The Low Down On Green Living
July 7th, 2009
Affordable Shipping Container House in Quebec
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Shipping containers are at the forefront of a new era of usefulness. Traditionally used to carry goods via cargo ship, train or truck, these steel boxes are capable of withstanding huge amounts of pressure and weight. This makes them structurally stable, fireproof, mold-proof and weather-proof. Unfortunately each has a lifespan of only 20 years for its original purpose. That means when their work is done hauling stuff, they get retired and sent to junk yards or landfills even though they are still structurally solid. Now architects and designers recognize their usefulness as building blocks for homes, offices, apartments, schools and more. This home in Quebec was built by a couple intent on reducing the amount of wood that goes into building homes and also saving money.
Looking at it from the exterior one would never know that seven 8 x 20 ft shipping containers were used to construct this house. That’s because the exterior is clad in normal siding and 5 to 5 1/2 inches of spray foam insulation. Inside though, you can see the interior of each shipping container and the corrugated steel frame. Even the serial numbers for each container and some dents are visible. Not all shipping container homes are like that though, many are clad on both the interior and exterior with conventional materials to hide the steel frame. But this Quebec couple, architect Bernard Morin and wife Joyce Labelle, wanted to show off the containers for what they are — modern and strong.
The 4 bedroom home is 3,000 square feet and built for a family with 6 children. A traditional house with of this size with wood framing would have cost the family at least $400,000, but instead cost the family only $175,000. That’s $58 per square foot - practically unheard of for an American home. Which is one of the reasons why shipping container homes are becoming so popular - they’re cheap to build. They also have a number of other benefits like structural stability, low-maintenance, rot- and mold- proof, and they are very easy to put together and construct a home in a short amount of time. This home took only 10 months to build out.
Maple trees on the lot were felled to make room for the home, but were then reused for siting, support beams and stairs. The floors are cement with radiant heating and cooling to keep the home at a very comfortable temperature. Other features include door-less glass showers with river stone tiling, the original shipping container floors were reused on the ceiling and metal grating is used as outdoor decking. All of which helps create a modern, urban looking home, but built within a forest.
This Quebec couple have even started a company called Maison IDEKIT to start construction on more shipping container homes. They have two more residential projects on the boards to start this summer and they have 4 different house plans ready to build out. Like prefab homes, shipping container homes are very quick to build. Site work and gray work is completed first, then the containers are dropped into place in less than a day, and then after wards the interior is built out. The long process of framing a house is left out, which reduces the construction time and cost considerably.
+ Building cheaper, green homes by CTV.
via Jetson Green
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Comments
George Runkle
July 13th, 2009 at 11:12 am
This is a very interesting house - as we’ve been designing them, there has been a non-stop debate as to whether the corrugated metal exterior of the containers should be left as the siding, or an exterior placed over the container. Here I see they added an exterior siding. Also, note the steel beam under the bottom rail of the container on the right in the 6th photo down. One of the difficulties with using shipping containers is that the bottom rail has very little strength once you remove the sides.
George
rythmic moon
July 16th, 2009 at 1:28 pm
I,m soo glad to see no interior hand rails. their must be no building dept. where this is. What is approved for this type of construction?
i
Ms Black
August 15th, 2009 at 6:47 am
Pretty cool idea! So, the inside of the home; could you create drywall to make it have a more normal household interior sort of look? I see a lot of them still have the ridges of metal.. maybe that’s the desired look, or how it is? I”m not an architect, just a consumer, and think that overall, it’s a fantastic way to reuse items, and keep things affordable, esp with today’s economy!
Uncle B
August 24th, 2009 at 5:34 am
Very nice for a very well-heeled sgment! Now, do one for the survivors of the economic holocaust in Quebec and Ontario! We need very cheap very heatable country accomodations for the masses of poor people on the welfare and disability checks our particulat brand of corporatism produces! These folks need garden space, dry toilets, Bio-gassed sewage for heating gas, Aquaculture and a place to do it, Green houses for food, GMO’s designed to grow very fast and bug free, and room for small shops to do low paying srafts and survival tasks in their daily lives - sort of a subsidized “Economy within the economy” for the less fortunate, as we fall prey to the capitalist vultures of the world! Shipping containers, Ironic as hell! but probably the best answer for our now unemployable as jobs went to Asia!
Ellen
September 2nd, 2009 at 10:42 am
This is a very innovative example of low impact housing. I would be interested in seeing this in person. I have read about other affordable, more energy efficient homes, such a Tiny Houses (http://tiny.cc/2Us7m) which are very small homes that people live in. But this is really something else. It’s about time we started using those weather-proof high endurance packages for really big projects!
