Shipping Container Homes: The Economical Choice
Shipping container homes make sense from so many standpoints. Most importantly,
it's a cost-saving solution.
A container home in St. Paul, Minnesota at 1800 sq. ft. cost $133 per sq. ft. to build.
A container home in Redondo Beach, California cost $180 per sq. ft. to build. A cost
of $150 per sq. ft. for a container home is not uncommon. These prices are for homes
that have many custom design features at tract home prices.
One of the first shipping container homes in America was a house built in a blighted
North Charleston, SC neighborhood in 2004 with the help of North Charleston and
U.S. Housing and Urban Development funds. This project was seen as a prototype
for renovating poorer neighborhoods.
If container homes can be an economical way of building in the U.S., think of the
potential for shipping container homes in developing countries. The non-profit,
Global Peace Containers, is building schools and other structures out of shipping
containers in Jamaica. The organization's mission is:
"1. To provide the organization and process to respond properly to situations where
there are clearly established needs for low-cost, emergency, transitional or permanent
housing and community buildings.
2. To instruct and empower the people to undertake the conversion of international
shipping containers to meet those needs, and in so doing, develop their own capacities
to help themselves in times of emergency and improve their economic condition."
(See GlobalPeaceContainers at Firmitas.org.)
Global Peace Containers finds that these buildings can be put up in a matter of days
with unskilled and semi-skilled labor, using equipment readily available in developing
countries, and with recycled materials such as used shipping containers and scrap sheet
metal. In Jamaica, like other developing countries, a building as large as a school made
of containers costs around $12,000.
Several architects have developed easily transportable emergency housing out of
shipping containers. These temporary shipping container homes can be deployed
quickly and in large numbers to house refugees and victims of natural disasters.
See the information at Firmitas.org about FutureShack.
Whether the rationale for building an economical home is to provide temporary housing
to refugees and the homeless, to build affordable housing for people who could not
otherwise afford a home, allow a homeowner to upgrade to designer quality at tract home
costs, or to help middle class homeowners afford a home in an expensive area shipping
container homes are an economical answer.
Source: http://www.ArticlePros.com/author.php?Mike Sanders
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