Shipping container homes are a great entry point into living in a tiny house. They are rugged and durable, as they’re built to withstand 100+mile-per-hour winds, huge waves, and long journeys on cargo ships.
What better hardy structure to live in than a shipping container home?
Shipping containers are stackable, easy to transport, and readily available, so you can easily get your hands on an eco-friendly, affordable, prebuilt shipping container home.
Here are our top picks.
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1. Backcountry Shipping Container Homes
Backcountry Containers builds custom shipping container homes out of a combination of stacked and adjoined 20 and 40-foot shipping container houses. A single 20-foot container home typically starts at $40,000.
Each container home is unique and designed for the homeowner’s land and vision. First, the company ensures the shipping containers are water and wind-tight and then insulates them. Before your new home can be delivered to you, you must make the necessary site preparation.
Backcountry Shipping Container homes are entirely customizable. Builders can also include decks, screened-in porches, multiple bedrooms, offices, large entertaining areas, workshops and storage areas.
2. Meka Modular Container Homes
Meka builds luxury container homes out of San Jose, California. They create prefabricated and custom units using 20-foot and 40-foot steel frames. You can choose between 16 different models, which include luxury residential units, condos, and tiny homes.
All their models comply with local building codes and can withstand earthquakes, floods, and high winds.
The whole process, from the design and permit applications to the delivery, takes about six months.
3. Alternative Living Spaces
Alternative Living Spaces creates custom homes out of shipping containers. These can be primary residences, second homes, offices, or casitas. Customers pick everything from the paint color and finishes to the fixtures and interior furniture.
These affordable and beautiful shipping container homes have AC/heat, shiplap walls, a full bathroom, a kitchen, a barn door, and electrical and sewage hookups. The more deluxe version has a queen-size Murphy bed, coffee table, two-burner stove, and dresser, among other amenities.
Your new custom shipping container home will be ready in 8 to 10 weeks. If you get a smaller model, you can tow it home with a one-ton truck.
4. Kubed Living Shipping Container House
Katalina Klein founded Kubed Living because she wanted to create sustainable and responsible living spaces. The company offers pre-designed shipping container homes as well as custom builds. These container homes are made either out of one container or several to make a larger living space.
Kubed Living can also turn a shipping container into a gorgeous office, artist studio, home gym, pool house, or wine cellar.
When you order a shipping container home through Kubed Living, the company submits the construction documents to local governments for proper permitting.
5. MODS
MODS builds modern container buildings of all kinds – from pop-up stores and offices to residential units and tiny homes. While they’re located in Appleton, Wisconsin, they ship worldwide.
They take care of the whole process, helping you design and install the structure to ensure it meets all your specs.
All MODS container buildings are custom, so you’ll need to call them to get an estimate on any build.
6. IQ Container Homes
IQ Container Homes is dedicated to environmentally friendly construction. Each shipping container home uses low-VOC paints, wood sourced from sustainable forests, LED lighting, and energy-efficient appliances.
The shipping container homes are equipped with solar power and rainwater harvesting systems.
The New Zealand-based company’s container homes feature layouts opening on one side for indoor-outdoor flow. This also lets you make the most of your view of the outdoors.
Even though these container homes are beautiful, they usually aren’t shipped to the United States.
7. Rhino Cubed Container Homes
Rhino Cubed is a Colorado-based company that makes artistic shipping container homes. On their site, you will also find existing properties for sale. The company believes spending more time in nature enriches the soul, and container homes provide simplicity in a complex world.
Rhino Cubed shipping container homes are flexible, simple, and secure. They include wardrobe closets, a queen-size Murphy bed, an option for a bathtub, and sliding glass doors. The company can connect you with local contractors and architects for a custom build.
You can pick between a one-container “micro cube” that’s just 160 square feet or a home built out of several containers that’s 800 square feet.
8. Logical Homes
Based in Austin, Texas, Logical Homes builds anything from workshops and tiny homes to multi-story houses and condos. While the units aren’t fully customizable, many personalization options exist, such as exterior cladding, interior cabinet choices, benchtop surfaces, and more.
Typically, Logical Homes takes approximately 12 weeks to build a container home.
9. Taynr Shipping Container Homes
Taynr is a modular home builder based in Sacramento, California, building new structures from recycled shipping containers.
These homes are durable, affordable, and ideal for residential, commercial, or industrial use. Several are already being used as accessory dwelling units in California.
10. Custom Container Living
Custom Container Living offers a variety of shipping container homes using 20′ and 40′ shipping containers. The Missouri-based company works with you to customize your home.
You can choose siding, colors, flooring, cabinets, countertops, lofts and kitchens. Then, browse the selection of floor plans to pick the best one for your situation.
Custom Container Living offers single, double, or multiple shipping container homes, which can be shipped anywhere in the lower 48.
It takes between 8 and 12 weeks for Custom Container Living to build a container home.
11. Giant Containers
This Toronto-based company builds residential, experiential, commercial, and industrial container buildings. These are modular, stackable, and simple one-story buildings or big condos. Their builds look very modern, and their floor plans are very space-efficient.
Giant Containers ships all over the world. They have offices in the U.S., Canada, and China.
12. Cargotecture Container Homes
Joel Egan founded the Seattle-based Cargotecture back in 2003. The company got its name from the practice of creating buildings out of steel intermodal shipping containers, a concept it helped pioneer.
All of Cargotecture’s shipping container homes are fully insulated to 15% above building codes in the walls, floors, and roofs. The buildings include plumbing if your model has a kitchen or a bathroom.
Each shipping container home is inspection-approved and move-in ready. Shipping is about $1.20 per mile per truck (up to one 40ft unit on one truck).
13. Honomobo Shipping Container Homes
Honomobo designs sustainable and modern shipping container homes with many windows so you’ll feel connected to the outdoors. These aren’t your typical shipping container home. On the H series, the exterior is painted with industrial epoxy paint. The M series has an entirely different siding altogether made from 4′ x 8′ sheets of hardie panel siding.
The interiors of Honomobo container homes are luxurious. You can choose your interior finishes, and countertops are made of quartz. The flooring is durable and water-resistant vinyl plank.
The H3 series consists of three shipping containers that create a private full bedroom, a kitchen with an island, and a 21-wide front window.
All the container homes designed by Honomobo are ready for solar power if you want to take your tiny home off-grid.
14. MAC Container Housing
This UK-based company builds fully customizable, affordable container houses – from the external paint color to the floor plan. Their biggest model is a 48’ x 12’ unit block.
You can choose between temporary or permanent buildings. The first can be placed on a plot of land without gaining any permission in much of the country. The second needs to comply with building regulations and require a planning application.
15. Container Homes USA
This Ohio-based company builds high-quality container homes on one, two, or three levels. All their buildings are fully customizable and come with garages, workshops, decks, gyms, walk-in closets, and more.
