CONTAINER HOME COSTS
YOU TOO CAN BUILD YOUR OWN CONTAINER HOME AND SAVE A PILE OF MONEY.
I built this in my early 80’s. I am convinced that, if you are fit and can handle basic hand tools, you can do this too. In my container Ebooks, I explain every step for you, including reasons why, plus material costs.
Details of the costs are in this section.
My objective was to create a comfortable living space, in other words a container home, at an attractively low-cost.
How does less than $120,000 sound or less than $185,00, when we include the power & water?
[The detailed figures were my costs, but the summary totals have been adjusted by an extra 30 pct to allow for inflation.]
CONTAINERS.
First let us determine what you need to be truly comfortable as a family unit. Your home really needs to be 2 containers side by side with one or two openings (passages) between them. And it requires one utility container, which is separate and that houses, laundry, pump house, electrical substation and storage. The cost of container fluctuates very much and is dependent on demand. But let’s take a stab at it. Each container, hicube, painted and refurbished say $5000 each plus freight say $1000 each and site costs to create a level pad.
You will need to allow some costs for site preparation, but that is very hard to estimate. But it would not hurt to set $5000 aside for that.
Container purchase $5000 each.
Freight $1000 each. Subtotal $6000 each.
Total for 3 is $24,000.
Plus a once up $5000 for site costs.
ESSENTIAL NEEDS FOR EVERY CONTAINER.
Now lets do some decking out . Please remember part of those are historical costs, from before Covid19, but they can be a guide. You can buy a spreadsheet with a complete detail of costs, quantity and suppliers for all the components. This spreadsheet has a customer experiment page that you can play with. The file is editable. But there is no labour allowed for to put this together, that will be you. The costs are per container and they are the basics or essentials required for each of them.
- A whirly bird, external roof access, metal wall frame, Earthwool insulation covered with sisalation, Insulated ceiling sheets.
- One personal metal door in the side.
- Basic internal electrical cabling, lights, power points, switches, breakers.
TOTAL BASICS: $7,500 for each container.
TOTAL for 3 is $22,500.
EXTRA FOR THE MAIN HOME CONTAINER.
From the 3 containers only one has extra costs, that are specific to the home, like Bathroom, Kitchen etc. Also this is where taste and selection comes in, which makes cost estimates difficult.
- V-board wall covering & vinyl tiled floors.
- Better ceiling and roof insulation.
- Bathroom (incl shower-vanity-medicine cabinet-towel rails), & extra cost for bathroom decorative wall art panels.
- Extra internal wall with sliding doors.
- Incinerating toilet + stack, no septic system and no water required.
- Kitchen cupboards with doors , shelves, hinges etc (equivalent to 14x450mm space)
- Pantry & broom cupboards plus a special appliance cupboard.
- 2 marble laminate workbenches & splash sheets.
- Some electrical appliances & sink & taps.
- I have not included an oven or a cook top, because they a very bulky item. But I did include an induction cook top and a convection microwave.
- Because a container is a closed metal shell, if becomes a faraday cell. That means no electro magnetic rays in or out, therefore no mobile phone inside. This is solved with an outside aerial and an internal repeater.
- Two 5kW reverse cycle split system air conditioners, incl install.
- Optional exterior 8 Swann infrared & colour cameras plus digital recording.
- Plus a satellite disks for Foxtel and Starlink nbn.
The extras for mobile-aircon-swann-starlink-foxtel is about $6000.
All the above is already included in the home containers cost. So this home is ready for use!!!
Total for one home container: $32,000.
EXTRA FOR THE SECOND HOME CONTAINER.
If you have two home containers, then you need to take into account the essential container cost + extra.
Extra cost for the second home container is say: $4,500.
SPECIFIC COSTS FOR UTILITY CONTAINER.
The third utility container, off course needs the essentials plus a few extras.
- It needs all the walls clad with V-board, but the cost is reduced, because you do not need the expensive wall art panels used in the bathroom.
- What does add to the cost, is the two extra personal doors over and above the one in the essentials. The utility has an electrical substation, a pump house/filtration/ laundry part plus a storage area in the centre. Separate access is very desirable.
- Then there is the laundry equipment, which includes an electric drier, plus an 80L hot water system, tub, plus garden hose & garbage tins.
TOTAL extra cost here $5,300.
COSTS FOR ELECTRICAL OFFGRID.
Let’s start with a modest entry level of $20 kW battery capacity. (I expanded my original installation three times up to 40 kW.)
- Batteries incl cables, BMU, Box, Battery inverter for 20kW.
- 8 Solar panels @415W each + frame + solar inverter.
- 8kVA generator plus simple switch board and earth.
- Plus the main switch board & feed from the substation to the containers.
TOTAL COST $31,000.
COST OF WATER INFRASTRUCTURE.
This costing will be a bit pie in the sky, because there are so many variables. How extensive do you want to recycle, distances and does your area have a lot of rainfall, what about the slope of the land. I have done a rough estimate in the spreadsheet.
- There are several 10,000L tanks with level indicators & some smaller ones, gutters.
- Laundry discharge tank & pump.
- Water filtration 2 streams 4 filters each & pressure pumps.
Without grey recycling $12,000.
An extra $3,000 for grey treatment.
TOTALS FOR EACH SECTION.
figures rounded to $1000.
Site costs for the lot $5000.
Main home container $46,000
Second home container $18,000.
Utility container $19,000.
incidentals $2000.
So, the total budget cost is around $90,000.
but there are always extra things, like gravel between the containers, grading an access road, fencing, etc etc. But you also have to take into account some price increases.
= = = = = = = = = = = = = = =
Electric power $31,000
Water supply system $15,000
Total infrastructure $46,000.
But no more mortgage, no more electricity bills (maybe some fuel for the generator), no water bills, no sewer bills, no council rates (because the landlord pays that), but you might pay $110/week rent.
How is that for a cost effective home for 2 people change from $150,000.
but don’t spend the change yet!!!!!
You can buy the cost spreadsheet from the Ebooks shop. I am showing the introduction page to give you a feel for the contents.
Here are the links to the other pages relating to container homes living:
Shipping container homes (intro) — Containers how to start — Container project plan.
You can also explore what I did with my off grid power and also my water usage and grey water treatment pages.
If you want to have a look at the container ebooks, you can look at the indexes, to see what is discussed. If you want to inform yourself more you can buy them and read them as part of your preparation.
