Affordable Housing TDS

[Ben]

This story by the NYT stood out to me this morning. The NYT has always been a very big promoter of various alternative/green/affordable housing ideas. In fact I'm pretty positive that they published a lot of "pro" stories on the container homes in the link below. However now they decided these are a blight on the landscape.

Interestingly, they posted this just a couple of days after local media here had a bunch of stories about Ben Carson coming to Boise, and how he was absolutely taken by the container homes produced by a local builder here. Carson wants to look at them as economical and environmentally sound alternatives for low income and affordable housing. Suddenly a couple of days later, the NYT publishes hit pieces on them.

They NYT opinion article makes them look ugly, while, at least the way the local builder builds them, they actually look pretty cool:

https://indiedwell.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/shipping-container-homes.html

[WLJ]

A friend of mine was looking into these years ago and I was amazed at how nice many of them looked if done right. But I guess they're evil racist Trump cages now

[Ben]

A friend of mine was looking into these years ago and I was amazed at how nice many of them looked if done right. But I guess they're evil racist Trump boxes now

I saw a couple of the Indiedwell ones up close while I was still potentially looking at buying land and building. It would have cost me well North of $100K for a design big enough for me (vs their average of ~$80K), but they are very well made, well designed, and very low maintenance. I would have zero problems living in one.

[MillCreek]

^^^Wow, I like that 960 model with the large living room.

[makattak]

Those are really impressive looking. My wife and I have discussed what to do when/if my mother needs/is able to move out here with us. One of those would be very nice for her.

[dogmush]

I (sigh) agree with the NYT. They are horrible for living in.

They lose a bunch of strength when you cut doors and windows in them, they take more work to make nice than just building a nice place, and my experience has been they get rust holes in them by about 10 years of use.

They are designed to be semi disposable in their intended use. Not something you want to build a house with.

[MillCreek]

A question about attaching siding to a container: if I recall correctly, just about all the containers I have seen have corrugations in the steel sides.  So how does one attach fiberboard siding to a container?  Do you nail/screw/glue furring strips on the peaks or valleys of the corrugations and then attach the siding to the strips?

[Fly320s]

A question about attaching siding to a container: if I recall correctly, just about all the containers I have seen have corrugations in the steel sides.  So how does one attach fiberboard siding to a container?  Do you nail/screw/glue furring strips on the peaks or valleys of the corrugations and then attach the siding to the strips?

And how do you insulate them?  I didn't see any info on R-value on the website.

[Ben]

And how do you insulate them?  I didn't see any info on R-value on the website.

Pretty sure it's in the interior studded walls. I can about guarantee this guy insulates the hell out of them. He builds high dollar stick houses around here and he's all about fully sealed homes with 24/7 air filtration/circulation. I posted one of his stick built goal zero houses here a while back and I remember you liked it.

[Firethorn]

I (sigh) agree with the NYT. They are horrible for living in.

They lose a bunch of strength when you cut doors and windows in them, they take more work to make nice than just building a nice place, and my experience has been they get rust holes in them by about 10 years of use.

They are designed to be semi disposable in their intended use. Not something you want to build a house with.

This has been my experience.  By the time you make the container nice, you're better off just building something of the container's dimensions directly.  Or dimensions that are designed for human habitation as opposed to shipping.

You'll get something that is cheaper, more inhabitable, and lasts longer.

That isn't to say that I'm opposed to any other type of factory built housing - trailer homes, manufactured, modular, whatever.  Each has their place.  Even container homes have their place, I just don't think they have a place beyond the niche they're currently in.

[BobR]

This has been my experience.  By the time you make the container nice, you're better off just building something of the container's dimensions directly.  Or dimensions that are designed for human habitation as opposed to shipping.

You'll get something that is cheaper, more inhabitable, and lasts longer.

That isn't to say that I'm opposed to any other type of factory built housing - trailer homes, manufactured, modular, whatever.  Each has their place.  Even container homes have their place, I just don't think they have a place beyond the niche they're currently in.

