DIY container repair

In detail: do-it-yourself container repair from a real master for the site my.housecope.com.

The topic of building summer cottages and even houses based on sea containers is quite popular among the participants of our portal, and there are a lot of examples of the implementation of such projects on the forum. Here comes the user Navyrom he began to settle down in his suburban area precisely with the purchase of a used sea container. As a result of the major reconstruction, a bathhouse was obtained, which later, after the construction of the capital house, will turn into a guest house.

A container of "Soviet hardening" produced in 1985 was purchased from a friend at a reasonable price. Despite the presence of technical and not so holes, which appeared over the years of use not for its intended purpose, the structure pleased with its good condition, which made it possible to use it as a basis.

I watched people swear at trifles, rolled through the ads for the sale of change houses and sandwich houses, looked at the constructive and did it in my own way. Let them hate, justify what I did wrong, but I will say right away, I will not pay attention to this and respond to various attacks against me. What's done is done, moreover, the house will be used in the future as a summer guest house, or for children's games. And perhaps I will sell.

First thing Navyrom installed windows and a door in the container, having previously studied the topics on containers and change houses on the forum. I cut out the openings with a grinder with an allowance of 3 cm, welded a frame from a metal corner (60 mm) into the openings, fastened the profile to the frame with self-tapping screws and centered it. Reinforcement for the doorway was on the same principle, only the side posts were extended from floor to ceiling and welded to the supporting beams of the container. All seams were sealed with polyurethane foam. I made the roof the simplest, temporary - to practice and protect several welds from possible leaks.

Video (click to play).

So that the house does not look "scanty", as well as to provide the family with comfort, Navyrom made an extension to the container - an open veranda and a closed sanitary facility. To do this, I lifted the container onto FBS blocks and welded a frame made of a metal profile with dimensions of 2 × 4 m.Although there is a crushed stone pillow under the blocks, in order to prevent possible problems associated with the difference between the movements of a heavy container and a light extension, I made a bolted connection. Also, such fasteners, if necessary, will allow you to disassemble the structure if you have to transport it.

The sewerage system was organized on the basis of a two-chamber plastic septic tank with a volume of 3 m³ and a drain well from used truck tires. The well was dug 3.5 m deep - at this depth sandy soil begins, and the drains are absorbed without stagnation. I immediately laid a sewer pipe to the bathroom in order to further simplify the installation of plumbing equipment.

The floor on the veranda is made of bakelite plywood 18 mm thick, the outer lining of the bathroom is OSB, the inner one is rough - spruce plywood, 12 mm thick. From the inside, according to OSB, vapor barrier, lathing from a bar to the size of OSB boards. Since there were no plastic windows of the required size on sale, I put a wooden one, bought in a "bath" store. Finishing with plastic panels, linoleum on the floor, on top of an electric film warm floor. Amenities include not only a sink and a compact, but also a shower.

Initially, I planned to start up the roof for the toilet from under the gable, but as a result I took apart one side and extended the slope to the required size.

The facade was sheathed with thermal panels (polyurethane foam / metal / protective and decorative layer), the snag arose because of the dimensions - instead of the declared 3800 mm, sheets were shorter, I had to buy two more pieces and wait for delivery.

From the inside - a wooden lathing made of 50 × 50 mm timber, a layer of thermal insulation (stone wool, 50 mm thick, with a density of 60 kg / m³), a vapor barrier membrane, plywood (12 mm). Plywood was varnished on wood with matt tinting. All lighting on LED lamps - "shine brightly, shake a little."

The site development is also in full swing - a playground is underway.

Since the fence and the site took a lot of time, as well as the study of specialized topics, it was only this winter that they reached the pair. The primary insulation of the steam room was carried out together with the general contour, but now it was covered with foil insulation, linden clapboard and larch flooring. Working with dry, already sanded wood is a pleasure, but the price tag for it is far from "humane". Wood Navyrom covered with special oil.

Until a heater was installed in the steam room, the house was heated by convectors - 2 kW in the room and 1 kW in the toilet. Coupled with warm film floors was enough. After the installation of the stove, the convector in the room has lost its relevance, a couple of armfuls of firewood are enough and when the door of the steam room is open, the room temperature is comfortable.

