Shipping containers as homes

RAS

PasturesNew wrote: »

We don't need ideas. We need affordable plots of land in the right places to be able to stick a container or whatever. A shipping container is no different to a mobile home, or a chalet, or any one of 100 innovative housing ideas..... all of which ignore the elephant in the room: Cost of land, availability of land.

Agree PasturesNew

I think the big advantage of these (in city areas anyway) is that they can be stacked and can use short-term land that it ear-marked for future developments, then moved on.

Quite why planners seem happy with this but would probably not allow use of the same land short-term for caravans or mobile homes???

The big big issue in the UK is access to affordable land which permits dwelling (as we all know) Hence Simon Fairlie and co.

paddyrg

Bunkabins are used a lot for gigs and sites - based on containers but with plenty of comfort http://bunkabin.co.uk/deluxe-sleeper-single.html

http://bunkabin.co.uk/assets/images/Deluxe-Sleeper-Single-Floor-Plan.jpg

Better than a number of London hotel rooms ;-)

rabialiones

seems a good idea
could i place a chalet in my back garden instead of having an extension or a conservatory?

RAS

As long as is is ancillary accomodation (the occupier eats in the house, does their laundry etc with the rest of the household).

CLAPTON

Doozergirl wrote: »

You can easily insulate a shipping container to meet building regulations.

There's also nothing to say that you can't get planning permissionfor a box like structure.

I'm sure they meet every standard they need to. We've talked through doing one as an annex.

in which case it would be similar in price to an 'ordinary' property in the same location

motch

fufu_banterwaite wrote: »

I noticed this story in the Metro a few weeks ago:

http://metro.co.uk/2013/10/09/heres-my-home-its-simply-crate-could-thinking-inside-the-box-solve-housing-crisis-4140920/

Basically it is about a charity and housing association in London that have started offering shipping containers as affordable housing – the rent is £75 a week, which is pretty much unheard of in London!

I’m just wondering has anyone else considered buying a shipping container (or two) and converting it into a home? As long as you are happy living in a small space it strikes me as a particularly cost effective way of getting on the housing ladder.

I ask this as a single person in their early 30’s living in the South-East, who despite earning a decent salary, still can’t get on the housing ladder!

The £75 a week rent for London sounds great, nice and cheap....

But in terms of buying one to live in, in the South-East? it's the building land cost that's the issue, and the regulations. A small economically built house/bungalow on a plot wouldn't cost that much more than fitting out a couple of shipping containers to be honest.

Running_Horse

There was a "Homes Under the Hammer" a few years ago where they tried to get planning for something like this on a small scrap of land in Rochester, but the planners were having none of it.

There are some quite ancient railway carriages converted to homes on the shingle at Dungeness that sell for small fortunes to arty types. Probably not much left of the original carriages though.