Affordable housing

Hello everyone I just wanted to share something I've been planning for a long time now and maybe some people could get some ideas for a home or shop from this.

When I am of legal age to move out I will be purchasing a small piece of land, and 1 40' x 8' x 9' 6" cargo container to live out of. It will be 230 sq ft and be fully up to the nebraska building code with proper insulation, windows, foundation, and more. It will have 3 windows a full bathroom French entry doors, kitchen, living room. It is going to be tight but eventually I will expand. This is the smart way to go because each container only costs about 3000-4500 new or used. These also give you cheaper insurance because of there fire safety ratings. If one of these is secured to a foundation, a tornado is no match. These also exceed structural minimums by a lot and all I have to do is Frame and insulate the inside. I will be using a small tankless water heater for all my hot water. I estimated 20k without labor, and this is with all the dream kitchen and stuff, which I can do without. So I'd say I can get it all done for under 20k total.

sounds awesome good luck on a fast fun build and be sure to include a lot of pics we love pics

Man I wish I thought like you when I was your age. Keep it up man. Your doing awesome.

Here's a good book on the subject.

40 x 8 = 320 SF. There I just increased the size of your house. Lol
Really that is a very good idea. I have seen some pretty awesome designs for a double wide. They cut out an arch way between the two, And used the cut out arch piece for a roof over the front door.
I might build one myself someday.

Plus, you can have your home moved fairly easily. I knew a couple who converted a school bus for that reason. When work required them to move, they just fired the engine up and went.

The main thing is to keep it affordable. Avoid debt at all costs!

If you live in a storage container what will you keep your scrap in?

Another storage container.

Devin,

Play your cards right when purchasing a container. Sometimes you can get one that was refrigerated and therefore is insulated already so you dont have to. But don't buy sight unseen! I was offered a sea can for a project I was working on some years back but it was a 12 hour drive away so I had a buddy in the city go over and take a look. Yup. Good deal. Right. If you didn't have a nose. The fridge compressor failed when it had a load of something that could rot in it....

I've mixed feelings about putting all that effort into a sea can. It won't add a heck of a lot of value to the property. Getting some permanent buildings on there is what you need to look at to build equity over just the raw land value.

Depending on how good you are with your hands, you might consider building a 2 car garage on the property you buy. A couple of my buddies did that after we got out of school. Built a garage and lived in it while they built a house on the same property. A bit of a roundabout way but you end up with something that is worth a lot of money in the end.

If you do the math, it is pretty hard to beat standard stick frame construction for cheap enclosure of space. (if you do the work yourself, just buying materials.) And unless you plan on doing very little inside the sea can for finishing, you are going to have to put up studs and drywall anyway to hold the insulation and the finished wall. And to cover the wiring, unless you wire with armored BX cable.

Its not hard to meet the minimum standards for building with stick framing.

Insurance is NOT going to like anything that is out of the ordinary. Fireproof or not. They probably would categorize it as a mobile home.

Hopefully some of the guys who do this kind of stuff for their 8-5 living will chime in with their opinions. Sledge? Scrappah?

But you got the right idea! Good for you!

Jon.

In Nebraska I would look at below grade first, depending on the land. A few feet of earth is cheaper and more effective than any manufactured insulation. Above grade, there are various options for nice thick walls full of free dirt.

Wow lots of great replies, Some pics will be below of an initial sketchup, I did not include some things because of the softwares limitations such as tankless hot water heater, ac and heater, and other

I believe saying building a normal home this size would be cheaper is a good idea as more of an investment that I could get my money back from, but the cost of building a home like that is far more than this for these reasons.

Storage container already has structure, and outer walls for the cost of under $4k

Building a home the same size you have the following costs: Siding, shingles, framing (proper headers which storage containers do not need because of the strength), sheathing, joists, subfloor, rafter framing, roofing underlay, roof sheathing. Now just for the fun of it lets do the rough cost of this. To frame a house its around $4-9 /sq ft. So lets say we do it all ourselves, and its $5/sq ft 320 sq ft. = $1600, framing for storage container for insulation is on the low side of $500. Now subfloor I calculated $600, and another easy $1400 for sheathing and roof. Easy 1,500 for a roof. Siding youll be spending upwards of 4k depending on the siding type. Thats already around 10k WITHOUT ANY INSIDE WORK, and I didn't even include all the costs. (Don't quote me on my estimates)

Also I considered a mobile home, but they are very expensive, and in my opinion all the used ones I saw up for sale look very trashy, and a shipping container can give me the modern look.

For a shop I will be buying some more containers to put next to it most likely, and eventually combine like 10 to build a nice modern house that will have good resale value.

Also yes believe it or not certain insurance companies will classify container homes seperate from mobile homes.

I've thought this plan out a lot, so I am confident this is what I want to do, and ill do it! I've emailed building inspectors, cement people, electricians, plumbers, realtors, container sellers, and many more people to see my prices laid out.

And yea sorry meant 230 sq feet

Ill actually be purchasing a tall mouth container that will be 9' 6" tall, not 8' 2"






Also how would I do it below grade, I feel like it would just rust out, and also do not think it would pass building code... Some of the the regulations include having to have windows you can escape from in each room, having proper thickness and r level of insulation, and other crazy stuff.

You are into it and obviously doing the required learning and planing. Keep us posted and good luck, I like your vision and "out of the box" (no pun intended) thinking.

This is totally sensational to me, I've never seen this container house before in my life.