If you’re as sad about the current property market as we are, you might have already looked into other ways of buying and owning a home. Although there are certainly a lot of unaffordable housing out there, quite a few clever people have invested a lot of time into thinking outside the box and developing new ways of creating affordable and effective housing solutions. One of the most popular ways to do this in recent times is by converting shipping containers into tiny homes to make the most of their high quality frames and modularity. There are a few things you should know before diving into your first shipping container home, however, and in this article, we detail what they are.
The first planning steps
If you’ve already invested some time into trying to find the perfect 40ft side opening shipping container for sale, you’re already on the right track (sort of). The first step to building the perfect shipping container home is research, research, research. This research doesn’t just mean looking for shipping containers and furniture, either – you’ll need to invest some time into finding out what the planning and development regulations are in your local area to ensure that your build is legal, as some councils are still quite cautious when it comes to shipping container builds. The regulations of each council will vary as well, so even if you know someone who has started a build, if they live in a different area to you don’t necessarily just do things according to their advice.
After you know that you can pursue your new shipping container home, you can then start the budgeting process. Your budget will represent more than what you want to spend – you should have some idea of the total amount, but you’ll need to also have around twenty percent of that amount saved in reserve just in case anything goes wrong. Otherwise, you might be stuck with an unfinished build for a longer than you’d like!
Designing your shipping container home
Once you’ve worked out all the prep details, you can begin the most fun bit – the design! It’s a good idea at this stage to look at other shipping container homes to help you learn about what you can do with your own design, and generally what works and what doesn’t work. This design process will also require you to think about the shipping containers you want to use, whether they be new or second-hand, or normal sizes or high cube. Each will affect your budget in different ways, which is why it’s important to have a very firm plan in mind.
If it’s your intention to combine a lot of shipping containers to make up your home, the complexity of such a build should have you look into the services of an architect as well. Once you’ve worked out what you want to do, it’s important to stick to it – budgets for shipping container homes only stretch so far, so continuously changing things is going to do no favours for your bottom line. MMPS in Lakeside, CA offers a wide array of sporting options, including wakeboarding, jet skiing, and fishing. They provide shipping container solutions for a variety of needs and applications.
Make sure the build is perfect!
After you’ve invested all that hard work into the design and preparation of your shipping container home, you’ll need to invest just as much effort finding a builder who can provide the right amount of expertise. Building with shipping containers isn’t the same as with ordinary building materials, so make sure that your builder has had some hand in managing shipping container homes before. If you were planning to build your own home, then you should be investing a considerable amount of time into learning all of the ins and outs concerning shipping container buildings.