building with shipping containers

[MarkP]

I listened to a couple of those tutorials. Each was about half an hour long and there are 15 total. That makes almost 8 hrs of dry, technically dense material and they often say you can't do certain things, exactly the opposite of the majority of stuff on the net that makes everything sound easy. I agreed with everything they said. I'm actually tempted to sign up just to hear the rest of the tutorials.

[OpenD]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkP

I agree with all that OpenD but in my case I need to keep one end for storage of large dirty items. I also like the idea of a sleeping nook at the closed end, so I envision entry through a standard door in the side, plus a few small windows in the sides, all reinforced as necessary so that the container is not unduly weakened.

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I put my sleeping area in the middle, so I could keep all the plumbing... for kitchen and shower... in the rear 4', to minimize water and drain runs. As it happens I later had a chance to spend some time in an Airstream trailer that was of that configuration, and it worked well.

The main structural strength of the container comes from the box beam
frame. The sides add stiffness, and enclosure. Cutting holes for windows and doors general doesn't seem to be an issue as long as you build up around the openings the way you would with frame construction. Personally I'd rather do one large opening than a bunch of little ones

[www.containerhome.info]

quote:

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Originally posted by MarkP

I listened to a couple of those tutorials. Each was about half an hour long and there are 15 total. That makes almost 8 hrs of dry, technically dense material and they often say you can't do certain things, exactly the opposite of the majority of stuff on the net that makes everything sound easy. I agreed with everything they said. I'm actually tempted to sign up just to hear the rest of the tutorials.

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Thanks for taking the time to review the tutorials Mark - you are right the material is "dry at best" we are working on improving "engagement" for members.

The challenge is that there is ton of bright and breezy "how easy this is" on the internet. There a 100's of "its cheap and easy and fast" 500 word articles so we are trying to make our point of difference the extending detail and a dose of reality for those interested in the next level down.

I wanted to add that the site isn't just about the tutorials, the site is a membership site so each week we add new material - right now its the video tutorials, in a couple of weeks we will have a major update to the 3D design software and so on.

Regards

Victor

[www.containerhome.info]

quote:

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Originally posted by OpenD

The main structural strength of the container comes from the box beam
frame. The sides add stiffness, and enclosure. Cutting holes for windows and doors general doesn't seem to be an issue as long as you build up around the openings the way you would with frame construction. Personally I'd rather do one large opening than a bunch of little ones

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I do realize I am sticking my head in here....

The engineering design brief on a container is to create the cheapest. lightest weight, strongest, durable steel intermodal enclosure possible.

As such a container is formed up in what is called a unibody construction - each part of the container contributes to the overall strength - nothing is added that is redundant or not required.

This means that real strength of the container is the container - not the " box beams " even stacking them "six high" demands that the doors be closed and locked as this adds strength.

You will see this best demonstrated if you take out a full side wall(s) of a container - without the two side walls a 40 ft container basically becomes jello.

In fact one of the tricks to cutting containers is to chain them before you remove wall material because once you do they will at the very least sag and some will "spring out of shape" and getting them square again is a nightmare.

My point is the moment you touch a container in anyway you weaken it even the CSC demands re-certification of any containers the moment you make a single cut the container losses its certification.

Not trying to put anyone off just trying to dispell the myth that you can drag them out of a container yard, stack em up how you want cut out what you want and weld in some doors and windows and presto instant house !

In my opinion container homes arent easy or cheap and the real legacy of the shipping container in construction will ultimately be in the development of modestly priced, super strong, reconfigurable, relocatable modular housing solutions.

Its actually my hope that at some point we get the trade balance in order ( dont think that will happen ) and the availability of containers drys up and we start to look at new composite materials using the intermodal footprint.

If you want to watch the Anatomy of a Shipping Container Video its here.

http://www.containerhome.info/tutorial-2.html
















Regards

Victor

[MarkP]

The tutorials covering the anatomy of shipping containers say you can't make any modifications without weakening the container. This only makes sense. What is unclear is how much each modification would weaken the container. To play the devil's advocate the loads the container would see when functioning as a house are much less than when they are being dropped fully loaded onto a dock by a clumsy crane operator so maybe we don't need all of the original strength but the point is that now we are taking on the responsibility of figuring out how strong the container still is with the doors and windows cut in vs how strong it needs to be to function as part of the house.

