I have all my idea's for several container house's but my first question is what is the best footings to mount my container house on? Concreate or raised off the floor? If concreate how thick a base slab?

Hello richard4939

from what i understand there are reasons for having both but it depends on your living environment situation. do you live near the coast where water can be an issue? if so, then a raised floor is def. a better choice. concrete as a base has its goods and bads. yes, it is very stable and solid but at the same time most people have their pluming and several electrical buried within the concrete and if they need to repair anything, that would be a total mess and huge expense to dig up to repair.

People who live in areas where expansive clay soils are especially troublesome can really benefit from raised wood floor systems. Pier and beam foundations can be used that bypass the pesky clay soils that often cause significant cracks in slab-on-grade homes. Slabs can be engineered to resist expansive clay soils, but if the workmen don't build the slab exactly right, the best intentions of the engineer become worthless as soon as the soil expands or contracts

Hope that helps !



D Lee

ContainerHouse.info

i am curious about this too.

The footings will depend on what you are putting on top. A 40ft container, or a 20ft container, or if you are planning to stack one-two-three high. Anymore, than two high I would suggest you contact a structural engineer. With a 40ft container you will want to have a footing at the 4 corner posts as well as the center(20ft) midline. If you are cutting out any big sliding doors then you would want to place footings at the end of these doorways. If you are merging two containers and cutting out the middle then you will want footings at the center of the cutout on both sides. We generally use cement pilings with rebar inside. We place the pilings into the ground 3ft. Before we do all this, we create a 3ftx3ft square, 10" thick at the bottom of the hole that the piling sits on top and the rebar goes through.