Shipping Container World

What the timber stage costs on a container house

Used 40 ft containers, mixed condition: $2,500–3,500 each
Blockwork foundation walls: $6,000
Crane day, stacking and placement: $2,200
Cutting openings and steel reinforcement: $9,000
Timber batten framing over the envelope: $7,500
External insulation: $12,000

Total before cladding: roughly $52,000.

The battens and insulation together cost about as much as the containers did. That's the line nobody budgets for.

Built by Intérieur & Extérieur Koncept.

Which number did you expect to be higher?

💡 Cost figures are rough estimates and vary by location and project.

Six containers, six different original colours, one finished building

That's the part worth knowing before you buy. Nobody sources six matching boxes — you take what the depot has, in whatever shade of blue, green or rust it happens to be. The colour is a paint job, not a purchase decision.

Windows and openings get cut and framed first, then the whole lot gets sprayed one colour. In these photos the blue one hasn't had its coat yet and the difference is the entire visual story of the project.

Six 40 ft high cubes joined together gives 165 m² inside — around 1,780 sq ft — laid out as offices, a kitchen and a large reception hall for community groups in Bazas. Inside it's sandwich panels plus plasterboard, so it reads as a normal hall rather than a metal box.

The pitched roof is the other decision I'd back. Flat is cheaper, but a bi-pitch sheds water properly and, on a public building sitting among ordinary houses, it's what stops the whole thing looking temporary.

Built by Pyxis Conteneur.

Paint them one colour, or leave the mix showing?

Two containers or four? I'm taking the four, and it isn't about storage.

The obvious argument is 640 sq ft of locked storage versus 1,280. That's not what decides it.

It's the span. Two containers gives you one bay between them. Four lets you run boxes down both sides and still open the whole front, so the working floor is uninterrupted and the door can be as wide as the building. That's the difference between reversing a trailer in carefully and just driving in.

The one-piece hydraulic door on the four-container build is only possible because of that width, and it doubles as a shade canopy when it's up. There's a vehicle parked under it in the photo that wouldn't fit through most garage openings.

Honest case for the two: it's roughly half the container cost, half the roof span, and cheaper trusses. If you're storing tools and working on one vehicle at a time, it's plenty, and the money saved buys a concrete floor and proper lighting — which you'll feel every single day.

But I'd rather have the room and finish it slowly.

Two or four? 👇

The banks said no. So he renovated a house, sold it, and bought the containers with the profit.

That's the part of this story that stuck with me. A builder in the Vendée wanted a container home, and no lender would touch it. So he bought a house in the next town, did it up, sold it, and used that money for the land and the boxes.

Then he hit the second wall: in France you can't buy containers as a private individual. Brokers sell to companies. So he registered a company, bought six through it, and had them shipped from Le Havre.

Three on the ground, three above, roughly 155–160 m² finished. His own numbers: €1,200–1,500 per m² against €1,800–1,900 for a traditional build in the same area, and habitable in four to five months instead of a year.

And the house is now the showroom. He's launching a container construction company off the back of it, and people were already driving over from La Rochelle to watch it go up.

Which is a good reminder that the obstacles on these builds are almost never structural. Finance, planning, and finding somebody willing to sell you a box.

Built by Yoan Dubuc.

Would your bank have said yes?

💡 Cost figures are rough estimates and vary by location and project.

Two roofs, two brackets, and both of them avoid the same mistake

Neither one touches the container roof panel. Both land on the top side rail — the box-section beam running the full length of the container, and the only part up there designed to carry anything.

That's the rule worth remembering. The roof sheet is thin steel with nothing under it. The side rail is structure. Every load path in a container roof build should end at that rail or at the corner castings, never in the middle of the panel.

After that it's a preference. A saddle bracket bolted to the rail cradles the beam and lets you drop it in and adjust. A simpler plate fixing is cheaper and faster once you know your heights are right.

Whichever you use, prime every hole you make. On a container the paint is the entire rust defence.

Saddle brackets or plates on yours?

