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Tutorial 1 of 15 – Part 1 of 2 ( Preview for Non Members )

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Container Home Tutorials 1 of 15 Preview Resources.

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PDF’s and links mentioned in the presentation

Clark Patent Filing for a Shipping Container Home

Phillip C. Clark filed for a US patent on 23rd November 1987. It was described as a “method for converting one or more steel shipping containers into a habitable building at a building site and the product thereof”

Patent was granted on the 8th Aug 1989

Earthquake, Hurricane Resistant Interlocking Soil Blocks

These are the low cost stabilized soil block mentioned in the video, there are several alternative interlocking block designs on the market, as with all alternative building solutions there are advantages and disadvantageous when using stablished soil interlocking blocks this resource is provide purely for research purposes.

No Building Codes

An ebook that discusses where you can still build in the USA with NO or very few building codes

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Transcript of  Tutorial 1 of 15 – Part 1 of 2 ( Preview for Non Members )

In this video we are going to discuss

1, The Origins of the Intermodal Steel Building Unit or ISBU Concept

BTW the way if your unfamiliar with the term Intermodal it simply refers to the idea that a shipping container has been specially designed to allow for the carriage of goods by one or more different “modes” of transport without requiring the unloading and reloading of the goods

In practice this is achieved by being equipped with standardized corner fittings that permit easy mechanical handling from one mode of transport to another.

2, Some of the advantages and disadvantages of ISBU based construction

And

3, Some of the potential uses and applications of ISBU’s in real world construction projects

Based on the current levels of media interest in ISBU based Construction the casual observer of the Container Home movement could easily be forgiven for thinking that the idea or concept of wanting to construct a home from Shipping Containers is just the latest fad in the green building revolution.

However as you will begin to discover as you follow this series of tutorials the Container Home industry is a industry filled with a lot of myths, misconceptions and misunderstandings. Some are quite accidental and some are in my opinion quite deliberately driven and perpetuated by individuals and business with their own agendas.

One of the primary objectives of this series of video tutorials is to explore and discuss in a logical and practical manner as many of these misunderstandings as possible and to present information about Container Home construction in such a way that interested individuals can make their own decisions based on quality, practical information. As you will probably work out pretty quickly as you watch these tutorials I am a building industry professional first and a container home enthusiast second.

So lets get started.

Here’s an interesting question to get things moving.

When was the first properly documented container house built? 5 years ago, 6 years ago, maybe ten years ago ?

Well in fact is was almost 23 years ago now on the 23rd November 1987 that Mr Phillip C Clark applied for, and received a patent from the US patent office for what just might be the documented first shipping container house.

Now the reason that I mention this is it was the diagrams and information contained within the documentation of this patent that created the groundwork for almost all current shipping container architectural ideas, by the way this patent document is available for anyone that wants to review it in the download section of this tutorial.

Certainly the military and mining industries use of modified containers for temporary accommodation “cabins” ie single containers fitted out with doors and windows predates 1987 by the way the military quite correctly refers to these structures as ISO shelters but the documenting of joining and roofing multiple containers into a practical credible house rightfully belongs to Mr Clark’s filing.

So now we know that the container home concept has been with us for at least 23 years lets ask the obvious question of

Why would anyone be interested in building a home out of Shipping Containers ?

Afterall if the idea is still hanging around after all that time there must be some serious merit to it right ?

Well in the beginning, the greatest interest in ISBU home construction seemed to be driven by the interest in removing and repurposing hundreds of thousands of surplus Shipping Containers that where stockpiled in U.S. and other Global ports.

In 2005 is was estimated that there where as many as 700,000 containers sitting in U.S. ports alone due to the exploding growth of imports from China.

The second reason for all the interest globally was the promise of low cost of construction and owning a small home or apartment made out of shipping containers seemed to gather a great deal of media interest, by the way this site containerhome.info was started in 2006 and we have been researching and reporting on container home construction ever since.

But by the end of 2007 the stocks at U.S. ports were reportedly down to more normalized levels but the seed was sown and now interest started to focus on the actual benefits of ISBU construction, not simply trying to use up the surplus of containers

I should probably point out here that the normalization of stock levels of containers was not caused by the advent of the container house concept.

During this time we saw the slow but steady growth of a group of individuals and small business than I refer to as ISBU advocates

Now advocates are the best friends of green building and alternative building methods, be it Container Homes, Mud Brick Homes, Straw Bale Homes, Rammed Earth Homes or any other type of alternative building methodology these are individuals and groups that get behind a particular technology or solution, generally as early adopters themselves and promote the solution to the market.

The problem is that 99% of the time these “advocates” are a bit of a double edged sword, on one hand they do great work in creating marketplace awareness for a particular solution but very often they also become blinded to the short comings of a solution through their runaway “enthusiasm” and start spreading half the story – naturally the good half.

And I promise you every building solution has advantages and disadvantages when compared with an alternative solution or a traditional stick built home.

