Great things can happen and entrepreneurs will flourish.
1200 sq.ft is a little smaller than our place minus the basement. Seems like the perfect opportunity for parents who have trouble kicking the nestlings out or for kids who have been given the chance to fly. I wonder how well it holds heat in the winter?
h/t, Knight 99
How well it will hold heat in the winter depends on how well they insulate it.
Seems like a good idea for reducing housing costs but as more makers get into the market I’m sure the prices will go up as they try to compete by offering more luxurious versions and buyers fall for it.
One can laugh, scratch and shake their heads, at this concept. But with some of the mutterings that has come out of T2’s mouth, this may be what is in store for us.
nothing much new with this article, micro homes have been around for 20 years, and using containers has for home building has also been around for more that 20 years. That this entrepreneur is doing it on business level as he is is just a new twist.
Hmmm I wonder if these will get the same media treatment as the Bennett Buggies, we could call them Justins Dumpsters..
$100k for a shipping container home? I guess some people will buy anything…
Transforming single family dwellings into multi family multi building lots is a great idea. As long as it’s not anywhere near my property.
Are we allowed to use the work ghetto any more? Or has it been deemed to be too hurtful?
These things look all cool and hip in the builders photos. In 20 years tops they and their neighborhoods will look like this: http://tinyurl.com/h9gozmy
That was my first thought too but when you include the cost of a pad, electrical and plumbing it makes more sense. Also the fact that it’s rentable for $1000/month at a cost of $500/month it certainly seems like a viable income supplement.
You took the words right out of my mouth.
You are BRILLIANT my friend ! EXACTLY ! You NAILED it.
While I can appreciate the modular, pre-fab nature of the thing … we STILL have building codes … most of which actually DO keep our buildings from collapsing and killing 5,000 people every time we have a 5.0 earthquake. So these neat little modules still need: foundations (tailored to each unique type of soil), flushing toilets and all the site utilities necessary to whisk your children’s turds safely to the “newly greened” treatment plant, hot + cold running water, operable doors and windows, insulation, interior finishes, and waterproof roofing. By the time you provide all these basics … you might as well site-build the home using illegal laborers doing the jobs that N. Americans just won’t do. Or … use more “conventional” modular building techniques.
I am all FOR innovation, esp. by Entepreuners … however … there is nothing “new” about repurposing steel shipping containers. The “market” has already rejected the idea … NEXT !!!!
-43°C
All that glass and black steel with a high long-wave radiation emissivity. Even with triple pane and R20+.
The latest building codes are obsessed with energy efficiency. They virtually condemn a stick frame house to premature decay to enable air-tight building envelopes which they then require an active air transfer system. I own and live in a house which is currently my third major addition and renovation project which was built in 1931. There was no insulation in the 2×4 wall cavities of the original construction. There was also no rot. Where subsequent additions were attempted with insulation and a normal vapour barrier, there was rot. I will not use Tyek or Typar building raps as I have seen the decay from lack of breathing of the frame and sheathing. On the Coast we have to use rain strips over the building raps (I still use breathable tar paper) under the siding which is actually a good feature but not much different from the lath which was used under the original stucco (over the tar paper). One of the worst things that happened on the Coast was the Architects that designed flat roofs and stucco walls without overhangs. That was the cause of the “leaky condo” phenomenon which lead to some of these requirements. Architects still design such structures.
Stick-frame insulated buildings in cold climates require an air-tight air/vapor barrier on the interior to keep moisture generated by occupants from migrating into wall cavities, condensing on the back of the exterior sheathing, soaking the insulation and causing rot. Yes, the wall has to ‘breathe’ to the dry exterior to let any moisture escape and keep the wall cavity and insulation dry. Plywood and other impermeable exterior sheathings cause rot as they don’t let the moisture escape. It’s much better to use Tyvek sheathing and diagonal 1×4 for wind bracing instead of plywood. We recently did a siding upgrade on a 35 year-old house built to R2000 specs and there was no evidence of any moisture damage in the walls.
This is basic cold-climate building science which has advanced significantly in the past 40 years here in Canada’s North.
I use 8″ diagonal shiplap for a breathable sheathing but it isn’t widely available.
nice try butt no cigar for you. Those 3rd world hovels are no comparison for what this article promotes. The idea is not all that bad as some in here try to indicate.
We’ve found buildings over a hundred years old, sheathed with shiplap, insulated with wood shavings, and airsealed with a continuous layer of plaster interior finish, that have little or no rot. Buildings sheathed with plywood or OSB, insulated with f-glas, and a haphazardly applied poly ‘vapor barrier’ show signs of rot in less than 20 years in the same climate. The worst are built on a bare dirt floor crawlspace with no ground moisture barrier. The roof trusses rot out in a couple of decades from the frost build-up in winter and the rot during the summer when the attic never dries.
“…These things look all cool and hip in the builders photos. …”
So do the conventional new homes I’ve spent ten years painting for a living. The quality of most makes me glad I shan’t own one when the warranty is expired. (And warranty fulfillment is just a way of getting what you paid for as part of the purchase price, most warranties are in effect insurance policies, not in any sense something that makes a builder get it right the first time to avoid an obligation to come back and fix something.)
Most of the homes made from converted containers that have impressed me were d.i.y. jobs by people with good skills and a bent for living cheaply and simply, and the same is largely true of other types of home construction, so I’m not the target market for a normal home anyway.
“Our units sell for about the same or maybe marginally more than a traditionally built garage suite would cost, but our time scales are far more competitive. We have a 10-week factory schedule and aim to be on site for less than a month.”
OK. So it costs more. Probably has less resell value and less “rental” appeal.
Not all ideas are good ones. Something tells me that more than 8 “garage suites” have been built in Edmonton since the their launch.