The stove was installed on a brick podium lined with ceramic tiles. In order not to open the cladding, I covered the lining with foil, laid a 5 cm thick ceramic roll heat insulator on top, and veneered the corner with minerite.

The sandwich chimney led out through the wall.

I fixed the stop frame on the fence with self-tapping screws, in case of heaving, although there was no progress over the past two winters.

The housing issue has always been quite acute in our country. Many young families have to live with their parents for decades, because the burden of a mortgage is not within the power of everyone. Today we will find out how to build a house from containers with our own hands. This method of construction is good because it takes only a few months, and the effort that needs to be made is minimal.

DIY container house

This technology was developed abroad, where, as you know, they are not used to wasting money, and they resort to all methods of saving - they buy everything at sales, recycle materials several times, etc.

Container house interior

For the construction of the house, we will use twelve-meter iron containers weighing 4.5 tons and a section of 2.7x2.4 m (these are standard dimensions). The area of each of these containers will be about 30 m².

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Container house interior

Content of step-by-step instructions:

This design easily tolerates natural disasters - hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.
The containers themselves can later be hidden, for example, with clapboard, and drywall can be used for interior decoration. So a container house will not be any different from an ordinary one.
The tenant of the container house need not be afraid of the penetration of rodents or insects.
Container houses are suitable for any climatic conditions, the main thing is that there is high-quality thermal insulation.

Container houses are suitable for all climates

The container can be combined with other building modules

Construction takes a minimum of time

Container houses don't need a solid foundation

Containers can be used to make not only a residential building, but also a utility facility

It is also worth noting that containers are widely used on frosty ground. Often, of them (mainly those intended for sea transportation), they build entire housing bases in the Far North and Antarctica.

So, we figured out the advantages of container houses, now we proceed directly to the construction process. For work we need:

railway containers, 2 pcs .;
timber 10x10 cm;
timber 6x6 cm;
boards with a section of 10x4 cm with a length of at least 8 m;
boards with a section of 15x2.5 cm and a length of 6 m;
self-tapping screws 1.3 cm long;
Chipboard 27.5x12x1.6 cm;
corrugated sheets of galvanized steel;
plumbing bolts 2.2 cm long;
a pair of six-meter reinforced concrete piles with a section of 350x350 mm;
mineral wool MP-50;
professional flooring S-10;
Geiger counter;
welding machine;
screwdriver;
"Grinder" and discs for it (ø20 cm, at least 30 pcs.);
gasoline generator.

We buy two containers at once, it will cost (including delivery) about 100,000 rubles. After delivery, we check them for radiation. It would seem that this is superfluous, but in reality it is in such containers that residual radiation "likes" to collect.

Note! The average background radiation rate for our latitudes is 35 microroentgens per hour.

A monolithic foundation in our case is certainly not suitable. It will quickly crack and be squeezed out of the ground (the latter, in turn, will begin to sag). For this reason, the foundation should be minimalistic, like our future home.

Note! If our house starts to sink, we can always simply lift the container.

We make an ordinary "pillow" from any inert material, for example, gravel. Next, we install piles on the gravel (with delivery they will cost 9,000 rubles) - in parallel, at a distance of 6 meters from each other. As a result, we should get a perfect square.

We cannot install containers on our own, although they weigh relatively little - about 5-6 tons. For this we resort to the services of special equipment. After installation, we securely weld the containers together using a gas generator and a welding machine.

Note! It is better to entrust this work to an experienced welder who would weld the joint between the containers “in a circle”.

Next, we proceed to the main work. We take the "grinder" and cut off all unnecessary elements of the internal walls, cut through the door and window openings. If the house is being built in the summer (and in most cases it is), then by lunchtime it becomes too stuffy. In this case, we take the "grinder" in our hands only in the evening and early in the morning, and directly in the afternoon we are engaged in installing the roof rafters and erecting the attic frame.

