Shipping Container home wall assembly
BenFoster02
| Posted in General Questions on
Hello everyone,
I am currently building a shipping container home. The shipping container is refrigerated. I want to add on my exterior insulation, how would I fasten my exterior insulation to the shipping container? The assembly works like this from inside to outside. Paint, concrete board, steel studs, hemp Insulation in the cavity, container wall, exterior continuous insulation, furring strips to attach a concrete board for siding, and paint. Also I am located in CostaRica
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Replies
Here's what I recommend people do for shipping containers: build a wooden version the same size and shape. It will look the same, and everything about it is easier. I don't mean to sound flip; I'm serious.
I already have the container
There are a lot of issues using a shipping container. The big ones are limited interior space, which means ANYTHING you do on the walls and ceiling cut into your living space. The ceiling is usually the biggest problem, since you don't have much clearance to start with. The other issue is that the steel of the container is an excellent thermal conductor, which makes insulation more interesting. I agree completely with Michael that shipping containers really don't make good living spaces. Use the container as a storage building or a garage, and build a wood frame living structure of similar size.
If you really want to try to convert the container, don't bother with studwalls -- they are too thick, and metal studs connected to the container will act as a heatsink that will cancel out a huge amount of the R value of insulation you put between those studs. You really want to insulate the exterior of the structure using exclusively rigid foam as continuous insulation. Absolutely minimize all thermal bridges between the interior, ideally framing out anything like a window or door with wood and not steel, since wood gives you much better thermal (insulating) performance here. Be sure to insulate under the floor too.
Run exposed electricals/mechanicals (wires and pipes) on the interior, using conduit for the power wiring. Go for an industrial look and then everything works together with the corrugated steel. You can use small strips of wood to make nice hangers to keep runs of conduit and pipe straight and neat. Paint it all with a sprayer when you're done.
Bill
Thank you
Ben,
Either pre-drilling and using machine screws, or self-tapping ones will work. If you were only attaching foam then you would need cap heads for the screws, but as you are also adding furring to support an outer cladding, you can get away without them.
Two problems you will find are related to the corrugations in the container walls.
- They vary in width, meaning that the furring may not end up at the spacing you need.
- It will be hard to seal the foam to the uneven perimeter of the container.
I generally agree with the other posters about using containers, but Costa Rica is probably somewhere best suited to them. My own preference would be to keep all the insulation on the inside.
so what you saying is the furring strips are screwed to the container which will hold the foam in place.
Ben,
Yes, although you may want to temporarily keep the foam in place with spots of adhesive, then attach your furring.
I've been to Costa Rica twice, and my recollection is that most of the buildings there don't have insulation or even glass in the windows, it's temperate enough that most houses don't have heating or cooling. If that's your plan then a shipping container might work. You mainly need to figure out a way to keep the rain out and still have it well-ventilated.