lets talk about shipping or sea containers

[dbcooper]

lets share ideas about how to best set them up, above and below ground

I would like to see what others have done to insulate, improve ventilation and the like

[Country101]

My old boss used to put window units and whirly birds on them. He even made a side door for it. He was trying to sell them as hunting camps. If I was going to try to insulate it, I think I would weld some kind of brackets on the wall so that I could spray foam the walls and cieling and then use those brackets to mount plywood.

[ozo]

The problem with welding on them is
burning off the paint, inside and out.

[ozo]

Pier and beam foundation works well.
Railroad ties on a thick gravel bed [with sand base]
works well.
A concrete slab works well.
Convection vents, 2" pvc pipe, one[or two] on each end,
at opposite heights. One end, near the floor, the other end
near the ceiling.
Any venting, etc., I suggest to be done on the sides, as opposed to
in the roof.......it is much easier to keep from leaking.

[ozo]

Insulation, depending on how 'finished' you need the interior
to be.....
Spray foam if you have the capability, but uneven and kinda ugly
if not covered.
Frame the inside walls and ceiling with 2x2's and use rigid insulation
panels between the studs.
Lay the container on it's side and spray foam the underneath [PITA]
or you can insulate from below if you choose pier and beam.
You can pack the underneath with fiberglass insulation before you
set it on a concrete slab, but suggest you plug the holes for the forks
and silicone around the bottom edge to keep critters from tearing
up the insulation over time.

[jack404]

folks i can see no-ones actually buried shipping containers

here a run down from this side first hand

1st... 2 conatiners welded together side by side with a door manifactured between the two

after heavy rains the containers that where 18 feet down started to float and lifted 4 and a half feet at one end

2nd... a single container buried was crushed when the soil became wet and caved in the sides and popped the seam on the top

back to double containers ( 3rd attempt )

4th .... 3foot of gravel and a sump pump in a 44 gal drum made into a giant filter

18 foot of soil over but train line and 3/8" sheets steel over the train line as a re-enforcement and anti crush cage and its ok

but took 4 attempts to get it right

[dbcooper]

Originally Posted by jack404

folks i can see no-ones actually buried shipping containers

here a run down from this side first hand

1st... 2 conatiners welded together side by side with a door manifactured between the two

after heavy rains the containers that where 18 feet down started to float and lifted 4 and a half feet at one end

2nd... a single container buried was crushed when the soil became wet and caved in the sides and popped the seam on the top

back to double containers ( 3rd attempt )

4th .... 3foot of gravel and a sump pump in a 44 gal drum made into a giant filter

18 foot of soil over but train line and 3/8" sheets steel over the train line as a re-enforcement and anti crush cage and its ok

but took 4 attempts to get it right

a guy I know took 2 - 8 ft diameter diesel tanks and welded them together at the ends.
he let them air out for 30 days and then buried them under only 3 ft of soil.
they floated to the top the first rain before they had anything done to them.

he had to go back to the drawing board also



I don't think I would bury mine even if I could, I had read what has happened to people hold up in bunkers.

If I have to fight it out, I'll take my chances at ground level I guess




I think I can mega-insulate one part of it to store shelf stable food and supplies because those things do get hotter than to mice screwing in a wool sock

then have another end for emergency shelter.

[ozo]

All over the south, from MO down [at least],
in days gone by.......
EVERYBODY that did not live in 'town',
had a root cellar.
Never saw a single one 'float up' .

[jack404]

no but i bet a lot got wet

root cellars dont act like boats in water

cellars get flooded and generally aint buried as deep as shipping containers

[ozo]

Originally Posted by jack404

no but i bet a lot got wet

root cellars dont act like boats in water

cellars get flooded and generally aint buried as deep as shipping containers

?????
Should I have said 'cache'....?

[soundguy]

one that I say here. guy had one delivered to the back of his farm. insulated the outside of it with foam board ( white 2" plus some blue rmax ).. then covered it with a coule layers of visquine and silicone sealer on the seems. .. then made an earth mound over it in a natural loking location. IE.. he made a terraced hill.. looked good.. was sound protection.. and had a secret door ont he other side as an escape hatch using some concrete drain pipe!

[FreeSovereign]

I would think if you put one in, in the fashion of a walk out basement, you should be fine as far as water infiltration goes. Side loads from the weight of the soil could be problematic.

We have been contemplating putting one in for a storm shelter and storage area, so at least partial bury is a must. A concrete cellar was going to cost $14,000 so that got taken off of the table.

[aa1911]

I've been wanting one for years, I hope to get one someday. I would just put one inside of a building like a shop/garage and concrete the sucker in place as best I could and store my gun safes and ammo in there. That way there'd be at least 3 locks to defeat to get my 'gats'.

We used sea/land containers for guard positions during the OIF invasion, sandbagged the tops and front sides; slept inside, guard up top. Pretty scary sleeping inside, the roofs were bowed from the weight of sandbags! none collapsed but it sure gave us a scare.