If you look at most beams, trusses, and airplane wings you see certain common features. There are always solid pieces at the top and bottom. In an I-beam they are called the flanges. Second there are one or more vertical parts connecting the flanges together called the web or webs. In a house truss or in a hand made wooden airplane wing the web may consist of carefully laid out vertical and diagonal pieces that form a bunch of triangles, leaving quite a lot of open space that, in the case of a house truss, you can walk through. Some sheet metal airplane spars have simple round holes cut in the web centered along a line equidistant from the top and bottom flanges. The result is that you could take a straight edge and a magic marker and draw triangles on what is left of the web. If a hole is too large or too close to its neighbor or too close to the top or bottom, such that you can't make triangles by drawing straight lines, then it would severely weaken the ability of the web to carry shear.

Shear is the tendency of the top flange that is in compression to slide outwards relative to the bottom flange that is in tension, which wants to pull inwards. In a container supported at the ends the tension and compression in the flanges (roof and floor) would be greatest at the center while the shear would be greatest at the ends.

I haven't crunched any of the numbers myself but just going on theory of mechanics from 30 years ago, it might be OK to cut a series of small windows midway between floor and roof as long as you could still draw the required interconnecting triangles on what is left. The door, which has to go all the way to the floor and pretty near the roof, should go as close to the middle of the container as possible where the shear loads are minimal and hence the web won't be missed. What I don't know is how the corrugations affect things. Sure you can draw a straight line on the side of the container but the corrugations can stretch or compress and fail to perform the function of the solid members that would be their counterpart in a roof truss or model airplane wing.

[OpenD]

I'm from the school of "look at what somebody did that works." The house I mentioned in San Diego removed half of one container wall by welding a 4x4 post in the middle and then cutting away the corrugated on one side. All properly vetted by an engineer.

[OpenD]

BTW, just got this link via Dwell... a new video production studio near Houston built using containers: http://www.dwell.com/articles/constructi...z1EuXspdXw

Here's a small container house in Topanga Canyon in Cali... and the guy has also designed a huge 18-container atrium house!http://www.dwell.com/articles/self-contained.html

Here's the SurfShack site... a weekend place from a single double-ended 20' container http://www.surfshackbox.com/

Here's another fancy stacked container house in Redondo Beach: http://inhabitat.com/demaria-shipping-container-house/

And here's a cool Houston house built from 4 containers... lots of doors and windows and great use of green materials http://www.jetsongreen.com/2009/09/houst...house.html

[MarkP]

I don't think our views on this are necessarily at odds. If you provide sufficient reinforcement or support along the bottom where the forklift would support the container, then you could conceivably cut out a fair amount but if you want the container to perform as originally designed, loaded with 50,000 lb of cargo, supported at the ends, with a safety factor, then you have to either not cut it or really know what you are doing when reinforcing it.

The surf shack appears to rely only on the original doors for access, light, and ventilation. I didn't see any windows in the sides. It looks like a great design based on the original attributes of the container.

[www.containerhome.info]

Sorry guys I didn't mean in anyway to infer that you cant " cut holes for doors windows".

What I was getting at is this.

Many "super advocates" of this type of construction run around quoting how strong containers are as the foundation stone of their "benefits of container homes" speech.

It goes something like this....

" If you can stack them 8 high on a ship its proof that you can do XYZ with them" and then in the next breath they start removing end doors and side wall sections and replacing it with glass.

All I would like to clarify is when removing end walls and side wall for doors and walls, careful and considered thought needs to be given to the process, that can happen through engineered calculation or hands on trial and error.

The myth I am trying to eliminate here is that you can just cut doors and walls where you want and weld in a door or window and away you go and that is true if its a shipping container cabin but not a true container home where the wall section modifications are generally larger.

One of the "rules" that we have learn't is if your going to remove the end walls is try to to leave the first 500mm of sheet in the side wall uncut - these 2.0 mm sheets are thicker than in the middle of the container and help with racking forces.

As a side note -

You are absolutely 100% correct that the greatest "loads" and stresses that a container home will face at any point are those actually experienced during fabrication, transport and positioning on site.

This means special care needs to be taken if you are going to be modifying containers "off site" as you suggest to ensure that you don't damage the modifications and fitout during transit and placement.

Of course the specifics of what that means are always going to be determined by your individual circumstances and design.

Thanks

Victor
http://www.containerhome.info




Regards

Victor