Buy Shipping Containers for Conversions: Where to Get Started

Shipping containers aren’t just for transporting or storing things – as you can see from the Gateway Gazette they are often seen as a blank canvas to be converted into a wide range of different things.

Over the years we have seen them converted into mansions and coffee shops but at the more imaginative end of the spectrum, spies’ frontline operating bases and secret missile launchers!

A box that can be turned into almost anything!

While we can’t install a missile launch system or put in computers to decode enemy communications, there are many different ways that we can help you convert shipping containers to adapt them for new uses, including:

• Installing windows

• Cutting new doors

• Joining them together to increase space

• Installing electricity

• Adding extra security

• Including shelving

• Adding insulation

• Including air conditioning units

• Partitioning the space

As you can see, there are almost endless ways that you can modify shipping containers to put them to use in new and innovative ways. If you are going to buy shipping containers to be modified, you do not have to have any technical knowledge of your own.

If you want to convert a shipping container with us at Gateway Container Sales, you can show us a basic sketch or idea of what it is that you want, and our team will be able to help bring your vision into reality by saying what can or can’t be done.

Thinking outside the box…

A shipping container will be typically 3, 6 or 12 metres long and a certain height or width to begin with. Though there are limits, when you are converting a shipping container you are not limited by its dimensions, for example, the sides of the container can be cut out to add length or width. Additionally you can purchase shipping containers to be stacked on top of each other to create more space. Although they are only designed to be stacked eight high using their existing structures, you aren’t otherwise constrained by their basic dimensions. The only limit is your imagination!

You can:

• Take the side walls off and attach them side by side

• For a double-height space you can remove the floor off one and ceiling from the one below

• You can join them as a T with a hole in one’s side and removing the doors from another

• Cantilevering is possible with added steel supports

• You can add outside structures so people can access units in a multi-storey block

Speed and cost!

Speed and cost are the core reasons people choose to use shipping containers as their building blocks for their architecture and other uses. To build a bricks and mortar space the same size as, say 4 to 6 shipping containers, requires a lot of man-hours in putting the thing together. Instead they can be cut and fitted out here at our Brisbane base and then dropped into place at a blistering pace.

In saving man-hours so you are saving money in the construction of the unit.  It is important to realise that even though when you buy shipping containers to convert at very affordable prices, the more that you modify them the more the price will increase. In most cases however, the total cost to buy shipping containers and have the modifications done will still be substantially lower than it would cost you to have something built for you from scratch.

Sales of containers are booming as more and more people see just how affordable and versatile it is to purchase shipping containers and have them remodelled. Contact us today to discuss how you can purchase a second hand shipping container to use as a base to remodel.