ISBUs make fast, strong structures, if you use then the way they are intended.

As a friend says: “You must RESPECT the BOX.”

ISBU’s are strong AT THE CORNERS. They aren’t designed to carry loads along the long axis.

So, when you stack them in “opposing” directions, you have to reinforce those long rails to enable them to carry the weight you’re adding to the top.

Does this make sense?

You’ll need to add support to those containers carrying that top floor load. If you don’t, your building will start to SAG in the middle, from that load on top. Engineered Columns every 8 feet on center would work splendidly, and then I’d actually add steel to the top of those container rails to sit your new top floor on, for extra strength. A ton of gyrating Thai’s can shake a building to it’s foundation… if they’re playing something cool, like Aerosmith!

It’s pretty simple, and quite doable.

Ronin

I am planning to build a bar in bangkok the main structure will have a 40ft square footprint.

Three floors the first two will be two pairs of 40ft ISBUs on top of each other an parallel with the top floor being five side by side spanning the legs so from the end it will look like an N leaving a 40ft by 24 ft space underneath. Based on what I’ve read on your blog you wouldn’t have any concerns about the structural integrity,would you?

Cheers

If you’re in “Clearwater…” you’re within 50 miles of “the alleged shyster.” Oy.

I’m not sure where “Clear Water” is…

I was thinking that you were an ISBU consulting company (apparently incorrectly?) because your website offers consulting services to companies and individuals, ranging from “feasibility studies to analysis”, here:

http://www.nuenergytech.com/consulting-services1.html

And you offer “Cargo Structures” (ISO Shipping Container Homes) here:

http://www.nuenergytech.com/cargo-structures.html

I’m familiar with almost all of the projects you use in your PDF document (on your “Cargo Structures” page)… and in some cases I personally know the principals… Which of these projects did your company participate in?

Here’s the “Reader’s Digest” condensed version of “everything you never wanted to know about container skin”;

The skin has almost NO contribution to the potential strength of an ISBU Shipping Container. The frame does ALL the load work. The skin is just to hold the cargo in. I’m going to generalize, but the ONLY primary place/time that a container’s skin contributes to the strength of a container is when racking or shear forces are involved.

For example; this is exactly why one shouldn’t bury a container without reinforcing it. The skin isn’t designed to take a load.

Contact me off-blog, and we’ll talk…

renaissanceronin@gmail.com

Ronin

We are not a consulting firm we are a company in Clear Water Florida, bu I read the whole story about the shister you encounter and I feel for your situation. We are a company which promotes people, planet and profit. Tell me have you downloaded (free) Google Sketchup? if you could email me with your email via your email so we can traverse a little more freely or perhaps your on skype?

I would like to know more about the homes in Wyoming?

I want specially to know about strengthening strucures once you take the skin out (placing two boxes together to create a larger room 16×40) I believe that once you take out the skin then strength is compromised as I want to stack another container on top so to have 2 floors, but I believe the box on top will not be on good enough support..

Thanks again
Shane

This opportunity sounds like the clusters of “stand alone” Container Homes that we’ve built for families in far off, “exotic and desolate” places like … um… er… Wyoming.

Actually, we’ve scattered them to the proverbial wind and there are already several standing in several nations, in remote locations far from a reliable grid power network.

Feel free to “point and post” and try these designs out here. The goal of RenaissanceRonin is to house families, no matter WHERE they are.

But, seeing how we’ve recently been treated by “consulting groups from Florida…” please be understanding if we’re “cautious and skeptical.”

Perhaps you could start by defining your objectives, and give us an idea of scale…

If we can help, we will. The greatest gifts to any family, (beyond safe water, food, and air) are safety and sustainability.

Ronin

Thanks
Shane

Wait! Hold the bus! Take a pill! Chill, dude!

Do this instead:

Get some Sonotube casings. It’s just big, round cardboard tubes. It comes in many sizes, but for your purposes, get some that measures about 2′ in diameter.

