Shipping Container Homes: An Easier Way of Life?

It’s been nearly 10 years since the Redondo Beach house, the first mainstream shipping container home, was built. The home took the media by storm and paved the way for a new style of home construction. After the success of the Redondo Beach house, shipping container homes in the U.S. started to gain popularity—but why exactly are people building homes out of shipping containers?

You may have seen this recent blog post from containerhomeplans.org called: “What I Wish I’d Known Before Building My Shipping Container Home," and this gives us a good idea. It’s appears there are three main draws to building homes with shipping containers: cost, sustainability, and speed.

Sustainability

There are hundreds of thousands of shipping containers lying dormant throughout the U.S. as you read this. Recycling these containers requires around 8,000 kilowatt-hours of energy—the same amount that the average U.S. household uses each year! Meanwhile, converting the shipping containers into liveable homes requires only around 400 kilowatt-hours of energy.

Cost

Using shipping containers to build a home can yield some significant cost savings. A great example of this is the self-named Taj Malodge, which was built by Larry Wade for $35,000. The home is over 600 square feet and has a bedroom, bathroom, kitchen, pantry, and living room. Also, check out this tiny off-grid shipping container home built by Brenda Kelly for a similar amount, which allows her to live without the need for electricity, as her home is power by solar panels.

Speed

These homes have been built in literary a matter of months, since all that's required is simply to stack the containers up together. Once the containers are in place, they just need to be modified to the homeowners' specifications. This modification can be reasonably straightforward, as both of the homes mentioned above were built by budding DIY enthusiasts.

We’d love to know whether you want to build your next home using shipping containers—let us know by emailing us at newdream@newdream.org.