Container Guides

People who ask us how to build a shipping container office expect an answer about insulation. It is really about order: each stage locks in the next, and a stage taken out of turn gets paid for twice. Costs, designs and permits sit in separate guides. Where do you start when working out how to

Office sizing is the decision buyers get wrong most often. Work from the people who will sit in the unit and the furniture they need, then pick the box. The 20ft vs 40ft container office question is really about desks, door positions and walking space, not about steel. How do we choose between a 20ft

A container office vs traditional office decision lands on our desk most weeks. Someone needs 15 square metres of warm, dry, lockable space and holds three quotes: a masonry extension, a timber studio, a converted container. We sell containers, and we will still say where a container is the wrong answer. How much does each

Ask us for a container office and our first question is whether people will work inside. That one fact decides whether you need a permit for a shipping container office, because occupancy turns a steel box into a building. Rules differ by country, by federal state and by municipality, and a local land use plan

Legally, where can you put a shipping container? There is no single European answer, because planning law is written nationally and enforced locally. Here is how your own answer is decided, with real thresholds for France and Germany. We sell containers and we are not lawyers, so treat this as a guide to the questions

Water is what ends a shipping container, and almost all of it is preventable. Rust needs time and moisture together, and a unit that dries between showers stays sound for decades. Good shipping container drainage is a few hundred euros of groundwork, while a corroded floor is several times that. Here are the four sources

Your shipping container foundation cost is set by your ground, your access and how much material leaves the site, far more than by the container itself. We supply containers, we do not price groundworks, so every figure below is a typical 2026 European market range from groundwork contractors, not our price list. All ranges vary

People ask us every week whether they can skip the groundworks and put a shipping container on dirt. Yes, you can, and plenty of owners across Europe do. Here is what that shortcut costs, so you can price it before the doors stop closing. Can you put a shipping container on dirt? Yes, and people

Groundwork decides how a container behaves for the next twenty years, and the question we are asked most is gravel pad vs concrete slab. Concrete piers are the forgotten third option, and on many sites they win. One fact drives it all. A container carries its whole load through four corner castings specified in ISO