cargo Container as a WorkShop

[poundhound]

Forgive me if this has been addressed before. I did a search and it did not return anything.

 

I am currently working out of my garage. and want to move to a shop on my property. I am trying to decide between a steel building, or a cargo container. I was wondering if anyone has tried using a shipping container as a shop. I have one now I use for storage and wood working. they are 40 feet long, 8 feet wide and 9 feet high. the sides and roof are heavy gauge metal. the floor is plywood, so that would have to be addressed.

 

I guess the restricting factor would be the 8 foot depth, they can put an 18 foot roll up door on the side. would expect to work with the door open.

 

cargo container 4k, steel building 25k

 

any thoughts? any one tried this?

 

PoundHound

[Charles R. Stevens]

Set another container beside your existing one and top it with a car port. Say 20x40 now you have a big shop and bullet proof storage.

[AmosC]

Charles has it right. Even just come off of one side with a roof and use the seacan for storage. I have a 40 footer for steel storage and just the hammer tapping setting the floor to ceiling racking in place was enough to drive me crazy-I couldn't imagine working hot steel on the anvil in there!

[Albert A Rasch]

Fellows, 
Out here we call it LOGCAPing! LOL! (Logistical Civilian Augmentation Program)
 
Place them square and 24 feet apart. You can order trusses and and roof over the whole thing or a 10 to 20 foot section at a  time. comes out way cheaper than a steel building, gives you a 960SF shop between the two conexes, and if you build up the floor with a 5% portland to dirt mix and compact it, you have a virtually indestructible work surface.. Keep one conex as is and use it for storage, and cut into the other one to use it as a machine shop/woodworking shop, or whatever you desire.
 
I've been planning on doing the very same thing when I get home.
 
Best regards!
Albert A Rasch
The Rasch Outdoor Chronicles

[tzonoqua]

I have a friend who uses one, he's a fabricator, not a blacksmith. As long as it's well insulated, the inside boarded out, it should be fine- if it's not though you can run into problems with condensation from the metal roof/ceiling, (as my friend does!), although climate may have a lot to do with that, it's damp and cool in England, maybe not so much in California.

[jawno]

Condensation would be my big concern as well. I researched building a shop this way a couple years ago. A fellow from the local community college told me that their auto shop program stored a dozen newly rebuilt V-8 engines in a cargo container for a Winter. When they opened it up the next Spring the engines were all rusted so badly that they all needed to be rebuilt again. I decided to go with more traditional construction techniques instead. Now maybe if your opening the doors every day then condensation wouldn't be as much of a problem but I decided that containers and metal don't mix real well. I live in the rainy NW US. YMMV 

 

Have a good one,

[Bentiron1946]

I saw a fellow out here that had them stacked two high, the very long ones, in a "U" with a cat walk to access the top three. Over the open area of the "U" he had a crane that he could access all of the open area and even put items onto the catwalk so he put them in the top storage. He wasn't an artist but he worked on truck engines and did welding jobs but I sure envied him his set up. I sure would have loved something like that when I was making sculpture. Oh, and he had it covered with an arched corrugated steel roof, nice set up and he did all the work on his own.

[rlbaker]

Bought a container a few years back for general storage and the inside smelled as if it had been drenched in DDT or some other nasty chemicals. It was strong enough to literally start choking you when you walked in. I figured it would air out pretty fast and I loaded it up with stuff. I should have pressure washed it several time s and painted it with a few coats of that special paint they use on studs/framing that has been in  a fire cause that toxic smell has has permeated the stuff I put in storage. Who knows what kind of  bad news chemicals have been spilled in some of these containers.Anyway I've got a neighbor that has put two boxes  on a slab with a nice space inbetween and spanned everything with a truss roof and it works great. He is very happy with the setup.

[Albert A Rasch]

Fellows,

 

Good point on the condensation, that had slipped my mind. Because they're opened and closed all day long, that's not as big an issue here. But, you get a cold day, with a person working inside, and you can quickly see condensation on the door and window edges. You get three or four guys in there doing something, and the walls get ice crystals/frosted. If you store wet or damp things inside or you have it open throughout a damp day, (or you live in Seattle!) and then seal the doors, the moisture has no place to go. 

 

Remember, conexes are xxxx near watertight so if you don't have ventilation, you will have condensation/mosture  issues. Once you cut it up though, the issues diminish. It's just like having an unheated garage. You have to protect what's inside.

 

Many of the conexes that you read about have insulating materials sprayed on the outside to minimize the issue. You can't insulate on the inside, unless you do the outside first. Moisture will accumulate between the insulation and the metal wall and cause you no end of problems!

 

Taking that into consideration, you can still come out way ahead, again if you plan for it. Conexes are secure and near indestructable. In some areas they are so inexpensive that even with the caveats we've discussed, they're still a bargain.  If power is available, and you use one for storage, consider a dehumidifier. You can also place a exhaust fan in the back and run that off a thermostat/humidistat if it's a weekend shop that sees limited use.

 

Best regards,

Albert A Rasch

[HWooldridge]

We have four of the 40' containers and installed two rollup doors on one side of each box so we don't have to load from an end. Condensation used to be a problem but we leave a couple floodlight bulbs burning 24/7 which is just enough heat to keep the inside dry.

[HWHII]

I have had 2 friends who have used containers as shops. One has made a 8'x 20' awning that folds down off one side, so he can just load it up and move his shop when needed. It would definitely be a option for me if needed. You cans see pictures of it at the AABA web site,  az-blacksmiths.org March 2012 newsletter.

[poundhound]

I have had 2 friends who have used containers as shops. One has made a 8'x 20' awning that folds down off one side, so he can just load it up and move his shop when needed. It would definitely be a option for me if needed. You cans see pictures of it at the AABA web site,  az-blacksmiths.org March 2012 newsletter.

 

thanks for the link to the site, it has lots of great info in the news letters.

 

looks like he used the side of a container as one wall for his shop, I may do a 18 foot door with an awning that way I can keep tools etc inside and lock them up.

 

condensation not normally a problem Menifee is in California desert, just rains a few times per year, otherwise mostly dry.

 

PoundHound

[jawno]

Then I'd say go for it. Some interesting designs mentioned in this thread. You might check local building codes would be my only other caution. The code here requires that there be a permanent structure in addition to and prior to a container being placed on the property. May not be a problem anywhere else though.

[Old N Rusty]

I been dreaming of  a barge made of two 40' containers with a big open space between them for raising sunken logs here in the swamp . 

[Albert A Rasch]

Big business that of raising old cypress logs out of the waterways and swamps. Beautiful old growth stuff that hasn't seen daylight in a hundred years or more.

 

Albert

 

PS: So I go to check on logs raised out of the swamp, and of course, they have a show about it...