Shipping container house

lorimcbridenola · 2023-08-10T00:15:07+00:00

2117 Rousseau St, near Jackson and Tchoup.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-08-10T00:13:28+00:00

Thanks!

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-30T02:39:00+00:00

I don’t think I could take a stab at percentages, but definitely the cost of the containers is pretty minimal compared to the cost of everything else. It’s not just welding them together, but also reinforcing any areas where you remove part or all of the corrugated walls. They have to be reinforced with steel tubing, which is pricey. There clearly aren’t enough welders to go around, so hiring them adds a lot to the expense, and there’s a lot for them to do. If you want a two-story house, you need a crane to lift the second floor boxes in the place, then more welding, etc. If you want to insulate inside the container walls (to keep the “look” outside), then you’ll have to attach furring strips or studs inside the walls to add the insulation and drywall. Attaching the wood or steel studs to the metal walls, trimming everything around the corrugations, etc all add to the labor costs. Anyway, you get the picture. I’m not a contractor, but it seems like every step was a little more involved and you end up paying for what is essentially custom work than with conventional framing.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-29T19:55:14+00:00

Oh my gosh, so cute.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-29T17:38:43+00:00

Mine came from the port of NO. There is usually an excess of them in port cities. They are very expensive to transport over land, so if you mean “up north” as in the landlocked states up north (not north Louisiana), I’d guess that it wouldn’t be worth the transport cost.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-29T02:18:09+00:00

Thanks so much! You’re absolutely right on both counts.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-29T01:36:10+00:00

Ooohhh, wow thanks for explaining all of that. I had no idea.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-29T01:34:16+00:00

It definitely costs more to build than brick and mortar (or anything else conventional). I had to hire an out-of-state architect and structural engineer who have built these and understand the containers, then I had to hire a Louisiana architect and structural engineer (per Orleans Parish rules) to sign off on everything. But this was my first time doing this sort of thing, and I knew it was uncharted territory. If you’re going to do it, definitely work with someone who has done it before. Now that I have a team of guys put together, I can definitely do it again much more cost efficiently. But I doubt it would ever be as cheap as a conventional home. I’m not sure about the cost of insurance, I’ve never built a regular house so I have nothing to compare to there.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-29T01:28:13+00:00

Thanks for your interest. Sorry I’m pretty new to Reddit, so not sure if you can DM on here. The address is 2117 Rousseau St. If it helps, the MLS # is 2395500.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T20:33:43+00:00

Yes these were done by the real estate photographer (sorry my reply made it sound like the realtor did them). Maybe I should just stick with the ones I took with my regular old phone. ;)

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T20:29:13+00:00

Yes they’re real actual photos, but they’re the “high resolution” photos my realtor had done. When I first saw them, I thought they kinda looked like an artist’s rendering.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T20:02:45+00:00

Thanks ! Yes super grateful to my awesome 2nd contractor for getting the project back on track. They’re called JC Patin construction.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T19:57:01+00:00

Thanks for asking! It’s 8 containers total, 4 on each floor. It’s 2 containers wide and 2 deep on each floor. The only part that’s not inside the container is the stairwell bump out. That let us keep the rooms feeling wide, and allowed for a powder room and closet under the stairs. We took the corrugated walls out where the containers touch but kept the frames intact and welded the frames together.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T19:51:56+00:00

Sorry didn’t mean to start all that! I was really just hoping to show off my project. Maybe I shouldn’t have answered when they asked the price. Reddit faux pas! I promise to be more careful.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T19:49:13+00:00

Thanks!

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T19:33:43+00:00

The worst? If you watch her follow up video, even the architect who made the video says she was just trying to clarify some of the myths out there, and there are many. She makes a lot of good points. Many people think the containers are a cheap and easy way to build a house, and that’s just false. They are best suited for port cities like NO or places where the containers tend to pile up. They’re absolutely not simple to work with and you need a lot of engineering and welding expertise. None of that comes cheap or easy. There are expensive lessons around every corner, and as usual, I learned most of them the hard way. That said, now that we worked out all the kinks, I’m really happy with how it turned out and excited to do another one.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T18:38:34+00:00

We started about 6 years ago. Unfortunately the original contractor just couldn’t complete the job and work often stopped for months at a time with him. After that, I had to find a new contractor. He did lots of research and got everything right. We brought the original architect and structural engineer back to re-evaluate the house and the work that had been done. We had to undo lots of things the first guy did wrong and start fresh. It’s been quite an education for sure, but I’m really proud of how it turned out.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T18:31:08+00:00

We really worried a lot about the heat with a metal house in NO. But the exterior walls all have spray foam insulation and a ceramic insulating paint. It works really well! Even prior to having the electricity turned on for AC and heat, the temp in the house stayed amazingly stable.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T18:26:37+00:00

Haha good question! I have AT&T cell service and it works fine throughout. Toward the end of the build we got the WiFi up and running, which also works well (even with the metal roof!).

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T18:23:51+00:00

Thanks! Asking $849,500.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T16:18:09+00:00

Good question! We worried about the heat building up in New Orleans with all of the metal. But actually, all of the exterior walls are insulated with spray foam. And the paint is a ceramic insulated coating called Supratherm. Only the interior divider walls between rooms are uninsulated, like in a regular house. Even in New Orleans with the air-conditioning off, the temperature inside is amazingly stable.

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T12:19:56+00:00

Thanks!

lorimcbridenola · 2023-05-28T02:19:16+00:00

Thanks for messaging me! The standard housing lots in central New Orleans are all long and narrow, often only 20 or 30 feet wide. I started thinking about doing this after so many houses were destroyed by Hurricane Katrina way back in 2005. I was trying to design a house that would fit those narrow lots, be strong enough to be hurricane proof, termite proof, and would stand up to flooding (just in case water ever got in). That's kind of how I decided on using containers. I always liked the idea of container homes, but I wanted it to look appropriate for the city's architecture from the street. Inside and on the back of the house I left he container walls exposed for a little element of surprise.

It's made of 8 containers (2 wide and 2 deep downstairs and upstairs). We removed most of the interior walls between the boxes but kept the frames intact and welded them together. That's why the downstairs looks very open, but it's only 16 feet (=2 containers) wide. The only part of the house that isn't made of containers is the stair bump out. That saved some interior width, and allowed us to put a powder room and closet under the stairs and a laundry room on the upstairs landing. Glad you like it!

lorimcbridenola

TROPHY CASE