I have no idea what you’re going to put in that container, so we may as well prepare for war…

Don’t get the cardboard tubes at Home Depot or Lowes…

Go to a concrete supplier, and get REAL Sonotubes. Why? Because the Home Depot brand ranges in size, so that they can ship them slipped inside each other to save shipping costs. You may end up with several different diameter columns. Doesn’t sound like a big deal, until you run out of concrete before you are through filling them up. Yikes!

Get the commercial grade, if you can afford it. Why? Because that tubing has a poly-fiber coating that will help it withstand long periods of rainfall, say about 72 hours. Where you are, when it rains, it pours. I know, I used to live down there.

Whatever grade of tube you buy, you need (6) of these tubes, three feet long. The standard tubing comes in 12′ lengths. Buy two, and cut ‘em up.

The principle behind the Sonotube is that the tube itself is one single ’side’ and therefore the internal pressure is exerted evenly across the entire surface of the tube. The strength of the circle is well documented, so I don’t have to school you on that, suffice to say that’s the reason you don’t have to worry about any pressure or ‘flex’.

These puppies will be strong, strong, strong…

Dig (6) holes two feet deep, in (2) rows, 8′ apart, o.c. (3) holes each (on center) spaced 10′ apart o.c. along the outside edges of your container. Shove the sonotubes into them. They should stick up about a foot if you’ve done it right. Make sure they are all level and at the same height.

Now, find some scrap rebar to shove down into them, to reinforce the pilings that you’re about to create.

Find some 1/4th inch steel plate, and cut yourself (6) 12″ x 12″ squares. Now, take a scrap piece of rebar, about 18 inches long, and bend it until you have a 12″ x 6″ “L”. Weld the top of that “L” to the bottom of the steel square plate’s bottom. Now, do it (5) more times.

Once you’ve done that, fill those sonotubes up. It’ll take about a ’smidge’ over third of a yard of concrete to fill each piling. Actually, you’ll need just over two yards of concrete to accomplish your mission. (2.1 yards) to be exact…

When they’re full, shove one of those “L-based Plates” you fabbed down into each piling, until the steel plate sits into the top of the concrete. Don’t bury it. You’ll need that steel face later. All you’ve basically done is connected a homemade J-bolt to a steel plate, to anchor it into the concrete.

Now you have (6) steel reinforced concrete pilings, just waiting to accept the weight of your container.

When they’re nice and dry, set your container on top of the pilings. Don’t just dump it on them, use a little “tact and diplomacy.” A 20′ box can be moved with a LULL, easy. Just pick it up widthwise, and gently put it in place. I’ve seen guys set ‘em with tractor buckets, but it takes some doing. Get a LULL. Trust me.

Once you have it where you like it, make sure that it’s level… and then WELD the container to the steel plates in the concrete piling tops. It ain’t going ANYWHERE, now.

Now, not only does your new 20′ box have a dandy connection to the pilings and the earth, you have a nice lip on the edge of those pilings to use, to build a deck off of.

If you want, throw in a few more pilings to support the other side of that deck, and you’re all set for whatever comes at you!

Except for the tubes and the steel, this is mostly labor. You can do this in a weekend, easy. It’s beefier than the way you were headed, but I guarantee you that you’ll find it more suitable.

And for a couple of hundred bucks and some sweat, your box is sitting pretty, forever.

Ronin

I have seen a few posts on other sites and they are using very low powered welders like a miller 180 That would be great for the walls but what about the rest of the container like the beams

If any one has the info of all the metal thickness in a shipping container that would be great

First; It isn’t “width” that’s important. It’s HEIGHT. You want the space in a High Cube container, for headroom.

Second; If you’re being quoted prices that close together (new versus used) then you’re being gouged.

Third; The point is to reduce the mountains of parked containers, and turn them into something usable, like shelter. I’ve never advocated ordering new containers from China, or anywhere else, although there are some that do. My intent is to use a commodity already parked on American Shores.