We regularly examine the pros and cons of building anything and everything out of shipping containers, although generally, there tends to be very few cons (yes, we know we might be a little bit biased). Something that we’ve wanted to talk about for a bit of time now is how shipping containers can be used to design and build storage facilities.
Due to the nature of their design, shipping containers make for a fairly simple initial setup. Unlike traditional building design and construction, expansion and relocation become simple and fairly cost-effective tasks as well. The greatest benefit of building a storage facility with sea cans is that 20’ and 40’ shipping containers can be modified to include individual sections that act as separate storage units.
Each container can be sectioned off with partition walls that are welded in to create private and secure storage units within each shipping containers. Lockable garage doors or roll-up doors can then be installed on either side of the container to provide traditional access to the contents inside the container. Facility managers can then add containers lengthwise, or even height-wise, in order to expand their operations. Similar to how containers are stored in our yards or on ships during sea travel, they can be placed on top of each to maximize the use of space.
Since shipping containers are made of durable steel meant to withstand sea travel, their lifespan as storage units also tends to last for a good long time. Repairs can be swift and damaged units can be replaced in a quick and effortless manner.
To design a complete storage facility, it takes anywhere from a couple of weeks to a couple of months to cut and deliver the containers to our clients, depending on the spec of container they want. Once completed, the containers are delivered on-site and a forklift or a crane is used to arrange the containers in their final positions. Once that is complete, we recommend securing everything in place. For security purposes, we recommend using deck mount twist locks to secure the first level into a solid concrete foundation, bridge fittings to secure the containers horizontally beside each other, and stacking pins to secure the containers placed vertically.
Upon choosing which containers to use for storage facilities, we tend to leave these choices up to our customers (although we are very happy to discuss options with them). 40’ containers are sectioned of more easily (ie. in more sections) than 20’ containers but sometimes that depends entirely on what the customer needs.
For more information on how to set up a shipping container storage facility, please reach out to our team.