Shipping containers

ceilinghobo said:

Has anyone ever considered purchasing a few shipping containers and arranging them so you have a garden in the center or courtyard and or attaching them together with tunnels... Wouldn't you need a blow torch to cut an extra door? Could you use the chunk you removed as the door with some hinges if you did it right?

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I've seen containers spaced apart, parallel to each other,
Usually about 25 to 30 feet apart,
And a set of trusses and roof used between them to make a covered, but open work area on job sites before.

A local guy works on tractors, and he has that arrangment for his outdoor work, and the containers make for very secure storage.

In the winter, a third was often place across one of the open ends, or a back wall was constructed to keep the weather out.

Some containers can be had with side doors already in them so you shouldn't need to cut into them.

'Four Square' container arrangment would give you an approximate 50'x50' 'courtyard' for garden or what ever.

That would also allow all doors to swing freely if you needed to get large objects into any one of them.

I work/live the Afghanistan area of operations. We use tons of shipping containers/connex's for everything out here from storage units and housing to offices and latrine units to bunkers. They are ultra modifiable and you are only limited to your imagination and ingenuity. Hell I am sitting in a 20' right now that is my office. The doors have been taken off and a wall with a regular 30" door put in. The interior walls have been studded with 1"x1" and use a 1/4" compressed dense board for wall covering.

I consider them to be the best thing since sliced bread and I use them throughout theatre for bunkers around our living and work areas. My experience has been that if you plan on putting any sort of weight on top of them besides another connex you need to reinforce the inside to support the weight. My bunkers have a 2' minimum thickness of dirt on top and without the support beams and columns would cave in a 20' connex in a few months.

I have planned on buying a few (2-4) 20' connex's when I get home and burying them into the ground, welding them together, creating doorways from one to the other and compartmentalizing them for storage, living, and common area space to sustain short term living. I have even considered creating an indoor latrine tied to a septic system. Going over plans in my head I would ultimately like to coat the container in a bed liner type material to seal it from moisture. I have plans on excavating into a hill to set them and then recover with earthen material completely except for the entrance and would love to have the entrance disguised as a small hunting shack.

With connex's, an assortment of 2x4, 8x8 and 1x1 a few cheap premade doors, some pvc pipe, romex, outlets and boxes, basic hardware and some sort of rented excavation equipment the options are endless. The hardest part will be setting them in place as it would require a crane of some sort to lower them into place.

I dont have any pictures maybe my sisterinlaw has some my brother and i were more concerened with getting it covered up we had it in and covered up in four days with 3 to 5 men .i will run a time line with what we did hope that helps . day one started my nephew welding the containers together my brother and i started digging for the containers . warning when excavting any thing over 5' deep it should be shored or sloped back CAVEINS KILL that being said we went 12' deep we then installed 4" leach line and then daylighted it out we then laid down 6" of 1" rock over the hole base . after welding containers together but before welding doors shut you install your cribbing 4' up on the wall we used aluminum trench shoring the whole length 40' after this weld doors shut we then welded in two 12" vent pipes then coated it with two coats of bitchmastic pipe coating we then set the container on the rock and then covered it with 2 sheets of 6 mill poly we then poured a set of concrete pads every 10' we then set a 12" sdr35 pvc pipe in each pad concrete was 5 sack then finished day tieing steel for columns end day 1 14hrs . day 2 poured 40 yrds 2 sack slurry up 1/2 way on walls be sure to use excavtor to hold down container or it will float "voice of experence" spent rest of day setting steel in columns . day 3 poured rest of slurry another 47 yds then finished tieing steel and bond beam for roof we then welded four 3/4 " bolts on all corners and then ran #6 stranded past the slab for a sacrifical anode "redundant rust protection" last min decension we then poured the slab end of day 3 14 hour. day 4 covered slab lightly with dirt and let concrete cure next project was to cut door in with plasma cutter i wont go into detail about that make sure that you are ventelating the container DO NOT USE A OXY/ACTEL torch you will blow yourself into next week once inside with resperator/ fansblowing and a confined space blower hooked to your 12" vent pipe remove your shoreing from from 1st container then cut four slots aprox.2' wide evenly spaced be careful plasma cutters will cut thru your shores 1200 apeice . then take four pieces of 4" scd 40 steel pipe and weld them good set your 6 plumb bobs and take several mesurments up/down across end to end record these then cut out the center walls rechecking your mesurments as you go at this point once the walls are out you have a lot of grinding/painting to do depending on how nice you want it . you can use a round duct fan in your inlet pipe for fresh air. hope this helps mark

yes the slurry was poured dry against the native earth on the wall of the excavation to cut down on water infiltration against the container also you have less sideload also thats why i t took so many yds slurry the 12" sdr 35 pvc was used because we were afraid that if we used sonotube that the slurry would soften and collpase them before we could get the rebar in and get the collumns poured steel was 12" centers across top both ways and bond beams were tied to steel on collumns and outside edge of container as slurry started to set we hand stacked it for a form for the concrete roof we didnt pour any cylinders it was a mix we use a lot for structures we pour and from a supplier we are one of the larger acc. i didnt mention last night roof was 10" thick we only put enough dirt over to camo it from prying eyes and then it was left to cure then it was compacted and graded he has since poured a basket ball court over the top to help with a 15 deg temp swing from winter to summer that solved it . hope that clarify's things mark