Inherently we all know this – its just logical right – and it might not seem like much of an issue until you start to try and research a technology to dig below the idea and look for information on how to and what you will find is that most “voices” are either strongly for or strongly against and finding a balanced, well thought through opinion that discusses both the good and bad is actually quite hard to do, I can assure you that researching container homes is no exception.

From this beginning throughout this series of tutorials I will be attempting to present the good and the bad of container homes, however I am not silly enough to discredit that I myself inturn have my own filters and biases based on my experience as a building industry professional, with this in mind I understand that is probably going to upset some “super advocates” but I hope they might be swayed by the logical rational discussion presented.

The Good – ie Advantages of ISBU construction

As I mentioned just a few moments ago one of the greatest challenges for anyone reviewing the container home concept for actual adoption is the volume of information presented by industry advocates that is well lets just call it “over enthusiastic” in many cases the advantages often presented as benefits of container home construction are actually highly conditional.

This phenomena is certainly not unique to containerhomes you see it with alternative technologies and solutions to mainstream practices all the time – it can happen with anything new and exciting where people can get swept up in a movement.

So what is my point ? Well almost all of the advantages of that you might have heard about ISBU construction are actually highly conditional upon several factors including exactly what we define as a “container home” and how and where and why we build it

Many of the benefits that can be loosely applied to the container home concepts vary wildly in magnitude depending on of the size and scale and design and location of the individual project.

Lets take a simple look at what I mean by that.

It is often quoted or inferred that using containers to build a home is a “green building practice” in reality choosing to build a home from containers is an excellent framework around which a green building could be planned, designed and constructed however if done incorrectly using containers could easily turn into a project showcasing the very worst of green building practices.

For example I have noticed that a few high profile architects and constructors in this space have recently been migrating away from the use of second hand containers to custom making oversized containers brand new for ISBU projects in factories in China – containers with wider bodies and higher ceilings and increasingly completed or just the new prebuilt shipping container “cabins” that are coming onto the market – ready to ship anywhere in the world.

Now few green building practices could be worse than constructing a heavy guage 8000 plus lb steel box in China and dragging it half way around the world specifically to act as the frame of your house or your weekend cabin in the woods the embodied energy involved in that process is almost criminal.

This type of advantage disadvantage paradox is prevalent in almost every single quoted advantage of ISBU based construction, its not that there isn’t generally merit to the reported advantage but rather that its highly conditional on a set of supporting circumstances.

A second example is the idea that container based construction is inexpensive making it ideal for affordable housing solutions around the world and again that’s a benefit that I question as its highly conditional.

I do a lot of work with a number of charity building groups in developing countries, mostly in SE Asia and when we build a home for a family in need we often work on the most modest of budgets usually just a few thousand dollars and yet even with this budget we can build a modest full brick home that is built to a very high strength complete with roof and insulation and internal brick walls and fit out simply with a fan, electricity and plumbing for little more than the price of an empty 40 FT steel container delivered to site

In my opinion this is the real reason that container homes are not “taking off” as predicated in 3rd world countries – yes they are cheap compared to expensive custom American stick built homes but they can actually be very expensive compared to several other very low cost strong and safe and green building methods using local materials and labor in low cost areas.

Starting to see my point about conditionality ?

So what we can agree upon is this – “conditionally” based on individual projects here are some of the benefits of ISBU construction might include

Easy construction method possible DIY – more realistically in my opinion allowing for some practical hands on sweat equity for owners

Certainly Fast Construction Times

Both of which could lead to lower cost than regular stick built home

Modular extend-able design making it easy to create additions and build as time / money become available

Provides Potential for relocation

Provides Potential for Earthquake Resistance

Provides Potential for High Wind Resistance

High grade Heavy Gauge steel frame

Made from re-purposed materials – if you used second hand containers

Minimal intrusion footprint

Perfect first step for establishing and maintaining a mindset for designing and building a green home.

Remember just because it’s a ISBU home does not mean its green design we will be talking a lot about this in later tutorials.

Part 2 of 2 of this transcript ( and the video ) is available in the members section.

Well in the beginning, the greatest interest in ISBU home construction seemed to be driven by the interest in removing and repurposing hundreds of thousands of surplus Shipping Containers that where stockpiled in U.S. and other Global ports. 

In 2005 is was estimated that there where as many as 700,000 containers sitting in U.S. ports alone due to the exploding growth of imports from China.  

The second reason for all the interest globally was the promise of low cost of construction and owning a small home or apartment made out of shipping containers seemed to gather a great deal of media interest, by the way this site containerhome.info was started in 2006 and we have been researching and reporting on container home construction ever since.  

But by the end of 2007 the stocks at U.S. ports were reportedly down to more normalized levels but the seed was sown and now interest started to focus on the actual benefits of ISBU construction, not simply trying to use up the surplus of containers 

I should probably point out here that the normalization of stock levels of containers was not caused by the advent of the container house concept.