A racecourse bar built out of a 40-footer — and the walls are timber, not steel

Worth understanding why. Once the side of a container is opened up for a serving hatch, you're not gaining anything by keeping steel around it. So the openings get framed in timber, a breather membrane goes over the whole thing, and cladding goes on outside.

That gives you a wall you can insulate properly, run cable and plumbing through, and finish however the client wants — here it's larch, horizontal, warm enough to look permanent on a racecourse rather than like a site cabin.

The long counter running the full 12 metres is the whole design brief. Event bars fail when there's one till and forty people queuing. Open the entire flank and you can serve a dozen at once.

Inside, the container roof stays exposed above and the original steel wall stays visible on the back. That's the part I'd keep too. You get the honesty of the box, and the comfort of a properly built wall on the side that matters.

La Jument Bleue, at the Nancy racecourse. Built by Casa Container.

Bar, kitchen, or ticket office — what would you put in one?

White foam boards on the outside of a container — what they actually buy you

This is EPS, and it's the cheapest rigid insulation you can put on a steel box. Roughly $6–10 per square metre at 100 mm thick.

What it gives you: about R-15 at that thickness, and it's on the outside, which is where it belongs. Nothing eats into the 7'8" you have inside, and the corner posts and top rails don't turn into cold spots the way they do when you insulate internally.

What it doesn't give you: an airtight envelope. EPS is a flat board and a container wall is corrugated, so it lands on the peaks and leaves voids behind. Every joint has to be taped and the whole lot covered properly, or the number on the spec sheet stops meaning anything.

It also can't be left bare. UV breaks it down, it burns, and rodents will happily tunnel through it. Cladding isn't optional here, it's part of the system.

The one figure I'd hold to: never go under 60 mm on steel. It conducts heat so fast that a thin layer is money you'll never feel.

Built by Pyxis Conteneur.

Would 100 mm be enough where you live?

💡 Cost figures are rough estimates and vary by location and project.

Somebody looked at a perfectly good 40-foot container and said "cut it in half"

Which sounds like vandalism until you see why. Containers are 12 metres long and stubbornly straight, so left alone they hand you a house shaped like a corridor pointed at one view.

Slice one, swing it round, and you've got an L. Now there's a sheltered corner outside, glass facing two directions, and a terrace that gets sun rather than wind.

The living room ended up with a 5.5-metre four-panel slider. At that point it stops being a window and becomes a missing wall.

113 m², four high cubes, six months.

Built by JDK Concept.

Straight run or cut it into an L?

Every vertical you see is welded on before the walls come out

This is the stage that decides whether a container conversion holds its shape. The corrugated side panel is what stops the box racking — take it out and the frame goes soft. So the steel goes in first, then the openings get cut.

Look at what's being built here: a full welded sub-frame around every future opening, plus verticals running the length of both walls and a whole new grid across the roof. That roof grid isn't decoration either — it's the fixing structure for insulation and cladding, and it stiffens the top after two boxes were joined.

Two 40 ft containers side by side, 640 sq ft, and the shared wall between them is coming out to make one 16-foot-wide room. That's the join that turns storage into an office you'd actually put people in.

Everything after this is finishing. Glazing between the columns, insulation, cladding. But if the steel isn't right at this stage, no amount of finish fixes the doors that stop closing in year three.

Built by Casa Container.

Would you trust a conversion that skipped this?

€19,900 for a 28 m² finished container garage — the full spec

2 × one-trip 20 ft containers, joined and sealed
Anti-rust treatment, finish paint, thermal roof coating
5.5–7 mm chequer plate at floor junctions and under the door
Aluminium interior lining throughout
Sectional door, 3000 × 2200, Somfy motor, 3 remotes
Aluminium sliding window, 1500 × 900, laminated glazing
Full electrical: weatherproof board, 4 sockets, earthing, cable run left for solar
Horizontal pine cladding, class IV, 21 mm, open-joint

Around $21,600, or roughly $72 per square foot. Delivery on top.

Built by Contain Life.

Which line would you drop?

💡 Cost figures are rough estimates and vary by location and project.