Richard Alexander
September 4th, 2009 at 8:00 pm
$58 per square foot…yes. Houses should cost $100/sq foot or less before land, but because people are hypnotized into believing that a house should cost exactly as much money as they have +10% American builders have had a field day ((well, up until recently). I really do not understand why people really think houses should cost $2-300 per sq ft.
IDS
September 11th, 2009 at 11:44 am
I actually work for a company that constructs buildings out of shipping containers. We are currently building a two story house for a couple in Alaska who’s house burned down. The insurance told them it would be over a year or two before they could have their house replaced. By using containers we can produce a house in most cases in 90 days so this couple decided to go for it. Visit our website frequently to check out the progress. http://www.idscontainer.com We are also building an apartment and a medical unit in Alaska.
dean
September 16th, 2009 at 4:54 pm
Exterior blah, interior, nice….
green builder
October 6th, 2009 at 10:12 am
I think the total opposite of dean; I think the outside is amazing, but the interior is to modern/commercial for my tastes. This is totally an amazing house though. Many container homes are owner built and don’t fully demonstrate the possibilities of alternative construction methods and materials.
Fantastic
Miguel
October 12th, 2009 at 2:05 pm
This idea meets all of Vitruvius’ criteria of UTILITAS, FIRMITAS, VENUSTAS–that is: utlity, strength and beauty. It is not perfect, of course, but it has much to commend it. My wife and I have just bought a rather unique lot in a village in the Laurentians. The lot has a mild gradient and it is defined by the cascading Grand Riviere do Nord, which surrounds it on 3/4 of its perimeter. It demands to be honored by first-rate architecture but, on the other hand, we both believe in thrift and recycling. This approach (container modularity) has got us really fired up, My one reservation is how this post-industrial material will deploy in an essentially pristine wild setting.
willy d
November 8th, 2009 at 5:11 am
Whilst I do not buy into all this “green” living stupidity, I am a cheap bastard. This is a cool design and implementation of frugality. Really neat idea.
Sam
November 14th, 2009 at 10:58 am
Really amazing design for container house.
Eileen
November 17th, 2009 at 8:56 am
Cool idea. I would like to see a less “finished” version, one that truly cost next to nothing and did not cover up the sheet metal to make this look more like an ordinary house. There are lost of poor people, and more become poor every day, for whom this would be a great idea, at least to survive in the short term. (In the Great Depression many people lived in boxcars, my grandfather among them.) The implementation above is rather upscale.
Grace in Small Things – 203 «
November 17th, 2009 at 7:46 pm
[...] This. What a great idea. [...]
Marc
November 28th, 2009 at 10:58 am
@willy d - an excellent response. The current “green movement” is pretty much crap: guilt, bad consumer, bad America (or Canada, or where-ever), eeevil companies.
I am interested for my own benefit. I am “cheap”, and I want to stretch my dollar as far as possible while having an acceptable life-style. I want to be self-sufficient to get OUT from UNDER government interference.
As long as this concept remains easily accessible, components inexpensive, and available to regular citizens, I think it will be a good option.
Now to come up with a standard way of doing plumbing, wiring, HVAC, and wall transitions, and it’s a viable alternative. We need more experimentation by individuals.
I read somewhere on the web (of course) that there are enough shipping containers to circle the equator, stacked 8 high. Don’t know if it’s true, but I like the idea of reusing something like this.
The earliest versions I saw where very expensive, done by architectural companies as show-place vacation homes for eccentric clients. Heck, give me a couple of surplus/used shipping containers, tools, and basic knowledge, I my goal is to make a good, usable dwelling for the least amount, rather than glitz up some architectural magazine exhibit for half a mill. or more.
When Katrina hit, I was already thinking that out-fitted containers could be shipped/trucked/flown to site and stacked with external access ways to give basic shelter. Group laundry or even sanitation would work for a pinch. Downsides? Hadn’t been designed, none were ready, and conversion time would be extra long trying to get materials, labor, the project accomplished, AND transport to site/set up AFTER getting gov’t approval. That’s why experimentation w/ designs, mastering techniques, and standardized procedures need to be worked out long beforehand.
Besides, while I am comfortable with the idea of composting toilets, grouped facilities (cooking, lounge), etc., not many people are — even in an emergency.