During this time we saw the slow but steady growth of a group of individuals and small business than I refer to as ISBU advocates  

Now advocates are the best friends of green building and alternative building methods, be it Container Homes, Mud Brick Homes, Straw Bale Homes, Rammed Earth Homes or any other type of alternative building methodology these are individuals and groups that get behind a particular technology or solution, generally as early adopters themselves and promote the solution to the market. 

The problem is that 99% of the time these “advocates” are a bit of a double edged sword, on one hand they do great work in creating marketplace awareness for a particular solution but very often they also become blinded to the short comings of a solution through their runaway “enthusiasm” and start spreading half the story – naturally the good half. 

And I promise you every building solution has advantages and disadvantages when compared with an alternative solution or a traditional stick built home.

Inherently we all know this - its just logical right - and it might not seem like much of an issue until you start to try and research a technology to dig below the idea and look for information on how to and what you will find is that most “voices” are either strongly for or strongly against and finding a balanced, well thought through opinion that discusses both the good and bad is actually quite hard to do, I can assure you that researching container homes is no exception.   

From this beginning throughout this series of tutorials I will be attempting to present the good and the bad of container homes, however I am not silly enough to discredit that I myself inturn have my own filters and biases based on my experience as a building industry professional, with this in mind I understand that is probably going to upset some “super advocates” but I hope they might be swayed by the logical rational discussion presented.   

The Good – ie Advantages of ISBU construction

As I mentioned just a few moments ago one of the greatest challenges for anyone reviewing the container home concept for actual adoption is the volume of information presented by industry advocates that is well lets just call it “over enthusiastic” in many cases the advantages often presented as benefits of container home construction are actually highly conditional. 

This phenomena is certainly not unique to containerhomes you see it with alternative technologies and solutions to mainstream practices all the time – it can happen with anything new and exciting where people can get swept up in a movement. 

So what is my point ? Well almost all of the advantages of that you might have heard about ISBU construction are actually highly conditional upon several factors including exactly what we define as a “container home” and how and where and why we build it 

Many of the benefits that can be loosely applied to the container home concepts vary wildly in magnitude depending on of the size and scale and design and location of the individual project. 

Lets take a simple look at what I mean by that. 

It is often quoted or inferred that using containers to build a home is a “green building practice” in reality choosing to build a home from containers is an excellent framework around which a green building could be planned, designed and constructed however if done incorrectly using containers could easily turn into a project showcasing the very worst of green building practices. 

For example I have noticed that a few high profile architects and constructors in this space have recently been migrating away from the use of second hand containers to custom making oversized containers brand new for ISBU projects in factories in China – containers with wider bodies and higher ceilings and increasingly completed or just the new prebuilt shipping container “cabins” that are coming onto the market – ready to ship anywhere in the world.  

Now few green building practices could be worse than constructing a heavy guage 8000 plus lb steel box in China and dragging it half way around the world specifically to act as the frame of your house or your weekend cabin in the woods the embodied energy involved in that process is almost criminal.

This type of advantage disadvantage paradox is prevalent in almost every single quoted advantage of ISBU based construction, its not that there isn’t generally merit to the reported advantage but rather that its highly conditional on a set of supporting circumstances.   

A second example is the idea that container based construction is inexpensive   making it ideal for affordable housing solutions around the world and again that’s a benefit that I question as its highly conditional. 

I do a lot of work with a number of charity building groups in developing countries, mostly in SE Asia  and when we build a home for a family in need we often work on the most modest of budgets usually just a few thousand dollars and yet even with this budget we can build a modest full brick home that is built to a very high strength complete with roof and insulation and internal brick walls and fit out simply with a fan, electricity and plumbing for little more than the price of an empty 40 FT steel container delivered to site – In my opinion this is the real reason that container homes are not “taking off” as predicated in 3rd world countries – yes they are cheap compared to expensive custom American stick built homes but they can actually be very expensive compared to several other very low cost strong and safe and green building methods using local materials and labor in low cost areas. 

Starting to see my point about conditionality ? 

So what we can agree upon is this - “conditionally” based on individual projects here are some of the benefits of ISBU construction might include 

Easy construction method possible DIY – more realistically in my opinion allowing for some practical hands on sweat equity for owners 

Certainly Fast Construction Times 

Both of which could lead to lower cost than regular stick built home

Modular extendable design making it easy to create additions and build as time / money become available 

Provides Potential for relocation 

Provides Potential for Earthquake Resistance 

Provides Potential for High Wind Resistance

High grade Heavy Guage steel frame 

Made from Repurposed materials – if you used second hand containers 

Minimal intrusion footprint 

Perfect first step for establishing and maintaining a mindset for designing and building a green home. 

Remember just because it’s a ISBU home does not mean its green design we will be talking a lot about this in later tutorials