Container homes are built with shipping containers. They are very affordable; suit your budget, and strong enough to become the framework for a home. Building a shipping container home is quite easy task. Builders join one or several containers onto a regular foundation, cut windows and doors in the container walls, insulate the modified container walls and roof properly to resist heat and cold during the worst climate conditions, decorate it with contemporary style - a container home turned modern home. The modular structure of shipping containers means that they can be simply attached to each other without hard labor. This allows architects to create interesting and unique contemporary modular home designs.
Cost of shipping container is affordable for everyone. Economically medium families afford it easily. The cost of a 40-feet cargo container is about US$1100-1200. As you can imagine, building a home made from shipping containers is very inexpensive. In general, the cost to build container home is half that of the cost of building a conventional site build home. Container or prefabricated homes are low cost, very strong, have a fast construction time, easy to remodel or modify, and shipping containers are widely available in all countries.
However, there is some disbelief with the benefits of these alternative homes. For instance, it is argued that the high heat conductivity of metal steel requires better insulation for such homes in comparison to the usual brick or wood houses. Also, there is major concern of the health risks that originate from the original flooring of shipping containers, which are frequently treated with harmful chemicals and some other harmful toxic. The original flooring of shipping containers is always removed before construction begins.
Shipping containers can also be used for emergency housing or shelters. The recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan has left 80,000 to 100,000 people homeless. Shipping containers could be used to house the homeless people and provide them very much needed comfort or sustain life, privacy and relief. They could also be used to create temporary schools and office buildings. The build time will be very short which is what the country needs right now. Though prefabricated and container home is a new concept, the popularity and public interest in them is growing very rapidly in many countries of the world. The obvious economic benefits, with the green eco-friendly, which are made from waste material, practices of recycling and sustainability, create a lot of opportunity for modern contemporary architects and manufactures to develop and improve the concept of container home.
