container homes

I don't have any experience with making a home from a shipping container. But I do have experience of building a 'flat pack' home and suggest looking at Potton, who are here in the UK, cheaper than the Scandi / German kind, and can be insulated to just as high a level.
Best place to start is to go to one of the shows NOT Grand designs, but Home Building and Renovating, or Build It magazine.

This takes me back to the early 70s when I worked for a carpet company, the shipping manager having yet another entertaining foul-mouthed meltdown when yet more of our containers mysteriously vanished at destination. It was always Nigeria, and we were told the containers were used for housing - I think we had to stop shipping there in the end. When we got any documents back from Nigeria the pack invariably contained a marriage proposal from a billionaire. These were always passed to me as the lone female in the team. My life could have been so very different....

You are quite right petra, other countries have long traditions of alternative building materials, usually wood.

As an owner of a H/H that is constructed from a 'non traditional' building material, wood, it is very difficult and costly to get insurance. Also, some mortgage companies won't lend on 'non traditional' properties.

I'm not sure when bricks became traditional!

I get very annoyed that every build in this country has to be bricks and mortar. It's a huge waste of recourses, time and money. There are so many wonderful new building products out there now.

Someone round the corner from us has a container on their front lawn - I had assumed it was for storage (albeit a weird idea in an otherwise quiet suburban road) but maybe someone is living in it!

Any container used for housing or an office must comply with planning permission, according to the site. Also, with current building regulations regarding the rules for habitable spaces.

Thus containers can be quite costly to use for housing and office accommodation.

Not sure about problems with condensation, think they would have to be really well insulated.

Some people are putting them in their gardens and renting them on airb&b. Combining them would be a really interesting project. Go and try one out. The ones I've seen are only single ones though. Very cosy.

Great idea. I'd love to have a go. After the Christchurch (New Zealand) earth quake they used shipping containers for some really wonderful purposes. If you are serious I'd be contacting Grand Designs or that George from the amazing spaces program to check out. They know about land, planning, getting and transporting things like that. I Admire you vision/dream.

i haven't heard of tiny homes Dot, but I'm off to do some investigation...

Nanaandgrampy, those pictures are wonderful - just the sort of thing I was looking for. I had no idea some had been built on grand designs, though thinking about it now, I suppose I should have expected it.

I like the idea of making something useful out of something that might have been scrapped.

I would love to live in a Tiny Home - people are put off as many of the earlier designs included a loft bedroom with often just a ladder to access it but newer designs can include a ground floor bedroom, or a wall bed (one that folds away) or proper stairs to the loft room. They are really well insulated and I like the idea of being able to have solar panels for electricity too.

Have a look through some German designs, they tend to be with it where new ideas are. And then there was the pod idea, to have one pod for a room, I think that was on George Clarke too. It sounds an exciting enterprise, do something different, why not if you can.

There are containers being used as offices in our town, they look fine and I imagine you can heat them as easily as any other building.

This was the one I was thinking of www.pb-architects.com/completed-photos/

I can't help thinking they would feel cold - even if they weren't!

Containers are now being used as rentable storage units - they cost about £10.000 each to buy. Many already a plywood floor. Lots of containers only do one trip before being scrapped!

Fantastic idea

I suspect the Ferrari system may have cost a little more than a dozen containers, each section came on a dedicated truck, the whole building was put together in a few hours.

Fabulous, Wobbly. I saw a TV prog once where a young couple made a home out of containers bolted together. They kept a spare one nearby so they could extend their home when the baby arrived. Sounds like a good idea if the OP can find a suitable plot of land.

https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201610/medium-594666-404211.jpg https://www.gransnet.com/uploads/talk/201610/medium-767524-ferrarihome.jpg

Here are some pictures

I think it was Ferrari that had there hospitality suite as several container like structure that all locked together to produce a huge 2 story building with bars, restaurant ect for F1 meetings.

Grand Designs had one done out of 2 cantilevered shipping containers. He was in Northern Ireland and I have to say he ended up with a very cost effective, beautiful modern home.

He owned the land so didn't have that cost.

I'd love to have a flat pack home built for me if I could find the right semi rural plot - so good luck wherearemyglasses what an adventure !

I've seen some amazing homes made from shipping containers. One of George Clark's programs showed a guy who made extra classrooms for a school from two. They won't rot like the old mobiles schools usually have.

Don't know what happened there and it wouldn't let me edit. "Homes","look too" and "Wouldn't mind".