Bay Area family’s quest to create a backyard container home | Hacker News Reader

Bay Area family’s quest to create a backyard container home

sfchronicle.com

40 pointsjseliger53 comments

I really do not understand the appeal of shipping containers as houses.

We already have several industries around "containerized" homes. There are pre-fab houses, there are RVs, and there are "mobile homes".

Shipping container as a home just seems like function trying to follow form. Shipping containers looks industrial-cool, but from everything I have ever been able to find on them, they make terrible houses.

It's buried at the end, but the article agrees with you:

""" But for his nonprofit, which wants to build affordable homes at scale, “factory-built from scratch with lumber and steel would make a lot more sense from a cost standpoint.” """

I agree, this type of solution is 'trendy' and 'innovative', but is not a real solution to the Bay Area's housing problem.

We do not have a space or money problem, we have a legislative one. Building height limits, NIMBYs and other laws affect how many homes are built. We have plenty of space in the sky to build 12+ story buildings for housing, but we don't.

This is true, and not without good reasons. In places where long-term residents have enough financial and political clout to control their own neighborhoods, they almost universally want to keep density low for better (perceived) quality of life. Visit Palo Alto: the downtown looks like it hasn't changed since the 70's.

I really do not understand the appeal of shipping containers as houses.

One thing a shipping container house has going for it: The structure itself is guaranteed to be earthquake proof, assuming you don't cut too many doors or windows. It could sink into liquifaction'ed soil and still be structurally sound.

Of course, the interior finished walls and furnishings may be a problem, the the container itself should survive nearly any size earthquake.

They cut down a full size container by at least a third then put huge windows in them and placed them on a what looks like a concrete foundation with a cinder block base - not sure why they even bothered with shipping containers at all, these were brand new containers to guarantee they were never used to transit toxic materials.

I can't speak for anyone else, but my own interest in shipping container houses is that you can literally ship your own house somewhere else for a reasonable sum. Then you have it trucked to a remote location somewhere with a bunch of supplies and you're good to live there for a while.

If you're just using it as a prebuilt structure for a permanent dwelling then prefab would make much more sense.

From what in understand, you actually can't. As soon as you modify that shipping container, nobody is stacking it on a ship anymore.

An RV, however, can absolutely fulfill that requirement.

Well that's why you don't cut windows in it or anything. You keep the container's integrity and just build a home inside it, making sure to keep everything "ship-shape".

I'm not sure how you'd transport an RV to a different continent but I bet it wouldn't be as cheap as shipping a container. Also, to use it you'd have to get it road registered in every country you passed through, which would be an expensive pain.

Could you not put the RV in a shipping container, though?

How often do you plan to move across continents? And why couldn't you just use the homes already built there?

Generally how you ship vehicles to other continents (e.g. an RV) would be to put it in a shipping container :)

The new trend is to allow people to build mini houses in the backyard. It started as a movement to convert garages or sheds into inlaw apartments, but as more one and two family homes turn into rentals, the reality is that it’s just another way for a landlord to squeeze a few more sheckles out of the lot.

Containers are appealing because they are cheap and can be lifted in by crane. The real estate guys are pushing for them, and in my city we’re fighting proposals to modify the zoning to allow them.

And that right there is the reason housing is so expensive in the Bay area: people oppose any and all new housing, so construction falls far short of population growth and there's a shortage.

I’m talking about the national trend. The Bay Area is broken on many levels.

As someone that has spent time in an office built out of shipping containers, my view is that they are great for shipping but not living in.

Experienced it both in summer and winter months. Both completely sub-optimal. Because you have poor air circulation and walls are completely air and water tight, your microclimate depends on your HVAC system completely. Too few or too many people in the room and everything changes, temperature goes out of whack, humidity, etc.

We ended up constantly opening and closing windows in the winter and turning AC on and off full blast in summer. This is in Central Europe, so not the hottest or clodest climate out there.

Is it just because the volume is too small or it's due to the material? Can some breathable membrane ports be installed?

It’s all material - the offices were quite spacious if a bit low on ceiling height.

If parts of the container walls were redone to allow more circulation it would be a lot more livable.

I also only spent two work weeks at a time, about 10 hours per day, in that setup. I suspect actually living in one would create additional issues with managing moisture, smells and temp.

Summary: 1 year and $300k to put a metal container in your back yard.

> container homes are not necessarily cheaper than traditional construction, they’re quicker to install and don’t require general contractor

> They needed a boundary survey and a geotechnical study. To called about 50 companies for each

> He called 20 companies to pour the foundation

> Because the home is in a flood zone, he had to get two elevation certificates totaling

> In addition, the Tos owed Menlo Park $8,985 for a permit, plan reviews, inspections, a geologist, a “technology surcharge” and other fees.

> They also had to pay $2,227 in impact fees to their elementary and high school districts.

> It was like “death by 5,000 paper cuts,” To said.

Umm, regular homes don't need a general contractor either -- if you find and hire all the sub-contractors directly.

He is a design director at Google with entrepreneur track records. I'd imagine he is pulling in $500k in total comp, so I guess he isn't doing this because he can't afford a proper house.

Container homes are actually more expensive than a similar home built with a wood frame.