Step 1. For the manufacture of the attic frame, we use a beam with a section of 10x10 cm. To fasten the beams to the container, we take self-tapping screws, and connect them together with special plumbing bolts.

Step 2. After assembling the frame, install the roof rafters. Each of the rafters will be 8 m long, so the boards, as mentioned earlier, we select the appropriate ones - otherwise they will have to be spliced together. We connect with the same screws, not nails (the latter are less reliable).

Step 3. Next, on the finished rafters, we make a crate of six-meter boards, on top of it we install sheets of galvanized steel. In this case, we must take care of the vapor barrier. There are two options here:

lay a vapor barrier film between the steel sheets and the crate.
if for some reason it did not work out with the film, then on two sides of the house under the roof itself we install three 40-cm pipes ø10 cm each to ensure ventilation of the under-roof space. We make holes for this in advance. For the winter, these pipes will not be closed, because the attic is used mainly in the summer.

Of course, the first method of vapor barrier is simpler.

Note! Steel roofing is, of course, inexpensive, but it will make a lot of noise during rain or strong winds. Therefore, it is preferable to use some kind of soft material, for example, ondulin.

To begin with, we install a crate from 6x6 cm beams (with a step of about 90 cm), attaching it to the walls of the containers with self-tapping screws. Then we take slabs of mineral wool (its dimensions are 6x100x300 cm) and put them between the beams. We deliberately made the pitch of the beams less than the width of the slabs so that the cotton wool settles more densely.

Everything is simple here: we take the profiled sheeting purchased in advance, preferably in light colors, and fix it on the crate with self-tapping screws.

With regards to the interior decoration, it is practically the same as the external one: the same battens and mineral wool, only we cover the insulation with chipboard sheets.

Note! We leave small gaps (about 1.5 cm) between the chipboard sheets, which we will subsequently fill with polyurethane foam - this will prevent dust from entering the house.

After that, we mount double-glazed windows into the window openings, preferably two-chamber ones.

When insulating the floor, we use the scheme familiar to us: we mount the crate from the same timber and lay the insulation mats. Next, we make the flooring using 15x4 cm boards, on top of which we lay the remaining chipboard.

To install the stove, we make a rectangular cutout in the chipboard in a pre-selected place, after which we lay the brick stove directly on the metal bottom of the container. There is no need to be afraid that something will happen to the oven, and there are reasons for that.

First of all, the bottom of the container is able to withstand quite heavy loads.
The container itself is essentially an iron box. No matter how he bends, the stove will do it with him. All that remains for us is to make sure that the deviations are small - for this we will correct them in a timely manner.

So, after a year, the container house may settle a little (presumably to the south, since the soil heats up there faster). To fix this, we raise one of the sides with a car jack and put paving slabs 50x50 cm under it. That's it, the house has been successfully returned to its original position.

Electricity is best routed through dedicated ducts rather than outside walls. Firstly, it is safer this way, and secondly, it is more accurate. If desired, we can also equip the sewer system - for this, it is enough to make a small hole in the floor through which the sewer pipe will lead to a previously dug drainage ditch or septic tank.

We cannot advise anything with regard to water supply - it all depends on the specific living conditions and the chosen place.

If there is free cash, then you can purchase a ready-made container house. Today there are many manufacturers of such housing, both Russian and Chinese. So, a medium-sized house (2.5x4 m) with insulation and decoration will cost about 90,000 rubles. It is quite enough for a comfortable stay of two or three people.

More expensive models (2.5 x 8 m) with plumbing fixtures and a shower will cost about 170,000 rubles.

It is worth noting that such houses can be moved from place to place, but this, of course, must be done with extreme caution.

So we built a container house - quite a decent budget housing option for the average citizen. Perhaps it is not worth explaining why a home-made house, which cost about 300,000 rubles, costs more than ready-made structures. For those who still do not understand this, we say: our house is twice as large, because it consists of two containers, and at the same time it is equipped with an attic.

Even some fifty years ago, the idea of using a shipping container as a home might have seemed like something strange.

But with today's sky-high prices for the purchase of finished housing or the construction of a new one, you have to consider any options. That is why containers are increasingly used as a temporary or even permanent place to live.

