CONTAINER PROJECT PLAN

The steps required to achieve the container project plan.

1. ABOUT YOUR CURRENT LIFE SITUATION.

You may be finding yourself in difficult to manage financial living situation. Either the rent, or the mortgage, or power and living expenses are taking their toll. You need to create a solution. The longer you persist with the current dilemma the bigger the debt burden becomes.

2. SOLUTION & PREREQUISITES.

My container living option is a real solution. This solution is not suitable for everybody. So, here are a few prerequisites.

  1. You need to be prepared to pull up stakes and go and live somewhere in the country side. This may be away from family and friends.
  2. You may have to break a lease or sell the house. That will often take time and perhaps some costs.
  3. You need to have enough cash to pay for the containers and equipment that you require. Nobody is going to lend you against second hand shipping  containers.
  4. If you do not have enough cash, you may have to supplement with a personal loan.
  5. You will most likely have to change jobs, or if you are self employed try and establish in your new area.
  6. You have in your own mind decided that living in say 2 or 3 shipping containers is something that you and your partner can adjust to.

If you are prepared to do all this then you are ready to take your first step.

You can pop over to the container layout section.

3. THE VERY FIRST PLANNING STEPS.

  1. The very first thing is the find a willing land owner. This is not an easy task, but here are a few suggestions.
    1. You may know someone who lives in the country side and he might know of someone that is willing to talk.
    2. You might advertise in the land newspaper or the local paper of your area of choice.
    3. By chance I may have someone on my list in your area of choice.
    4. I don’t know how well this might work on Facebook or a local community site, but it could be an avenue.
    5. You might decide to go on a camping trip in an area and you can talk to the locals and see what that brings up.
    6. OK, let’s say you have found a willing landlord.
  2.  Now you have to show the landlord the agricultural tenancy extract and also refer him to my website. Make sure that the landowner is comfortable with the whole concept. I am happy to assist and talk to your prospective landowner(s).
  3. Now I would suggest that you do the tasks as mentioned in my essay named “Selecting a container site.pdf“, which you can download. You can involve the landowner, because he knows his property better than anybody else. Please work through the selection process. 
  4. There comes a point, when you start the negotiation about the rent, when to start and create the plans to attach to the agreement.
    1. Please be careful. Before you can commit to a starting date you will need to take into consideration the following events.
    2. When will the house sale settle — how much access road and site levelling is to be done — when can I deliver some or all of the equipment — how much work are you going to do? I must point out that it is not easy to get say an excavator contractor in the more remote country areas. I have a small excavator myself to fill the gaps. (when can you start, where do you live in the meantime, can you get contractors on site in time, how long will it take?) 
  5. NOW YOU HAVE A SPOT AND A WAY FORWARD. I will now concentrate on the discussions with us.

4. THE DISCUSSIONS WITH FREMA. 

We should start discussions as soon as you have found a willing landowner.

  1. First of all try and read most of my sections in the pages that relate to your project.
  2. Next how many containers do you want? Is it the very minimal of one 40ft, or two 40ft side by side, or the above plus a utility container? (The last one is my recommendation for comfortable living.)
  3. Now make a decision on off grid power and water collection and perhaps recycling.
  4. What is the layout of your living space on your 1ha piece of land?
  5. Following this decision, you need to determine if and how much of the work you want to do yourself.
  6. Having decided the work content, how much tuition do you need with that. It would be helpful if I get some idea of your experience and skill sets. 
  7. Once you have decided all that, let me do an up to date quote for you.
  8. At the same time I will try to give an expected delivery time for the various components.

5. THE NITTY GRITTY DETAILS.

Some might say this is the most difficult part of the project. There would be hundreds of small details that have to be decided. Not unlike a project when you have a builder build you a bespoke house. Things like where we have doors, where the TV screen in positioned, arranging the furniture, the colour scheme and more. I will just throw up a number of points that I will need to know to build you your containers.

  • It is my recommendation to start with the bathroom at one end of the container. My bathroom is 1.4 meters long, but I recommend to make that 1.5 meters.
  • Now the question is do we have the bedrooms next to the bathroom, or the galley kitchen? If you have visitors, it will be more convenient to walk from the dining or living via the kitchen, rather than via the bedroom.
  • The next two things that you have to decide is the length of the bedroom and similarly the kitchen. They are vital areas that need to be locked in first. My bedroom is 2.9 meters long, which is quite workable. It allows you space to walk around the bed on 2 or 3 sides. However if you have a second bedroom, the master may need to become 3.3 meters or something like that.
  • With respect to the kitchen, I do not have a stove as such. I have a one pot induction plate plus a convection microwave. I have baked a fruit loaf in my convection microwave. I also have an air fryer, where I prepare crumbed fillets of fish or chicken and also chips. I really do not need an oven, because they are a big lump of equipment and also expensive.
  • You can start by laying out the fridge at 600mm or 700mm, then the pantry at 450mm. That then leaves a area for bench space. In my case that is 1400mm.
  • Then for a galley kitchen you can match the other side. The Franke sink is 350mm, but you need space on both side for washing and drying. So add at least another 250mm on either side. That makes a total of 850mm. My bench is actually 1400mm plus then I have the appliance cupboard at 900mm.
  • Then you will need a broom cupboards, for brooms and vacuum cleaner and other uglies. My cupboard is 600mm wide. 
  • I had a gap between the bench and the broom cupboard, because I had a portable heater in winter and evaporative cooler in summer. But that won’t work with 2 containers side by side. 

6. NOW LETS STUDY 2 CONTAINERS.

When you add the second containers, it suddenly creates new opportunities, but also restrictions. I already mentioned that my portable air conditioner could no longer exhaust to the outside. But also wall mounted split system air conditioners, need the compressor mounted outside, somewhere near the condenser location inside. Also you can create a second bedroom, but that requires private access, but not via another bedroom. The complexity will increase.

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7. THE UTILITY CONTAINER.

My suggested layout divides this container into three sections. A water section, an electric power section and the balance for storage. I have arranged the storage part in the centre, keeping water and power away from each other. So, here we come.

  • The electrical substation is 2 meters wide, the same as mine. With the new type of lithium ion batteries I can house four cabinets, each with 20kW inside. My first batteries were only 10kW per cabinet. There can be 2 or maybe 3 inverters above the battery cabinets. At the end you can have you switchboard plus a monitoring board if you so desire.
  • As you will have an incinerating toilet, you do not need grey water to flush the toilet. so splitting into a fresh water stream and a grey water stream is not essential. I am actually purifying my used grey water from the shower and the laundry to be re-used in those two areas. But once more, it is not essential. Please read my water consumption section in the water recycling section. 

NO CONTENT YET.

You can go back to the following containers pages: —- introduction —- why did I change —- agricultural tenancy  —- the costs. —- costs page2 —- containers layouts

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