20' ISO container as a shed?

[Post and beam]

Most of our house contents have been in a storage container for a year. They have survived with virtually no issues and i am thinking of buying one as a man cave/ shed.

But just like the storage one i rent, they are stupid hot in the summer.

Has anyone else got one and how have you insulated it. And or, dressed the outside to disguise it a little. Can you drill the outer skin without problems for example.

I should explain that i am looking at buying a double skin 'one trip' container from Felixtowe docks. They are stupid cheap at the moment.

[-rick-]

I watched this a while ago and thought he did a good job of it. He seems very happy with the result (there are follow ups). Maybe worth a watch:

 

 

[Nick Laslett]

Go for it. 
 

Loads of videos on YouTube. So many ways to improve the thermals. 
 

I had 2 solar panels on mine, before they went on the house. Enough juice to run 800w microwave from the attached batteries and charge all my tools. 

[Post and beam]

Thanks, Its more the dressing or cladding of the outside that i am looking for practical advice on. Of course a suitable external cladding would also help with shielding from the direct sunlight and therefore heat.

[SteamyTea]

You can drill and tap into the steel, but you can also use a PU adhesive.

The biggest problems with a steel shipping container is condensation and badly fitting doors.

[Onoff]

4 hours ago, Post and beam said:

And or, dressed the outside to disguise it a little.

 

Some people have even considered building a "liveable" man cave and disguising it as a shipping container...

[ProDave]

I am happy with our static caravan now serving as a shed / storage space / additional work space.  Nobody is ever going to accuse a static 'van of being "well insulated" but condensation or stored stuff going mouldy or getting damp is not an issue.

 

They are probably easier to buy and install than a container.

[saveasteading]

We will be doing this. The plan is to fix horizontal battens into the 'crowns' of the container walls. For this there are self-drill, self tapping screws from your nearest fixings merchant ( better a specialist than an a general merchant with screw in the title?)

These will easily drill through the 1mm steel.

Onto that goes horizontal timber cladding, and you can choose hit and miss, tongue and groove or any other.

 

Our container is single skin so the screw points will be exposed inside. 

Thus use the shortest screws that will suffice or put caps on them. If lined inside they disappear.

The cladding will allow airflow for cooling and condensation avoidance.

 

We did this once as sports stores, for aesthetic improvement (planning) only. It will still get silly hot and cold.

 

Roof? Not so easy. I haven't thought it through yet.

 

Be sure to raise it off the ground.

Edited October 1 by saveasteading

[gaz_moose]

just buy an insulated one, also referred to as a reefer or a mobile site office. Somewhere i used to work had me put windows etc.. into a shipping container to be used as a fabrication bay and it was awful to work inside. 

the guys who build recovery trucks out of old tesco delivery vans often sell the old box body's for not very much.

 

[Alan Ambrose]

I have an old site office container and it’s fine. Not sure how it’s insulated, but so far (we have not used it for a winter yet) it’s good.

[Conor]

This is ours. Stud frame, hung with bolts on the lifting points, 100mm EPS, wrapped in roofing felt, and clad using ripped fencing boards. About £2k. Wish I'd just bought a shed instead. Not worth the expense and time.

 

[Roundtuit]

On 01/10/2025 at 18:53, saveasteading said:

We will be doing this. The plan is to fix horizontal battens into the 'crowns' of the container walls. For this there are self-drill, self tapping screws from your nearest fixings merchant ( better a specialist than an a general merchant with screw in the title?)

These will easily drill through the 1mm steel.

Onto that goes horizontal timber cladding, and you can choose hit and miss, tongue and groove or any other.

 

Our container is single skin so the screw points will be exposed inside. 

Thus use the shortest screws that will suffice or put caps on them. If lined inside they disappear.

I've got a 10ft container to pretty-up at some point. I think I'd drill the holes first and screw from the inside into the timber, or weld a few angle brackets on to avoid holes in the skin.

[saveasteading]

2 hours ago, Roundtuit said:

to avoid holes in the skin

Drilling and then using self tapping screws will be neater on the inside, and the thread tends to be grippier. A dob of mastic in the drilled hole of on the spot before self tapping  will seal the hole. Tape mastic may be better than tube.

But lining up screw to hole may be tricky.

 

You have a very good point though. If screwing thin metal to metal, the washer on a classy screw doesn't just cover the hole but winds down the thread. 

 

For thicker stuff we used double beaded mastic tape.

I wonder how solar panels etc are fixed. I'm worrying now for all of you with solar on metal roofs, where the fitters perhaps didn't think this through.

 

Edited October 5 by saveasteading

[-rick-]

If just securing cladding with no structural purpose any reason not to use a flexible glue (CT1)?. Seems to me that would be easier, quicker and thanks to the flexibility possibly better given wood/metal will expand at different rates in the weather.

[saveasteading]

33 minutes ago, -rick- said:

reason not to use a flexible glue

Even if glue would be suitable strong (I don't know) it would be relying on the paint to steel adhesion.... that doesn't inspire confidence.

[Conor]

You don't need to screw in, you can fit bolts and plates into the lifting points at each corner and hang it off. You can buy bespoke kits, but I just chopped up a few pieces of left over RSJ, a large bolt, washers and nuts. Handy enough.

 

Edited October 5 by Conor

[Nickfromwales]

6 hours ago, saveasteading said:

Even if glue would be suitable strong (I don't know) it would be relying on the paint to steel adhesion.... that doesn't inspire confidence.

Over the volume of area, repeated, it would be perfectly fine afaic.

 

The factory paint on these things is all marine grade.

[Nickfromwales]

7 hours ago, saveasteading said:

I'm worrying now for all of you with solar on metal roofs, where the fitters perhaps didn't think this through.

That’s what MCS is all about, making sure you can’t go buying cheap (non suitable) fixings and miss-matching metals that eat each other.

 

They give strict methodology for fixing panels to roofs, so they stay there and can’t fly off and kill someone.

[-rick-]

20 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

Over the volume of area, repeated, it would be perfectly fine afaic.

 

That's what I was thinking. You'd use a decent amount per board rather than a couple of screws. Glue is prob more expensive than screws but likely easier.

 

20 minutes ago, Nickfromwales said:

The factory paint on these things is all marine grade.

 

I did pause after @saveasteading's comment as I did see someone talking about how their 'used once' container had paint peeling. My guess is that assuming you gave the surface a once over pulling off anything loose, so long as you covered a decent area with glue and weren't hanging stuff off the cladding it'd be ok.

[Nickfromwales]

2 hours ago, -rick- said:

 

That's what I was thinking. You'd use a decent amount per board rather than a couple of screws. Glue is prob more expensive than screws but likely easier.

 

 

I did pause after @saveasteading's comment as I did see someone talking about how their 'used once' container had paint peeling. My guess is that assuming you gave the surface a once over pulling off anything loose, so long as you covered a decent area with glue and weren't hanging stuff off the cladding it'd be ok.

Depends if a reseller has nipped to PoundLand for some watered down piss-poor paint, to make it shiny to sell on.