Fairly recently I purchases a ranch in SW Texas. It has a minimal camp on it and I just added to the size of the property by buying an adjacent piece that has a slighly better camp on it. Neither of them are what or where I want to have a camp. None of property is on the grid.

Since this is in a very rocky area, my initial thoughts leaned towards making a rock walled camp. But then, reality intruded and I thought of how many thousands of rocks I would have to gather, cut, mortar, etc and the time and/or money involved, so I have been thinking of alternatives that might be significantly easier and hopefully faster. Thus, shipping container(s).

Anyone used one for housing of some type? Any advice or helpful hints gratefully considered.

Solar powered low voltage lighting is probably on the menu. Water will be provided by a solar powered windmill bore hole, probably gravity fed. Cooking and heating fuel will likely be propane. AC is probably going to be powered by a generator when needed. This will be primarily a hunting camp, so AC will not be needed all the time it is occupied, but it is S Texas (Val Verde County).

Charlie, my friend Alan who has Sprinco USA has a conex box stored up here with his stuff as he lives in a subdiv + you know where I live. I will get the phone # off the side + get it to you tomorrow.

NC:

I appreciate that, but unless he has used it as a habitation, it probably won't do me any good. They are great storage sheds, and cheap for the volume, but I'm more interested in insulation, cutting sidewalls, etc. Thanks anyway.

No worries,willing to help out if I can. Do you want their #? Perhaps they have what you want.

Oh + as an after thougt,my youngest son works for his father in law at American R.V. on 29 in L.H.
They had an almost brand new 40'airstream,new appliances,new awnings,etc.Could pick it up for under 15. Let me know,I'll give you Scott's # if you want. R.

My buddy has a couple of shipping containers he uses for storage in Eastern Washington state. They get very hot inside in the summer, and the temperatures there hover near 100 degrees. I assume it will be much hotter in South Texas. He has a couple of wind powered fans installed on the roofs of each container but they don't do much for cooling. IMHO I would check out how much A/C you would need before I made a purchase. You might need a A/C generator as big as the shipping container....

Google "Shipping Container Housing". There is a wealth of information.

I would also keep my eye out for oilfield auctions in West and South Texas. Portable housing should come cheap now that the price of oil has fallen off the cliff and rigs are stacked. In most "busts" the value of some items get amazingly cheap.

Back in the late 80s it got so bad that port-a-potties and steel pits were about the only thing people wanted to bid on.

quote:

Originally posted by NormanConquest:
Oh + as an after thougt,my youngest son works for his father in law at American R.V. on 29 in L.H.
They had an almost brand new 40'airstream,new appliances,new awnings,etc.Could pick it up for under 15. Let me know,I'll give you Scott's # if you want. R.

Please send me Airstream #. Thanks.

quote:

Originally posted by Shootshellz:
My buddy has a couple of shipping containers he uses for storage in Eastern Washington state. They get very hot inside in the summer, and the temperatures there hover near 100 degrees. I assume it will be much hotter in South Texas. He has a couple of wind powered fans installed on the roofs of each container but they don't do much for cooling. IMHO I would check out how much A/C you would need before I made a purchase. You might need a A/C generator as big as the shipping container....

It won't get much hotter. There are numerous shipping container houses in Texas. There are ways to mitigate heat gain, especially building a shade roof along with good insulation.

quote:

Originally posted by Kensco:
Google "Shipping Container Housing". There is a wealth of information.

I would also keep my eye out for oilfield auctions in West and South Texas. Portable housing should come cheap now that the price of oil has fallen off the cliff and rigs are stacked. In most "busts" the value of some items get amazingly cheap.

Back in the late 80s it got so bad that port-a-potties and steel pits were about the only thing people wanted to bid on.

I have googled it and I have ordered several books on subject. I just wanted some first hand experiences if anyone had them. But thanks for the rec.

AFA the oilfield housing goes, that is a good idea and I may pursue it. If you hear of anything, please let me know.

However, I am thinking of building an architecturally interesting structure and, needless to say, what amounts to mobile home trailers don't qualify.

Here is something along the lines of what I am thinking of....

http://www.dwell.com/house-tou...cle/smaller-texas#14

I know a guy who lives in two containers in the Mohave Desert in California. He says he now has a home his ex wife will not take.