When I was in Europe, I saw temporary housing set up at “far sites” for the construction crews… stacked re-fitted shipping crates, with windows, external conduit for electricity, and external walkways, access ways, etc. I didn’t get to look at the whole complex, and have no idea about HVAC, plumbing, cooking facilities (if any), or sanitation. — but SOMEbody is doing it, with good result, at a profit. (That’s a good thing).
Examine standard sizes, work with width and heighth restrictions, and come up with some staging ideas — stacked left-right banks with common covered walkways in between, solar heating/hot water on roofs of top units, high-efficiency lighting, access for electricity and signal, a way to do above-ground sanitation, water access, etc. Clustered units, windows, common furniture elements, etc. Look at the micro-flats they attempted in London, the “cube” domeciles in Germany, etc.
This might be a good competition amongst engineering and architectural schools.
Just thinkin’ out loud.
ylonda
November 28th, 2009 at 1:09 pm
It strikes me as somewhat “odd”, at the number of things we are nowing calling, cool, awesome, clever, “green”, ” eco friendly” or earth friendly……..POOR people were doing years ago just to survive.
Using wringer washers, hanging clothes on the line, growing vegetables, raising chickens , running gray water into the garden etc……….
I was poor, but I knew one family who lived in an old train boxcar. No one called them anything other than “poor”.
TheAL
December 18th, 2009 at 1:19 am
It’s actually surprisingly beautiful and functional!
Elvis
March 12th, 2010 at 8:32 am
Hey that’s a master piece, was wondering if its possible to have one shipped to Kenya?Thanks
Ego Martini
March 23rd, 2010 at 6:08 am
Glad to see these designs. I am an amateur “Sketch-up designer ( and an amateur blogger). I just posted a write-up on my “Sawtooth Saltbox” container home design. It’s a passive solar design and would be well insulated.
My blog is new - I’m not selling anything - just want to share my ideas and maybe start a discussion.
Eelco @ seven software
April 1st, 2010 at 6:09 am
Same question as before, is it possible to ship to Belgium?
Michael K
April 20th, 2010 at 5:46 pm
It is always refreshing to see individuals’ exercising their ingenuity. This home is an example of this, though it is still an expensive home by the standards of most of the world. The beauty of these homes is their potential for extremely affordable design. I would like to see this embraced even further.
I am also interested in the question of whether the steel exterior should be left as the siding element or concealed as this project has done. Obviously this was a major factor in the expense of the home and the choice to leave the metal exterior intact would have saved a lot of money. However, a residence should also be beautiful to the person who calls it home and if this concession makes them happy, so be it. Also, the need for insulation would require they give up a significant area within the home had they chosen to insulate the interior and leave the siding as is.
In answer to the question from Ms Black: yes, you could definitely have a more finished interior. You would fir out the inside walls to accommodate insulation and then drywall over this. That would also allow for in-wall electrical and plumbing as well as a more traditional interior look (which many people prefer to the exposed look that many urban lofts and commercial spaces embrace).
Great Job!
Thomas Hill
June 28th, 2010 at 9:59 pm
I like the idea in designing these homes. The surroundings look cool and peaceful. The model houses are so simple but have great appeal. The use of (vinyl) siding (Boston) adds a very artistic touch to the house. It looks more classical and simple. That’s why I prefer the use of siding (Boston) for my home because I don’t need a painting job to beautify it anymore. Actually, there are lots of other siding designs that you can choose from.
msander
June 30th, 2010 at 12:02 am
In colder climates the insulation and cladding on the outside makes sense. It would prevent sweating and condensation. If this arrangement were reversed with insulation only on the inside then there could be problems with the cold metal on the outside of the house during winters allowing condensate to build up in the wall space.
Ceramic insulation is another interesting possibility, but I think it is mostly for preventing heat buildup on the exterior and to reflect energy away. This would make it better on a roof during the summer.
I would love to hear what experiences folks have with ceramic insulation on containers in colder climates.
msander
June 30th, 2010 at 12:10 am
Don’t mean any offense and this is purely opinion.
In my experience, vinyl siding is horrible. It breaks down rather quickly as do all things plastic and if you have colored siding it tends to fade on the south side. It just doesn’t hold up to the cold or intense sun yet folks keep throwing it on their houses and that is a mystery to me.
I much prefer hardie siding. Doesn’t need to be painted often because paint clings to it well, easy to work with, inexpensive, looks great and you get a discount on your home insurance because it gives you a better fire rating.