Architects from all over the world experiment with sea containers, create individual designs for their buildings, and offer more and more new ideas. The popularity of this type of housing is associated with great benefits.

Positive sides:

Relatively small financial costs for construction. This is despite the fact that the standard area of such a house is 30 square meters.
Reliable design, maximally protecting against intrusion.
Building a house and insulating it takes a little time.
A strip foundation can be used, which also significantly reduces construction costs.
A container house is not susceptible to natural phenomena such as floods or earthquakes.
Such a building stands out noticeably against the general background.
Can be used in heavy snow conditions.
There is a possibility of installation under an inclined plane.
Suitable not only as a temporary home, but also as a separate permanent home.

Negative sides:

The containers are designed for sea transportation. To protect the cargo from atmospheric agents, a special toxic material was applied to the surface of the containers. Accordingly, before moving into the container, it is necessary to clean it.
The walls of the container are not intended for housing. They heat up quickly enough and also cool down quickly at warm and cold temperatures, respectively.
The structure requires special care, since the walls are susceptible to corrosion.

But in order to live in a container, you first need to carefully insulate it inside or outside. At low temperatures, containers lose heat quickly. But it is also necessary not to forget about ventilation, since such houses quickly heat up in warm weather.

Let's consider, point by point, what work needs to be done to insulate the container for housing:

Considering that the container is made of perishable materials, it must be prepared in advance. All surfaces should be carefully inspected for rust, dents and other damage.
If rust is found, it is required to clean the damaged areas with sandpaper or a sander, if any.
Before starting the insulation process, it is recommended to prime and paint the walls. If this is not possible, then you need to at least carry out similar work on the damaged areas of the container.
Before starting the insulation work, it is necessary to find and manufacture the load-bearing supports of the house. This will require three beams of approximately 50 mm. They should be dry wood. A frame is assembled from the blanks along the perimeter of the entire container.

In most cases, expanded polystyrene or mineral wool is used as wall insulation from the inside.

The process of insulating a container with your own hands is as follows:

The selected insulation is attached to the pre-made frame. It is best to use self-tapping screws for this. In the lower and upper edges of the walls, it is important not to forget to make holes for the condensate to escape.
After the main work on thermal insulation has been carried out, it is necessary to lay a vapor barrier layer. A reinforcing film is perfect for this.
After the walls are insulated, it is worth moving on to the ceiling and floor. For this, you can use basalt wool with high density and heat capacity.

For any type of container used for transportation, standard technologies are used. They are also used for heating wagons.

Due to this, it is possible to maintain the required temperature in the room and reduce its sudden changes. You can also increase the protection against mechanical stress.

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The standard process for wall cladding with Styrofoam from the inside is as follows:

Walls, ceiling and floor are finished with thick sheets of polystyrene using liquid nails.
The slots are sealed with polyurethane foam.
A polyethylene film is stretched over the foam.
Wall cladding is made with foam sheets.
New foam sheets are covered with foil again.

Polyurethane is 90% air. And, as everyone knows, it has a low thermal conductivity.

That is why this material is good to use as a foam insulation. The finish from it will be vapor and moisture resistant.

But the process of applying polyurethane to the walls should only be carried out by a professional. This material must be applied as tightly as possible and without appropriate experience it will be difficult to do this.

For people who love to do everything with their own hands, building a house from a container and insulating it will become an easy and interesting task. Good results will be achieved with modern materials, expert advice and your own creative thought.

