Thanks; great suggestions. 1kW is more than enough to run all of that, with the heater being the only questionable element. In Oakland, we're fine with 1kW to keep ambient in-container temp at 65F year-round.
Whether parked on the street (my preferred version) or as units in a yard, law is ambiguous in Oakland. If you're in the area, you're welcome to come visit!
Great ideas, thanks! We've been through 4 different attempts at photos, and results are obviously lacking... do any of you have sources you really like for outlet covers, light cases, and other fixture / finish elements?
I think this guy http://vantagepointphoto.com/#slide5 is one of the best in Northern California - great grasp of lighting and space, probably charges commiserate with scale / quality of his portfolio.
This guy has very solid ratings locally, nice portfolio, and worth hitting too - http://www.dannyosterweil.com/about/ - I think he's probably within a few miles of you guys.
Depends on your look you want to achieve. I'm in the UK, so its literally a different world
You might want to try brass, as it might fit with the wood better. You could even use floor plates (if they are legal in your part of the world). it might also just be a case of putting them in less obvious places.
In the above example, they are not that dissimilar to your $25k offering, apart from the ceiling is white plasterboard/drywall, which is smooth. Also the appliances are hidden, its a living room, not a nuts and bolts room :)
for permanent installs, I really like the idea of containers as side supports to a quonset hut. like this, but with 3-4 containers: http://alarconbohm.com/
The interior environment gets entirely sealed under closed-cell foam insulation applied directly to the metal, leaving no interior space for condensation on the metal. Literally all surfaces that you're exposed to are things we buy at home improvement stores: bamboo flooring, cabinet-grade plywood, etc.
A big part of the 'deluxe' cost is the elaborate solar system: we're able to cook, heat space + water, etc. all off of the solar array + batteries.
We're thinking about possibilities for pop-outs in the future.
"For instance, the coatings used to make the containers durable for ocean transport also happen to contain a number of harmful chemicals, such as chromate, phosphorous, and lead-based paints. Moreover, wood floors that line the majority of shipping container buildings are infused with hazardous chemical pesticides like arsenic and chromium to keep pests away."
and
"Reusing Containers seems to be a low energy alternative, however, few people factor in the amount of energy required to make the box habitable. The entire structure needs to be sandblasted bare, floors need to be replaced, and openings need to be cut with a torch or fireman’s saw. The average container eventually produces nearly a thousand pounds of hazardous waste before it can be used as a structure."
This! I've looked seriously into making a large shipping crate home by slowly accumulating them for storage and whatnot at my farm. Ultimately, after learning about the hazardous materials used in many, I gave up. Besides the points mentioned by abakker, one of the things that really got to me was the 'mystery box' aspect. Simply put, you don't know what they carried or what got spilled inside. Was it carrying pesticides? Did a bunch of compact florescence break inside in a storm releasing mercury into the container? There have even been reports of shipping containers which are radioactive above background levels, presumably from spilled nuclear medical waste or shipping something like Uranium ore. Before you call me nuts:
"About 20 million consignments of all sizes containing radioactive materials are routinely transported worldwide annually on public roads, railways and ships."
Note that sprayed on closed cell insulation does little to nothing to mitigate many of the toxins which can be found in shipping containers including mercury - it just makes it poisonous for longer. To use them for a dwelling all wood needs to be removed and they need to be sand or water blasted down to bare metal.
Hi Andrew! Initial focus is the Bay Area, where rents are particularly absurd. Unlike other tiny homes, we can stack these to scale existing locations to meet demand (with some zoning hurdles, of course)
Yes. Depending on the location and length of time the boxouse will be there, we can do off-grid (tanks monitored and filled/pumped as need, RV-style) or grid-connected (linked to existing house's plumbing)
We're going to do this selectively: getting the first ADU design fully licensed in a given MSA is going to be important for us. We'll want to see a year+ commitment to justify the cost.