Real Estate Properties
July 1st, 2010 at 2:14 am
beautiful and functional!Same question as before IN THIS SITE
Real Estate Properties
sophia
kc morgan
July 6th, 2010 at 8:07 pm
Thats a sweet house. I work on containers for a living, we turn them into offices and other all kinds of storage units with heat and electricity. Im trying to convince my wife to let my build our house out of containers. very nice looking house tho.
Timothy Maggenti
July 7th, 2010 at 8:56 am
How are you getting away with not having hand rails on the stair case? It is a requirement in the International Residential Building Code, and every other building code book out there. I have tried and tried to get this type of stair case approved and was turned down every single time. Seriously, how do you get away with it?
Recycle Your Furniture
July 11th, 2010 at 5:14 am
I think these are great.
We use a 40ft container as a workshop.. there fantastic.. bit like an oven in summer (and thats in Newcastle too!!..)
And funnily enough ours sure aint so pritty as this one. but very practical.
buy second hand furniture newcastle
ramon
July 25th, 2010 at 1:56 pm
Has this concept made it to the States (US) yet ?
Seal Beach Real Estate
July 26th, 2010 at 11:09 am
How can I find out if the type of house can be built in beach communties ?
Solar Solutions
July 26th, 2010 at 8:48 pm
This is very innovative. The home has a very appealing yet non-traditional design. I would have never imagine that you could take old shipping containers and produce something like this.
Chris
August 7th, 2010 at 11:37 am
I’ve been in real estate for 20 years and green building is making some serious headway this time around, but I never could have imagined such an amazing use for old shipping containers that has so many incredible benefits. I’m going to talk to a green builder friend of mine to do some research regarding access to material and cost in our part of the country which is the midwest in Wisconsin.
Home Sustainable Jenn
August 17th, 2010 at 12:39 pm
Wow, I’ve seen really small versions of houses in a box. This takes it to the next level…or levels. Beautiful. What is the cost to get it to Florida I wonder? Wouldn’t even need to take the Home Sustainable Challenge.
Classified Toronto
August 17th, 2010 at 11:03 pm
While a number of resourceful people have converted shipping containers into make-shift shelters at the margin of society for years, architects and green designers are also increasingly turning to the strong, cheap boxes as source building blocks.
Classified Toronto
Randy
August 25th, 2010 at 9:39 pm
I actually know a person who lives in one of these. Reading your blog brings living in a container to a whole new level. Thanks for showing these in a different light.
Would you live in one of these?
September 2nd, 2010 at 12:13 pm
[...] Home, Strong, Affordable Storm-Ready Housing Project, Bob Vila, Bob on TV, BobVila.com Low Impact Living
J. W.
September 10th, 2010 at 2:30 pm
Living in a container home is a choice that in some situations is the only choice that makes sense. It’s green, strong, secure and termite proof. Great article.
JW
Tesla Falcon
November 20th, 2010 at 3:57 pm
My family is currently living in a small FEMA trailer in Texas. We’ve realized that most RVs aren’t built for large families like ours. Instead, we’re looking at converting a 40′ High Cube shipping container into an RV: an ultra single-wide mobile home. With custom interior to accommodate us & our crew of 7 children, this should work out much better than our current abode. I have a Class A CDL already so transporting it won’t be a problem. Check out my blog for more details & the latest updates.
Eva
December 15th, 2010 at 3:27 am
@ George Runkle, The steel beam you’re referring to is actually wood. The container on the right in picture #6 sits on a wooden frame which doesn’t show on the picture above, but there are other pictures to be found of this house showing more in detail the structure before insulation and façade is in place.
Karen
December 30th, 2010 at 5:10 pm
I’m glad to hear about the new life shipping containers are getting as homes. I agree with Ylonda we are doing what “POOR people were doing years ago just to survive.” Now we must be more and more resourceful with our resources. Every day we are creating more and new ways to be sustainable its wonderful!
sustainable residential architect
Atlanta Architect
January 3rd, 2011 at 4:30 pm
Wow! What a truly beautiful example of re-usable materials! I’ve heard of and seen many other homes built from shipping containers, but none as well done as this.
Raymond
January 4th, 2011 at 10:54 am
This is amazingly awesome!!
john
January 25th, 2011 at 5:46 pm
spraying ridgid foam insulation with furring on the OUTSIDE of the container then covering it isnt actually a fasion statement. its the BEST WAY to insulate. on the contrary, insulating on the inside really starts to eat up space and does not insulate as well.
check out the blog, this guy has been building these for 30+ years and lives in one. and thats what he reccomends is the best. a must read for anybody interested in these types of structures.
way.renaissanceronin.wordpress.com
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