Contractor with shipping container home experience (Boise, Garden City: houses, subdivisions, roofing)
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Hi Boise,
I will be moving there next year from Mexico and want to build a small shipping container home. Does anyone know of an experienced builder or contractor for this?
If novelty or perceived "environmental friendliness" is your motivation for wanting a shipping container home, and cost effectiveness doesn't matter to you, then it's probably a good idea.
Converting a shipping container into living space isn't necessarily practical. The container ends up being nothing more than steel siding and roofing. Perimeter walls, floor and ceiling must be constructed on the inside to contain plumbing, wiring and insulation, and to fasten finished surfaces to. There are many wrong ways and only one right way to do this. The right way prevents having to penetrate the container with fasteners. Doors and windows must be cut out carefully, then the openings trimmed out cleanly. All this is labor intensive and expensive.
If money is an issue, you might consider weighing the cost versus building conventionally, or even a tiny house.
One issue you will find is that most communities won't allow a shipping container home since the communities typically require site built homes and certain roof pitches. If you don't mind living out further into the country outside city limits and zoning restrictions, you will have better luck. We face the same issue placing even top of the line manufactured homes into subdivisions.
How interesting.
Not sure if you've found a builder and worked out all the details yet -
but my friend Laurence Pokras does this and you can contact him here: Bio
He's an architect and has been working on shipping container homes for a while -
see if he can help you if you like.
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