It's a marginal difference, but you're not wrong. I don't think it would matter in this instance though.

He has the land. That's the piece you can't order on Alibaba.

> The city also made them demolish shelving and a wall the home’s previous owners had put in the garage without a permit.

Seriously?

Can’t build stuff without permits.

Fucking shelving? This what happens when regulatory capture goes wild.

Likely the issue was that the garage was being used as a living space and they are down-playing the issue and just saying shelves needed to be removed. Nobody in the area actually parks their car in their garage :) Ours is bike storage/server room/gym, and has built-in countertops and cabinets. The floor is carpeted, the ceiling is finished, and even the attic above it is carpeted and lit.

That still sounds like what happens when regulatory capture goes wild.

Ha, in my SoCal city, you need a permit to install a dishwasher or front door.

You'd be surprised how many people have done so over the years.

Allowing people to put in-law units in their backyard seems like a good move in the short term (to increase supply), but also seems like it might cause problems in the long term: NIMBYs are then _even more_ incentivized to prevent new housing because they're making a killing off the overpriced shipping container in their backyard.

Plus parking issues, plus...

i spend a lot of time looking at alternative housing and i must say that container homes are complete and utter bull shit. its a stupid fad that is fueled by idiots.

containers are expensive. just transporting a container is already a losing proposition because you are transporting a mass of steel in the form of a large empty box. so you lose on getting your materials transported. its more expensive than just buying an equivalent amount of steel and building it into a house.

containers are extraordinarily poorly suited for making houses. if you want any windows at all, you need to heavily modify the container, reinforcing and welding and all together going through enough trouble that you might as well just make the whole thing from scratch. the entire container-home movement is completely retarded -- its like watching solar roadways again. a massive group of people who are totally liberated from critical thought. container homes are stupid. they are a pollutant in the alternative housing scene. stop making them.

$20k just in fees before they could even pour the foundation...

Looks like the cost is reasonable for the bay area

http://www.themiyoung.com/single-post/2016/11/03/The-Guide-C...

> They needed a boundary survey ($2,475) and a geotechnical study ($2,670). To called about 50 companies for each before he found ones willing to do it.

Why is it so difficult to find someone willing to do a survey?

Can someone help me out on the missing pieces here, whats the average construction cost of a regular home in the US ? In Australia a single storey 180m2 home which is just under 2000 ft2 would run for approximately $200k AUD. That works out to be $1100 per square meter or a little over $100 AUD or $80 USD per square foot. The article is stating around $300 USD per square foot, this seems astronomically expensive.

AU$200k? 180m2? It won't be a good quality house.

Our build was around $355'000, for 279m2 but it was high set. We did opt for some premium finishes not found on most homes built these days, we have 2.7m high ceilings, ducted ac, ducted vac, square set cornices, stone bench tops through out, floor to ceiling tiles in the bathrooms and wc, we also have european appliances, built in coffee machine, steam oven etc.

Based on what we spent yeah ours would have been around $230k if we had built 180m2, but you have to factor in the fact we did go double storey.

That's a reasonable cost for building a decent quality single story brick-and-tile house in Perth, Australia.

Here's one of a similar size for $190k: https://media.dalealcock.com.au/deals1/

Yeah, thats generally what they run for here in QLD as well, are the smashed avo loving areas over inflating building costs as well as land prices ?

I was astonished as the ease of building houses in Perth when I visited recently.

Since its all sand, digging and compacting your foundations is ridiculously easy, and typically getting out of the ground is the riskiest part of building a new home.

Then pick a off the shelf house design which is simple brick and tile, so there's no gotchas during construction.

I can well believe these costs.

Land in Australian capital cites is expensive, but home construction costs are not. We built 307m2 with a decent builder in Perth for AUD$250k a few years ago, if anything construction prices have softened since then.

I'm not surprised in Perth. It is going through a multi year property slump. I guess builders are desperate? Good time to build, but is unusual.

There's someone building a huge one not far from where I live in the Ozarks in SW Missouri. It's at least 4 containers high and a few dozens of containers were used to build it.

The last time I saw it (a few months ago) they were finishing off the exterior and it was stunningly beautiful. You'd not know it was built with containers from an outside view.

Whoa, cool-- I bike by this house every day on my way to work. Saw the containers and cranes coming in, googled the company, etc. It took several days of various components (truck, containers, etc) parked in the street before they were done.

Really off-topic, but the logo at the beginning of the video for the Blocks project (B made out of a rectangle and two circles) is totally indistinguishable from the logo of the skateboarding company Plan B

everything in housing is codified around the naive technology of early 20th century America homebuilding - mostly bespoke wood frame structures. Try something different and you will have to pay up for special consideration, mostly so that everyone up and down the approval/work chain can contractually cover their liability without having to think too hard about it.

Bah..thought this was an article about Docker.

That has got to the be the most expensive dog house ever!

why does every promo video of anything out of the valley have to include this universal inspirational soft rock music? please, stop marketing everything like a surf board, change your music tastes, go spend time in transylvania.

Have you ever been to the area? It's not a soundtrack, that's just what it sounds like here. There's always a gently strummed guitar flowing out of a watery amp somewhere off in the distance.

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