, Unsupported in the middle would be desirable.
Ranch sliders would make the other 2 walls.

There’s ap lace in london where they’ve made a housing complex using shipping containers. It was on C4 on that programme about small spaces

shipping containers can stack 6-7 high, your roof would be nothing like this.

#i’m not a structual engineer#

Love the idea. Have you seen this build using a similar idea? I like

There is a very interesting book which you may have already seen called Container Architecture. Definetely worth trying to get your hands on a copy if you haven’t finalised your design. A lot of inspirational concepts in it.

The BBC studio in the Olympic park was just built from Containers:

problem is – these structures as whole are strong.

remove a wall and they are screwed.

One of our induction videos showed where a container had been turned into an open top basket purely by cutting the roof out and welding pad eyes to the top bar.

when lifted by the crane it folded like tin foil

I dont see the attraction at using containers in the build tbh. insulation will still be a huge issue im sure.

Think the corrugations of the sides provide much of the structure. If you cut too much out then they’re not very structurally stiff at all any more.

Very dark inside. Most we did with them is use the reefer ones as a beer cooler. We had 1000 liters to drink. And drank most of it.

#i’m not a structual engineer either#

edit: I lie. We also put one in amongst some trees between farmers fields as a club workshop and kit store. Think we cut a side door in to that one but not sure how much reinforcement it needed. Still very dark, and cold. Someone knew someone who knew a friend who could blag a long reach crane for half a day, so we got that bit for free too, else it would have been quite an expense.

#I am a structural engineer#

I know not a lot about containers, but have done quite a lot of stuff on prefab buildings. The simple answer is yes you can do it. More complicated answer invoves strengthening, insulation, cold bridging details etc.

More than happy to discuss over a pint, but this being STW I am sure someone somewhere will have done it/broken it/made one from cutlery…

I like this but want more space hence the over roof

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We have quite a few building here made in this way. Most of them leak like a sieve!

Surely by the time you’ve insulated the walls you’re going to be left with very narrow rooms? Edit just re-read your original post re open plan.

Also….How in the bejesus are you going to get planning permission for this? Don’t you live in the surrey hills area?

I’m not a structural engineer but I do work in the container industry.

Containers are incredibly strong at the right points e.g. the corners.
The corner castings and posts are the only load bearing parts by design. They’re designed to take the load of 10 other loaded containers (up to 30-40 tonnes each) plus the associated load from the surges when at sea which can more than double the load.

So the BBC studio design above is as per design really e.g simple stacks. I’d be surprised if that GAD one above doesn’t have additional steel to enable the canterleaver and cross stacking in the middle of containers.

If you build assuming your containers are like this then you’ll be fine, cut away

I’ve seen containers torn and blown out like balloons from chemical reactions inside, the sides are not strong at all.

A whole conplex of student accomedation in Amsterdam

Dunraven School ]Sports hall[/url]

oh you could look out for a “Blown Air Reefer box” which will pre insulated with flat aluminium sides. most blown air boxes are coming out of circulation in favour of integrals. you might even be able to find a clip on unit for AC in the summer to, just make sure it’s not stuck to the normal -18 though Brrrrr 8)

For insulation I was thinking 2″ of spray on expanding foam + plaster board on the inside.

George Clark did feature on his Amazing Spaces program. Looked quite cool.
It’s still available to watch on 4OD

I think you’d need to do a lot of calculations to make sur eit met building regs.

I can see it being an attractive proposition but, equally, you may spend more money working around the problems of turning a disposable metal box into a living space than starting from scratch?

I did notice when they did a thing on those London ones that all of the toilet facilities were shared so they didn’t have to get wastes out of each unit.

If you have containers end to end and you want to remove the whole side and ends to make open plan you will defo need a post on the end corner where you remove the 2 walls of each box.

I can’t remember the width a timber joist will span but I think 5m is doable. I don’t have the b Regan doc at home or I’d tell you.

A doubt 4 blown air reefers would cost any more but they’d save you time and money insulating them and they’d be done far better than a can of foam and some plasterboard.

they’d also be much easier to cut up, as other than the frame they’re aluminium and not heavy Corten steel

Also why 4x 20ft’s why not 2x 40ft’s?

With 2x 40’s you’d be able to loose the middle corner posts that you’d be stuck with otherwise. you can get 45ft’s too but the main casting are set to 40ft with and overhang, make sure you get a 9ft6 box too for decent height

why not just build a proper house and then render it with the sides off containers?

Thats 5m between the cut out walls, 11m from support to support. The ends would be left in, the door ends would be solid glass (glass bricks maybe) with the doors left as shutters.

For insulation I was thinking 2″ of spray on expanding foam + plaster board on the inside.

That sounds like a lot of work and messing about when you could use Kingspan/Celotex ?

Also why 4x 20ft’s why not 2x 40ft’s?

The play off between the two sizes is a 40ft costs hardly any more than a 20ft. I had to by 22 containers a couple of years back and the going rate then was £850 for a 20ft and £950 for a 40ft. The reason the 40s are cheaper is they cost a lot more to transport, so people pay more for smaller ones.

Before you get too carried away check if any containers are available, for a longer term build your want real, bonafide ISO Shipping containers, not look-exactly-the-same storage containers. The former will be certifiably strong and rust-resistant (corten steel if you’re lucky), the latter will look the same but will be painted steel rather than epoxy coated corten and are really quite prone to rot – and won’t come with the calcs with relation to strength that an ISO would, all the more so when they’re rotting.

The availabilty of containers is very variable. If the shipping industry panics they just stop making them, so two years ago I was buying them by the dozen at little more than their scrap value from a vast yard where they were stacked 8 high (you can stack them higher when they’re empty). This time last year there were non – absolutely non – available in scotland and only a handful in the UK I could find, which were selling £thousands, even for ropey ones, as the shipping industry was buying any serviceable old ones back rather than making new ones.

As above the calculated strength relates to the corners, the roof is like a trampoline in-between if you try and walk on it. If you wanted to sit a roof of a known weigh on top you’d want to run a beam you’ve got figures for between the corner posts and sit your roof on that. When you see houses built out of containers all criss-crossed and cantelevered then (you would hope) theres some augmentation of the container happening somewhere.

Are we saying an ISO container would be equally as rigid, structurally speaking, if you chopped out all the walls and just had a ‘frame’ remaining? I assumed it’d fold flat pretty quickly.

29erKeith – is that open flatbed thing you posted up there properly ISO compatible? If so, what are they called?

I e been residing in one on site for a year now, **** freezing when I open up in the morning!

Are we saying an ISO container would be equally as rigid, structurally speaking

They’re all built to a set of standardised dimensions and criteria – so that they can move around the world being handled, loaded and stacked with the same equipment and with the same consideration. The containers will also be plated with info about their weight and weight that can sit on top of them. But containers only connect at the corners so its only the corners that the standards apply to, so thats the only bit you can bank on.

if you chopped out all the walls and just had a ‘frame’ remaining? I assumed it’d fold flat pretty quickly.

Yes – the rest of the container as a whole is contributing to that strength at the corner casting. The ones we used we cut some substantial sections out of and what was left flapped about quite alarmingly