Your thoughts on a Container home

[coastnalong]

[font=Verdana, sans-serif]I am currently living in Washington State in a home. My income is not keeping pace with how fast my basic living expenses are increasing.  [/font]
[font=Verdana, sans-serif]I have considered whether I should get a motor home, travel trailer, step van etc. I do not plan on much traveling if any so I have decided a simple stationary structure will be my best option.[/font]
[font=Verdana, sans-serif]I have been looking into travel trailers, but understand they can start falling apart fast and need expensive maintenance. Expensive maintenance would be unacceptable for my income.[/font]
[font=Verdana, sans-serif]Therefore, I have been considering purchasing an inexpensive piece of land in Nevada and using a shipping container to live in. I do not think it would be prohibitively expensive to convert a shipping container into a comfortable home.[/font]
[font=Verdana, sans-serif]I would like to put in insulated flooring and walls. Wiring for some appliances to run off of solar power. There would be windows and possibly skylights. The container would have a bathroom, bedroom, kitchen and living room.[/font]
[font=Verdana, sans-serif]If I need to relocate I can have a truck pick up the shipping container and move to a new location. In that respect I can have a movable home that is much sturdier than a travel trailer if I am not moving that often.[/font]
[font=Verdana, sans-serif]If you have any ideas or experience in constructing or living in a shipping container I would like to hear from you.[/font]

 

[rvwandering]

A forum member did just what you are considering. He posted about it on his blog which hasn't been updated for a while however you may find some good ideas from what he's done so far. http://www.newagenomad.com/

 

[lenny flank]

Be sure to check the legalities of it. In many areas, you will run into zoning regs, building codes, and fire safety laws.

 

[ckelly78z]

We have a 40' high top CONEX shipping container for our horse hay storage that is 40'x8'x9.5' tall. It is very heavily built at 8500# empty, and only has a small vent at each corner. These are well known for having moisture issues when closed up, so some real attention would have to be given to insulation, and air circulation. I like the idea of an earth bermed home with solar on the roof to be off grid, but it must beon level, well drained ground to prevent excess rust.

I think I may be more inclined to park a big travel trailer inside of a barn (or assembled roof awning) where weather, and direct sunlight are eliminated.

 

[B and C]

Water and septic may be the big ticket items in Nevada.

 

[MrNoodly]

I watched a video about building a container dwelling. I don't know where they were building it, but the local codes required conventional stick framing inside. Essentially, they were building a house inside a box and the container served only as a skin. So check the local building codes along with zoning regs.

And though cheap land in someplace like Nevada sounds tempting, it usually means no water or other utilities on a bleak looking plot in the middle of nowhere, far from supplies and services, with some type of nasty weather at least part of the year. That's why it's cheap. No one else wants it. You'd be completely off-grid. If that's what you're looking for, then go for it.

 

[wayne49]

There may not even be a dual track to your plot.

Remote land is cheap, everything else, except your sweat, is more expensive. Come to think of it, since you have to carry in your water, your sweat is not cheap.

 

[wayne49]

My advice would be to do a site visit and spend a night, whether on the plot or the nearest BLM land. [Much of central Nevada along I-80 is a checkerboard of BLM squares alternating with private squares.]
I would suspect much of the remote undeveloped plots will be still be available six months later to check seasonal variation. Might keep one from rushing into a purchase.

 

[coastnalong]

I had planned on doing everything you said. Additionally I have checked on annual snowfall which is important to me as I don't want snow over my head wherever I move to.

 

[wayne49]

Re: trucking a cargo box to/from remote land.
Make sure the deal includes a forklift to lift the box off or on to the flat bed trailer. Or that it's a roll off/on deal.
I found cheap boxes from California ports., but I had to come up with the equipment to off load the box on site.
Cheap box became expensive box.

 

[rectalogic]

Amazon sells these, might give you an upper bound on price

MODS 40 Foot Tiny Home https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073FZ8PP9/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_hjIqDbPHK515H

 

[Elbear1]

Campers are not expensive to fix yourself. Most problems are roof leaks which wouldnt be much concern in nevada. Would be way way cheaper and easier over converting a container. Plus more friendly to building codes being on wheels.

