How to Make Sure Your Shipping Container Home is Safe
The era of tiny housing is upon us. What makes this lifestyle most admirable is how it introduces a sustainable housing choice to the young ones in the family. For one, downsizing home space means downsizing power consumption.
The use of re-purposed shipping containers has become a famous choice in the construction of tiny houses. One of the reasons for the convenience they bring to the table in terms of the building process.
Toxic Chemicals in Shipping Containers?
Just as soon as using shipping containers for micro-housing started gaining popularity, articles questioning their safety started making rounds.
In order to maintain the quality of the cargo they house, shipping containers need to be well protected from environmental elements before, during and after transport. Even when they are made in steel, they have to be coated in paint that contains with phosphorous and chromate. Another thing is the amount of pesticides on the wood flooring to ward of vermin.
Shipping Container Homes
Because of this, using re-purposed shipping containers in building tiny houses lessens ones points in the sustainability department. Moreover, the harmful chemicals and the pesticides in the walls and floors make living in these tiny homes hazardous to family health.
Good thing is – there is a way to use shipping containers in this way still. What’s more there are ways to deal with these chemicals.
Make Your Tiny Home safe
If unsure with the level of safety of the shipping container you will work with in building your tiny home, here are 3 simple things you can do about the harmful chemicals that maybe creeping its walls and floors:
- Talk to your manufacturer regarding your concerns. While the use of re-purposed containers is widespread, you can buy new ones to use for your building. Before putting out the bill, do your research and talk to your manufacturer about the components of their building materials and about the components of the coating they use. This way you know what you are getting along with the assurance that your purchase is a sustainable and safe choice.
- Using re-purposed containers? Find out the container’s identification number, get in touch with its original manufacturer & ask what sorts of treatment the procured shipping container or containers have undergone. Have as much information, if possible have the manufacturer give you the specific chemicals in your shipping container so that your builder will know how to counter them best.
- Going the DIY route? Your best resort is to remove the original flooring as well as the original paint. Using odor eliminators will be helpful too. Treating portions where corrosion is present should be done as well before applying the modifications.
Better Yet, Purchase New Shipping Containers
Of course, there is the option to buy new shipping containers for your building. This route provides you not only with the choice to go purchase one that has not been treated with hazardous chemicals. You even have the freedom to choose which material your shipping container will be made of.
Another good thing about opting for new shipping containers is that you can purchase them in a ready-to-use for your building.
Container Homes
Take for example Aztec Containers. They already come with built in flooring, pre-painted walls and even power sources. If you need shipping containers for your tiny home, even just for a home extension for use as a workshop, a home office or for any other separate room the ones you can buy or rent are good to go.
Do not give up on your dream of living in a tiny home that is made from a shipping container yet. Like what we have here, there is always a way to actually make shipping containers a safe choice for sustainable living.
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