[Maine04657]

Having dealt a great deal with these I can offer a bit of advice here. First they are quite strong and you can bury any of the once with ribs without issue. As for buying one if you plan on using it in cold weather or underground I highly suggest you buy a ex refer unit. The refer ones will run you about the same price sans the refer itself ( refer is the refrigeration unit that is installed in the from of the container ) so you do loose about 2 foot of space but they are very well insulated between the walls and if buried the walls will not sweat and if used outside as my camp in Md was a very small wood stove will heat the whole 40 foot container and keep it plenty warm all night with 2 med logs. If the walls of the container are fiberglass or non ribbed then it is a RAIL container and NOT suitable for putting underground. They do not have the strength. Sea containers are made to be able to handle being stacked 30 plus high loaded on top of each other the rail containers are made to be stacked 3 high at the MOST..

[jack404]

tell that to the idiots who had a dope growing setup in one transfreight sea freight container have numbers so you can check ?

took 3 days to dig what was left of em out the walls are not meant to hold back wet soil either the welds or sheet will tear before then , and i've seen that myself

stated so from the manufacturer of the container at the inquest..

or is that wrong too ?

[ozo]

"or is that wrong too ?"--jack
Sorry if I rubbed your fur the wrong direction.....seems like I did.
Maybe I'm still confused. Root Cellars here are dug, not buried.
It didn't make sense to me ..your response.
Sure seems a lot of edginess around lately
I need to work in the yard anyway.

[dbcooper]

if you are underground and the SHTF and the bad guys find your air vent shafts, you an be screwed bad


Id rather face the music from behind good cover and with elevation on my side, (which I have)

I just want good water/weather/rhodent proof storage for my supplies and emergency living area incase something happens to the RV



this thing about prepping... you are never done and you never quite know exactly what will work best.. or at least that is my experiance

[Country101]

If you are going to bury these things, you need a couple pieces if large I beam welded to the bottom to keep them from floating. We made some pit blinds one time and they all floated out in a couple days. They had to rebury them with about 2-3 sticks of I beam sticking out 5' on each side to keep them down.

Adding some braces wouldnt be a bad idea either, from what Jack is saying. I believe he is right. While they are made to stack, thier strength is in the corners for vertical support. If you placed signifcant load on the sides or roofs, I can see them giving easily enough to collapse them since they are not built for that kind of pressure.

Personnally, I wouldnt want it buried and I would make some modifications by welding my brackets or shelves in. Yes, you burn paint off, but you can repaint. We had to fix quite a few that had holes in the roof. We would put plate over the hole and weld it. Then I think we used some kind of tar to seal it off even more.

Word of warning, if you get one and it has black stuff down the side, it's likely creosote. Grinding that off with a wire brush aint pleasant after about 20 minutes. My face burned for a while after I got it off of me. I didnt know what it was and it coated my face. Didnt burn me too bad, but my face was red for the rest of the day.

[Maine04657]

Originally Posted by jack404

tell that to the idiots who had a dope growing setup in one transfreight sea freight container have numbers so you can check ?

took 3 days to dig what was left of em out the walls are not meant to hold back wet soil either the welds or sheet will tear before then , and i've seen that myself

stated so from the manufacturer of the container at the inquest..

or is that wrong too ?

Many of the old ones where thin walled non reinforced. Most of the ones used in the past 10 or so year have the extra ribbing on the side. If your going to bury one it has to be a reenforced one. Not all are created equal. One of the guys I worked with in MD has 4 of them buried in his back yard we did that about 15 years ago we did have them set in a well dug hole that left about 2 foot on each side and about 3 foot under the surface that was filled with concrete. He made a tunnel from his basement to the "shelter" made of block and covered with concrete and it has never leaked and is still level.

[jack404]

ozo not saying its wrong but we where talking shipping containers

if you have a root cellar thats au natural cool use a container with a high water table and its troubkle is all i saying water causes hassle with sealed stuff

and now i quit before folks think i'm abusing them or something

but theres a fact you should know the fact that wet soil at 10 feet can exert 900 ton per foot which is far beyond the tolerance of the 4mm sheet they make containers from tears it like its card board

or have we all forgot that ??


never mind i'm just a know nothing idiot .. and i think cross post revenge is taking place

[Maine04657]

You do know the most popular cheap route to a shelter is to bury a school bus? I know several folks up here in Maine who have them buried at camp and around there home for everything from tater storage to a full on shelter. While I agree on your facts and stress I also do not know anybody putting them under a wetland where that would be a issue but I would not wanna be in that one.

There is a very well known survivalist guy in Canada who has a few dozen school buses buried at his place for 30 some years not without any problems. His have no added support just stripped school buses buried in a field.

[RYANINMICHIGAN]

Unlike the people on Dooms Day Preppers they are nto bullet proff because you shot them with .22 LR. a .308 will blow right through it.

[soundguy]

i thought that was funny as well.

however looking at it another way. after a while.. the only ammo left might be 22 since you can store 50x as much of it int he same space..