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Container project plan

CONTAINER PROJECT PLAN.

This is a project that can run over several years. In my case, with 10 containers it was 4 years. But in a 3 container project it might be 2 years. Therefore you need to have a plan, or at least a sequence of events.

I have already mentioned that container living, is not living rough? Absolutely not!  

I live in comfort and I have whatever I need at my finger tips. I am in connection with nature and I am loving it.

You are welcome to visit me and see for yourself.

Here are the container project steps.

The sequence of steps you need to take to progress in your container project.

1. About your current life situation or dreams.

Discusion-1.
If you are now living in suburbia it will require a considerable adjustment to your life. The pertinent question is are you and your partner ready for that? Are you willing to put 2 years of hard work on the line,  doing all this building work plus perhaps holding down full time jobs.

Discussion-2

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.

Discussion-3.

You have always dreamed of  living in a place hidden amongst the trees and in touch with nature.

2. Solution & prerequisites.

List of life changing decisions:
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.
  7. If you are prepared to do all this then you are ready to take your next step.

3. The very first plannings steps. 

How to find a property with a willing owner.

  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 some one that is willing to talk.
    2. You might advertise in the land newspaper or the local paper of your area of choice.
    3. I don’t know how well this might work on Facebook or a local community site, but it could be an avenue.
    4. 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.
    5. OK, let’s say you have found a willing landlord.
  2. Now you have to show the landlord the
    agricultural tenancy extract. Make sure that the landowner is comfortable with the whole concept. I am happy to assist you.
  3. Now I would suggest that you do the tasks as mentioned in my essay named“
    Selecting a container site.pdf
    “, which you can purchased from my site for 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 you get delivery of the containers & some or all of the equipment — when are you ready to undertake the fitting out task?
      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.

4. Make contact with the suppliers & trades.

Make a plan and fix the stages.

  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?
    I strongly recommend three, which includes the utility container? (If you don’t have that, where are the laundry, the batteries & inverters, the water pumps. You can put them in small garden sheds, but they still cost money.)
  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. What is the delivery time for the containers.
  6. How much earthworks are required and what is the contractors action time.
  7. Having decided the work content, then the question is how much tuition do you need with that.

Do you want to have a look at my instruction Ebooks about the container construction. Then please click the link.

5. The nitty gritty details.

Now come the layout 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 builds you a bespoke house. Things like where we have doors, where the TV screen is positioned, arranging the furniture, the colour scheme and more. I will just throw up a number of points that you will need to settle or fix.

  • 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 you have the bedrooms next to the bathroom, or on the other end.
  • Is the galley kitchen next to the bathroom or the bedroom? 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. These 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 walkaround 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 bake bread regularly 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 or dishwasher. Because they are a big lump of equipment, they are expensive to buy and run, they draw a high current and often need a separate electrical circuit.
  • 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 to support the 2,5kW (smaller air-conditioned). But I don’t need that any more with two 5kW air-conditioners.

6. Two containers joined.

Discussion.

  • When you add the second containers, it suddenly creates new opportunities, but also new 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.
  • All this needs to be determined, because you need to cut holes in the wall, where you have access to the adjoining spaces. Being able to move from one container to the other, without going outside, is a benefit. However having 2 separate containers also has benefits.
  • There is one thing to keep in mind, after installing internal walls the wall to wall distance is 2.1m. A single bed is 0.9m x 2m and a double bed is  1.4m x 2m. It will be extremely hard to place a prefabricated 2m bed into a 2.1m space.  place You are almost forced to place them in the length way of the container. Therefore having two containers side by side, provides new opportunities for the bedrooms.

7. The Utility container.

Discussion.

My suggested layout divides this utility 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.
  • The water section can have a combined laundry, filtration and pump house setup. In my initial setup the pumps were outside in a box and the laundry and filters were in a shed. In the later modification, I built a separate laundry, with benches & shelves. Also I brought the pumps into the shed. I also mix my weed, and ants nest killer solutions for spraying in the shed. I also still have a laundry tub, for disposing of unfriendly materials, which drains into a large pebble pit. 
  • As you will have an incinerating toilet, you do not need grey water to flush the toilet. I am purifying my used grey water from the shower and the laundry to be re-used in those two areas. But that is not essential. Please read
    my water consumption section
    in the water recycling section.
  • If you do not recycle your grey water, you do not need duplicate pumps and separate filtration setups. But you may need more fresh water storage capacity.

You can book a visit to my container city for you and some partners or  associates for a several hour exploration, where I will show you or answer you any of your questions or concerns. My fee for that is $330, but I would suggest no young children, as they will be a distraction against your benefit.

Please click link above. 

Here are the links to the other pages relating to container homes living:

Shipping container homes (intro) —Containers how to start— Containers build cost 

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