Welp I found the correct threads and now feel like a doofus.

Paper dresses were popular in the 60's.

There was a good Grand Design on a container home. One of the seasons that is on Netflix.

thanks guys, I'm currently binging Grand Design on Netflix, that will be exciting when I get to that episode :) I hope that works out for your brother jannicone :)

Only if you want the look, otherwise it won't save you money IMHO.

I've always wondered if they can be insulated sufficiently to prevent being an oven in the summer and a refrigerator in the winter...

@virgil - Yes, but you lose quite a bit of interior, or you lose the cool "container" look with outside insulation and siding.

And by the time they are made habitable you also have spent way more than you would have for a "tiny house" of the same size.

They are used a lot around here for vermin-proof storage - bermed over to make a root cellar, grain storage, etc.

"...@virgil - Yes, but you lose quite a bit of interior, or you lose the cool "container" look with outside insulation and siding..."

There's precious little interior to start with; losing any seems to make the idea pointless to me. Adding insulation to the outside, together with all the other exterior related materials, plus same for roofing seems so pointless to me...

I agree that conventional construction may make much more sense, but it doesn't have the "cool" look, unless one uses core-ten steel siding materials.

A lot of these silly housing ideas start in temperate climates with no need for AC and little need for heat, and few regulatory restrictions on plumbing. Pot culture Northern CA, Im looking at you.

I make no claim to this being correct, but some former students were looking to do some shipping container vacation rentals in a rustic area. They were hoping to capitalize on the modular idea to put in quite a few.

According to them, the process works like this, spend money on a shipping container and then spend 120% of what you would have spent without the shipping container in order to make it work.

According to them it was significantly more expensive than standard construction methods. Take it with a grain of salt, of course, but it is something to consider.

This still cost 150k NZ. + personal labor.

Huh, I knew insulation would be a creative challenge. My thought was to approach it from doing as much of the construction and outfitting myself as possible. I liked the idea of getting my hands dirty as it were, and the re-use aspect of using shipping containers that would potentially just be sitting in some port for years. My thought is not a tiny house, but rather a modest house that is enough space for me to be comfortable in, without being too much to take care of on my own. Thanks again for the input everyone.

I use/have a 20’ container at the rear of the property. One of the best investments I made; it was the first structure placed on the lot even before excavation and was my home away from home, not to live in but a solid structure on the property.

it’s curerntlly set back a lot more than in this pic and I’ll paint it green to blend in with the surrounding vegetation

There are large numbers of houses being built this way for many reasons. It's hard to avoid articles on this method. One of my neighbors with years of residential and commercial construction experience started his own company doing just that and has all the business he can handle, including international projects. The architect who designed my house has done a number of designs using shipping containers . As far as I'm concerned, it offers a number of advantages in certain situations. As long as you get a contractor who knows what he's doing, it's an entirely reliable way to build.