Do you have any idea how many Chinese nationals they can get in one of those things so they have a place to live during the journey to the promised land?


bob

[lee n. field]

This story by the NYT stood out to me this morning. The NYT has always been a very big promoter of various alternative/green/affordable housing ideas. In fact I'm pretty positive that they published a lot of "pro" stories on the container homes in the link below. However now they decided these are a blight on the landscape.

Interestingly, they posted this just a couple of days after local media here had a bunch of stories about Ben Carson coming to Boise, and how he was absolutely taken by the container homes produced by a local builder here. Carson wants to look at them as economical and environmentally sound alternatives for low income and affordable housing. Suddenly a couple of days later, the NYT publishes hit pieces on them.

They NYT opinion article makes them look ugly, while, at least the way the local builder builds them, they actually look pretty cool:

https://indiedwell.com/

https://www.nytimes.com/2019/08/14/opinion/shipping-container-homes.html

This kind of stuff on the part of NYT disgusts me.  Getting into housing that was both affordable and adequate was a huge struggle for us, given that we really were never a multiple income family, and I never made anything like what the trade rags said I could expect in my sort of job.

[MechAg94]

I (sigh) agree with the NYT. They are horrible for living in.

They lose a bunch of strength when you cut doors and windows in them, they take more work to make nice than just building a nice place, and my experience has been they get rust holes in them by about 10 years of use.

They are designed to be semi disposable in their intended use. Not something you want to build a house with.

Your description sounds about right for HUD housing.  If the govt is paying for it, that doesn't bother me.  Replacing HUD housing every 10 years could be pretty cheap if they design it right and set up the exterior connections right.  I am sure they could come up with a simple design that is cheap to build.  Use a standard size so they can swapped out in the future. 

Beef up the design just a little and they are bullet resistant. 

[MechAg94]

At work, our control room/office building is an explosion resistant building.  Basically 4 oversize steel containers connected together.  These are not standard cargo containers. 

There are companies in Houston that rent out cargo container offices.  Just stack them up and throw some stairs together.  I don't think they usually have bathrooms, but that can be done.

[WLJ]

Do you have any idea how many Chinese nationals they can get in one of those things so they have a place to live during the journey to the promised land?


bob

Sure you don't mean concentration camp?

[WLJ]

This story by the NYT stood out to me this morning. The NYT has always been a very big promoter of various alternative/green/affordable housing ideas. In fact I'm pretty positive that they published a lot of "pro" stories on the container homes in the link below. However now they decided these are a blight on the landscape.

Interestingly, they posted this just a couple of days after local media here had a bunch of stories about Ben Carson coming to Boise, and how he was absolutely taken by the container homes produced by a local builder here. Carson wants to look at them as economical and environmentally sound alternatives for low income and affordable housing. Suddenly a couple of days later, the NYT publishes hit pieces on them.

They NYT opinion article makes them look ugly, while, at least the way the local builder builds them, they actually look pretty cool:

Go back a few years and substitute Obama's HUD Secretary (can't remember the name) for Carson and I would bet the NYT article would have been praising these things as the housing of the future and a great achievement of the Obama admin.

[dogmush]

I should mention that I have actually lived in a converted connex for a while.

It was only nice in comparison to some of the other places that the Army has given me to live. That said, a bunch of them in one area all full to capacity would definitely bring a congresswoman to tears.

[Firethorn]

There are companies in Houston that rent out cargo container offices.  Just stack them up and throw some stairs together.  I don't think they usually have bathrooms, but that can be done.

What's their life expectancy, cost, and such?

Using something that at least looks like a cargo container on the outside makes some sense when you're making dorms for soldiers in the middle east and need to have a semi-hardened room with minimal on-site construction, while having to ship it in from halfway across the world.

Even then, I don't think that they started life as a cargo container, as opposed to simply being made the same size and with the attachment points.

[makattak]

Blast, posted in the wrong thread.

[Brad Johnson]

Factoring in the labor needed for mods and retrofits needed to convert a container, it's easier, faster, and more.cost-effective to build with steel tubing (aka build a steel-frame barn). If you need a lot of them you pre-fab the segments and assemble on site.

Brad