Bookmark from 2002 I found about building a dream house out of shipping containers

I was cleaning out my bookmarks folder and found this old link I saved back in 2002 about turning shipping containers into houses. The site was just text and some grainy jpegs, no videos or anything fancy. The guy who wrote it claimed he built his 2 bedroom place outside Phoenix for like $18,000 total. Has anyone ever looked into these builds for real or are they all just internet pipe dreams?

2 comments

2 Comments

emma68416d ago

It's always funny how people skip over the part where the guy probably had to weld everything himself and own the land outright. 18k in 2002 money sure but that was back when a welder and a flatbed truck could get you pretty far if you knew what you were doing. I'd bet half the cost was just getting the containers delivered from the port to the desert, and the other half was realizing you need a ton of insulation so you don't cook alive.

brians2716d ago

You're absolutely right, people always gloss over the real work that goes into these builds. Back when I did something similar with an old shipping container for a workshop, the welding alone took me the better part of two weekends, and I had help from a buddy who actually knew what he was doing. The delivery fee from the rail yard to my property was almost as much as the container itself, too. And yeah, insulation is a nightmare - I spent another thousand on foam panels just so I wouldn't sweat to death in the summer or freeze in the winter. It's never as simple as just dropping a box on some land and calling it a house. You need a solid foundation, proper electrical, and all that stuff that adds up fast.