We found a block of land in a beautiful area on the foothill of the Toolangi state Forrest in Victoria Australia. The previous owners of the block lost their house to a devastating fire in 2009, which was televised internationally and became known as Black Saturday. We purchased the property in 2011 with only the remnants of a home and a decaying concrete wall garage.

I'm building a shipping container house with a friend from uni. I work as a product design engineer and my friend is a fire fighter. We don't have the funds to pay a builder or have people to come and do lots of work for us, so we are doing it all ourselves. By law there are certain trades we have to use like a plumber, electrician etc, however we will keep this to a minimum and work with them to reduce the costs. We often have friends and family come to help for the day and we put on beer and sausages to keep the troops motivated.

Here are the basics.

-2 builders with "zero" experience with any type of housing construction. -2x ford flat-bed Utes, (aka: pickup trucks) -2 years of research and planning. -1x very steep block of land, 1/3 of an acre, with a rubble garage. -Plans for a 2 story house. -1x 50m long retaining wall. -8x shipping containers, 40 foot high cubes. -4x flat bed trucks. -1x 80 tonne crane. -Build location Healesville, VIC Australia. (around 1 hour east of Melbourne) -Total build budget 250k, AUD. (USD $235k today)

Some people ask why and we say "why not"?

Check it out and please let me know what you think! http://www.odpod.com.au/

*ps my first post on reddit, i hope i made it a good one!

Ive heard this concern mentioned with shipping containers when it comes to using them as homes, but wasnt sure if its true or if there is a way around it. Can anyone confirm this?

First: it's hot where I live. Not humid, but it can get stuffy from time to time. Would this be a problem in an ISBU? Do they get hot quickly since they're metal? Can they be ventilated easily?

Second: What kind of foundation would I need to prepare for these? Do I even need to prepare a foundation? And if not... what happens if the wind gets high (not likely where I live, but I'd like to be prepared for anything)? Would it simply lift off the ground and topple over onto it's side without a foundation to keep it grounded?

Third: What's the cost of one unit usually like? I understand it might vary or I might even be able to salvage some for little to no money, but if I were to purchase one outright, how much might it cost and where would I do that?

Fourth: are there any resources I should be checking out to help me in regards to construction do's and don'ts and/or tips for my first steps?

Excellent response! Thanks /r/isbu!

Hi everyone! I've got my land (38 acres in Northern CO), and I've got my plans: imgur album. I'm looking for any feedback I can get regarding the design, either from people who have done their own projects, or those who simply know more than me.

The screenshots are from a model I made using google sketchup, which is a great, free program for those who are not familiar with it. Unfortunately, I couldn't find a way to upload the explorable file itself.

A note. My major goals for this design are/were:

1. Use the existing concrete slab

2. Minimize the cutting of container walls

3. Create spaces by using the voids between containers

4. Have one single container that is heavily insulated and fully livable in its own right (the heated "core" container for winter use)

5. Meet the county standards for a "cabin"

Please keep in mind that this is a rough model, and a lot of details (like the windowed garage style doors on the bottom floor) have been left out for simplicity; a lot is still simply in my head. Thanks in advance for your input, and if you have any questions, feel free to ask!

Good afternoon everyone! My fiance and I just purchased some land in NY with hopes that it is going to become the future site of our shipping container home. While we're still deciding whether we just want two 40' or two 40' + one 10' to extend our living space, we would definitely like to absorb as much information as we can before we start sending plans to the powers that be for approval.

We did luck out and snagged 3 acres, zoned for agriculture right off of a road with utilities closeby for a pretty solid price. There are no building restrictions on the land, I can throw a tent down and build a barn to raise horses in...so I'm not worried about codes issues too much, but I'd still like to have a common sense approach about my planning.

Back to the point, I've been researching A LOT and I have stumbled across many resources but none as thorough as http://www.residentialshippingcontainerprimer.com/ and while they do have a lot of information, I'm not sure which applies to my specific situation.

The land has been surveyed, and is as flat as can be. Should I just stick steel posts in at the four corners of the containers and weld it all together leaving a crawlspace for purposes of insulation (it gets cold in NY) or just throw down a cement base and stick the containers on that? I'm still about a year out from actually starting construction, so I'm willing to accept any helpful resources/advice from /r/ISBU

Thanks for reading my essay, I look forward to the replies!

1 Container Home http://home.by.me/en/project/TVMC/1-Container-Home12x3

2 Container home http://home.by.me/en/project/TVMC/2-container-home-12x5m

3 Container Home http://home.by.me/en/project/TVMC/3-container-home-12x7%2C5m

4 Container Home http://home.by.me/en/project/TVMC/4-conteiner-Home

I'm wondering if anyone has any research on affects or stability or long lasting as compared to conventional building versus inclement weather; specifically hurricanes/monsoons, or even heavy snow?

A bit more; I am a full time university student studying business, the $US82,000 loan i spoke of would cover purchase of land, containers and all construction materials. I will do most of the construction myself with help from my father who is a qualified builder with forty years experience (i have some experience but no formal qualifications) I see this project as a fairly safe investment opportunity for myself as i hope to build a three bedroom (2 bath) home (from two 40 foot and one 20 foot containers) and the average house price in the area would allow me to turn a profit in selling the completed house, or renting it out would more than service the loan repayments.

I'm choosing to build a ISBU home for a few reasons...

• I have had a long standing goal to build a house from recycled materials, and really enjoy designing things to fit in restricted spaces

• I will be doing most of the initial construction in another city to where the final site will be.

• The city I will be doing the construction in was a recent natural disaster zone and as such has an excess of second hand building materials which makes them very cheap, i can save a lot of money.

• The section where the house is situated is a sloping dark hole and i believe the cheapest and easiest way to improve the section would be to raise containers up higher than the ground (on steel/concrete piles) taking advantage of the extra sunlight and ocean views!

Advice from anyone who has got to this point or beyond would be very much appreciated! can I really build a finished container house for $US66,000, at what stage in construction should i transport the containers to site, how difficult is it to remove the hazardous materials, how much can i remove from the containers until I need to reinforce them, any problems that came up in the middle of your projects etc. etc.