Cool Containers

Thought I would include some cool links to container homes in this post. They are few and far between but some are stunning.

This is my favorite - Cove Park

This is probably the most famous one in Rodondo Beach, CA

I think this one is in Maine of all places - 12 Container House

A cool site that has lots of different kinds of container homes - Web Urbanist

So why on earth did we decide to build a house out of shipping containers?
Well, it evolved because mainly they are abundant, easy to get, cheap, incredibly strong and fire resistant.
We aren't looking to make the entire house out of containers but more using them on the exterior walls because of their immense strength. They are built to be stacked upto 9 containers high on ships in salt air and FULL. For every 10 containers that come loaded with goods from China, we only send 2 containers back, hence why there are so many just sitting in the ports of the U.S.
They are very inexpensive, are easy to connect together and will be installed in less than a day to create the frame of the home. The nice thing about them is that they are fire resistant, not to say they won't melt if there is an interior fire BUT if we have a wildfire, they won't catch which is vital.

Along with implementing recycled containers in our home we are planning on also using lots of other recycled steel, timber and other resources throughout the building process. The final home will incorporate passive solar, high energy efficiency to include R-40 insulation and higher, radiant heating, grey water recirculation, rainwater catchment and a PV array that we are hoping will offset the remaining power usage.

So stay tuned as we progress, do more research and fall deeper and deeper into this process