They are bolted and welded side by side but staggered with a passage between. This assembly was covered with heavy plastic dump liner to waterproof and covered with lots of dirt.
The conex box doors are still on and he closes them for security if he leaves for a long time. Inside is a wall with a man door and a window. You walk into the living room then the kitchen, passage to other box then a wall and bedroom. The other box has a room in the middle, one way the bathroom and the other way a bedroom. There is a doorway to the outside in the back bedroom in case of fire. The steel doors of the box have been modified to lock from inside and outside latches removed.

Mark

Mark:

Thanks for the info. Is he on the grid? If not, how does he power up? I assume he uses an AC, but maybe not?

He had electricity but hauled water.

Mark

Electricity is nice. I can get it to where I'm thinking of putting this structure, but it will cost me about $50,000. I'm debating whether a very part time place is worth that expenditure.
OTOH it might make it more salable and might be worth it from that perspective.

Gatorgordo: 'It won't get much hotter'. Amigo, I was referring to the atmospheric temperature, not the temperature inside the container. And yes, it gets much hotter in Texas (one of the reasons I don't live in Texas).

My cousin stayed in a container on weekends while he was building his house. He is fairly competent mechanically and added a new front where the doors were and added a couple of windows and basic electrical service. It now is a shed, but he did it all with a Sawzall and basic carpentry tools. It might do for a hunting camp for someone who didn't require high level creature comforts or want to spend a lot of money. Personally for a deer camp I would go with a generator over spending 50k.

Check with Kruse or Cannon for what they might have available.

http://kruseenergy.com/

http://www.cannonsalesinc.com/rig_houses.html

After cutting windows, furring out walls and ceiling for insulation you will still end up with a space too narrow for its length. Connecting two containers would be alot more work as well. I think one could built a nicer space for less effort and cost.

always wanted to do one of those cement domes. I think they come from Paris....Tx.

If you get much wind, you could do wind and solar together. I built my own arrangement, but it is similar to this one.
Solar all in one

I bought a few sets of batteries. This one has a grid tie inverter for the excess wind dump, but you can use other things to divert the extra power. When I have no grid, I use a 24v element for my electric water heater.

I have three 245 Watt solar panels, and am adding a 50 watt wind turbine for winter. It is not finished yet, but should run my 960 sqft house, especially for the weekends when I am there.

The bad part is the price of the batteries. At $200 each for the 12V batteries that I convert to 24V, it is not cheap. For power distribution, I use a marine system for boats, something like this:

Breaker panel

Since I have grid when I want it, I ran dual power house outlets, one grid, one solar/wind.

Just thoughts.

Wow, Larry.

Pretty impressive to a country boy who can barely change out a light bulb.

Went down to new addition to ranch yesterday and found the solar water well (old windmill converted) was not working, and, judging by water level in the tank, had not been for about a month. My son and I know ZERO about solar, so all we could do was shake it gently (no result) and check for wires loose, etc. Finally I pulled a 4 amp fuse with no way to check if it was good or not. I brought it home and am hoping that is the problem. Otherwise I'm going to have to hire help.

Unless I build a new camp/house then I am probably not going to spend that kind of money on solar for a camp that will get used very little. It's about 600 mi from me and I've been that route before, you think you'll go down there much more than time will allow.

Thanks for all the help and ideas, especially to the person who PMed me with real time reports of how he has used shipping containers.

To the doubters, it is a much cheaper to use them than any other normal means of construction and there are quite a few high end examples, both in Texas and worldwide. Perfect? Of course not, but capable of producing a very livable abode at a very cheap per sq foot cost.

With all the demand and ideas for refugee housing, I'm surprised no one has come up with a standardized plan and construction techniques for using shipping containers for housing in some areas. One 40 footer could house 2 families much more comfortably and safer than what they seem to be in now in many places.

https://designthebottomline.fi...7/1_pc_web_1_816.jpg

IRON PLANET HAD THIS UP FOR SALE

Gato, I talked with Scott Smith today at American R.V. where my son works. He has a few units for sale as well as a nice line of feeders also . The shop # is 512-260-0776. Hope this helps,R.