Its pretty easy to find a how-to online to pretty much any camper issue that may arise. If you can build a container out you can fix a camper.

 

[coastnalong]

Amazon sells these, might give you an upper bound on price

MODS 40 Foot Tiny Home https://www.amazon.com/dp/B073FZ8PP9/ref=cm_sw_r_cp_api_i_hjIqDbPHK515H

[font=Verdana, sans-serif]That is kind of what I plan on, but $39,754 seems outrageous to me. I am hoping to build it far more reasonably. I would like to have something nice, that people with limited resources could afford to get. Here is one example:[/font]
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[coastnalong]

Campers are not expensive to fix yourself. Most problems are roof leaks which wouldnt be much concern in nevada. Would be way way cheaper and easier over converting a container. Plus more friendly to building codes being on wheels.

Its pretty easy to find a how-to online to pretty much any camper issue that may arise. If you can build a container out you can fix a camper.

Thank you for your input. I am definitely not ruling out the purchase of a travel trailer. The travel trailer may have some type of financing available, which the container conversion could not get. I am looking at both options.

 

[maki2]

Not all places in Washington state will allow you to even put a container on the land much less live in it. So you have some background research to do on where exactly you can do this. First step is not figuring out the container layout, the first step is securing a location.

 

[coastnalong]

I currently live in Washington state, but do not intend on constructing the container here. I think Washington state would be much less open to modifying a container than areas of Nevada would. My original posting was that I intended on building the container in Nevada. I agree that I need to first find an affordable location where the laws allow me to modify the container.

 

[ckelly78z]

We had our CONEX delivered on site for $2500. The guy brought it behind a F350, with a slide off trailer, he basically put it exactly where I wanted it. It was an 8500# steel container on a 3000# trailer behind an 8500# truck, so keep this in mind for soft ground/sand.

 

[highdesertranger]

yes very few people use forklifts anymore on Conex containers. like Kelly said they haul them around with 1 ton trucks and slide off trailers and yes they can set them exactly where you want them.

couple of things about Northern Nevada,

do you know what Nevada means in Spanish?
Snowy Place
Sierra Nevada means high snowy place but just plain old Nevada means snowy place. there is a good reason for this name.

Northern Nevada can be inundated by blizzards stopping all travel even on I-80. your more remote areas can have travel cut off for months. unimproved unplowed roads are treacherous when covered with ice. if you think black ice is scary on pavement, try it on a off camber two track. may I suggest you spend a wet winter in the area before buying land. make sure you have plenty of food for an extended snow in.

does anybody know the reason for the checker board land ownership that basically follows the I-80 corridor?

highdesertranger

 

[DannyB1954]

I worked for a container shipping company. If I were to do it, I would buy a reefer container. They are insulated a bit and usually have stainless steel inside walls. You can unbolt the reefer machinery and install a wall on the front end. These usually have smooth outside walls so installing windows and such would be easier than a plain shipping container.
That being said, I would not want the hassle of modifying it. If you pay someone for the cutting and welding, it would have been cheaper to stick build a building.
Usually the reason that you do not see something done often is it is uneconomical or a real pain to do. Yes it can be done, no I will not help you do it. A 28' cargo trailer would be a much better build. Nye county in Nevada is large, and they are pretty lenient with mobile living. You can live in a RV for 6 months out of a year, and if there are no complaints from neighbors all year long. Home Depot sell sheds that are big enough to live in, And you can always tell the county it is a storage shed. Park an RV next to it. a shed can be moved if it isn't too wide.
BTW in Nye County you can build a 200 sq' shed without a permit.

 

[maki2]

From the HUD regulation discussion about shipping containers being used as housing. This is the stuff you may need to know when dealing with the local code regulations at various locations.

Shipping containers that are converted into housing units are subject to state and local building codes like modular and site-built homes. Converted shipping containers cannot be accepted as a HUD-code manufactured home unless they are provided with a permanent chassis and are transported to the site on their own running gear and otherwise comply with all HUD Standards and Regulations for manufactured homes.