Watch a video that shows in detail the process of insulating a container for housing:

2. So, let's start with a thermos container. We need one sheet of expanded polystyrene with dimensions of 1200x600 mm, 50 mm thick, a stationery knife and a tape measure. The cost of such a sheet in any hardware store is 160 rubles. We cut the sheet according to the template, take the polyurethane foam and glue such a container.3. Here is a diagram of cutting a sheet. The sheet has sides with a thickness of 20 mm, they must be cut off from all sides, except for the bottom. The sheets are glued together with polyurethane foam. The technology is simple. Apply a little foam to the bonding area, wait 1 minute, press the sheets tightly against each other and then manually control for 5 minutes so that they do not move due to the expansion of the foam. The main thing is not to leave unattended. Only a small piece of expanded polystyrene, marked in gray on the diagram, will remain superfluous.4. Pay attention to the design of the lid, I cut one of the large sheets from the diagram above into 3 parts in place when gluing to ensure a tight fit. After that, the outside box can be painted. The paint corrodes the expanded polystyrene a little, so it is better to paint in two stages. The resulting container weighs 820 grams and has incredible heat loss performance. In such a box, you can put several kilograms of frozen food and transport them without problems for several hours. The main thing is not to mix frozen and chilled foods. The design can be supplemented with a cold accumulator.5. Or you can modify the design to get a full-fledged refrigerator. For these purposes, we will use a Peltier element - a thermoelectric converter, the principle of operation of which is based on the occurrence of a temperature difference during the flow of an electric current. It is these elements that are used in serial car refrigerators, as well as ventilated car seats.The cost of one Pelte element with a maximum power of 60 W on aliexpress is 130-150 rubles. Model TEC1-12706. During operation, one side of the element heats up, the other cools down. so that the element does not burn out, it is required to intensively remove heat from the hot side. To do this, we need a processor cooler with a radiator from a computer store, which costs 250 rubles. To improve air circulation inside the refrigerator and prevent freezing of the radiator, I decided to install fans on both sides. We also need a thermostat with an external temperature sensor and a relay, which costs 170 rubles, which will allow us to control the set temperature inside the container. Well, an extension cord with a connector for a car cigarette lighter for 100 rubles.6. The Peltier element using thermal paste (included with the cooler) is installed between two aluminum radiators. It is worth noting here that the temperature gradient of the installation can be increased by assembling 2 or 3 Peltier elements in series. So that one Peltier element cools the other. In this case, it is possible to get a negative temperature in the container down to -18 degrees Celsius. We lay a piece of foamed thermal insulation around the perimeter between the element.7. We connect the heatsinks to each other with standard mounting plates to the motherboard, connecting them with plastic clamps. This also allows the cold and hot sides to be thermally insulated from each other. Test run of the installation.The more intensively we cool down the hot side, the lower the temperature on the cold side will be. Here, the fans are directed to supply air to the radiators, which is less efficient than turning them over for blowing out. In an improvised box, it was possible to achieve a temperature of -3 degrees, at an ambient temperature of +26. The photo clearly shows the model of the coolers, their advantage is in the large area of the radiator support area. And as a thermal insulation pad, I used a piece of thermal insulation for round pipes.8. Now we are going to integrate the thermoelectric converter into the new container lid. For the convenience of placing the entire structure, we will increase the thickness of the cover to 100 mm (2 sheets of expanded polystyrene). This photo clearly shows the perimeter gasket between the two radiators.9. Artistic cutting on polystyrene foam and sanding. We paint again. After painting, the outer polystyrene shell becomes stronger.10. We coat the seams with sealant, turn both fans over to blow out. Potential improvements - it might be worth lowering the fan speed on the cold side (now both fans are running at maximum speed).11. Next to the case, we install the thermostat board and fix the power wire in such a simple way. First, we press the plate using self-tapping screws, then fix it with a sealant.12. Assembled container. The weight of the container without the lid is 800 grams, the same is the weight of the lid with the assembled thermoelectric converter. General expenses - 1000 rubles and a couple of hours of time. Tests with refrigerated products in the trunk of a car have shown the system's ability to maintain the temperature at the bottom (!) Of the container within +5 degrees Celsius, at an ambient temperature of +29 degrees (yes, it is much warmer in the trunk, even when the air conditioner is running) and current consumption - 3 Ampere. I think this is a great result.

I plan to make the next container from 3 Peltier elements installed in series in order to get a full-fledged freezer.What we will describe below is equally true for the insulation of any traditional house and for a house made from containers. We all understand that thermal insulation is needed in order to keep heat inside a thermally insulated volume. Accordingly, the better the thermal insulation, the longer the heat remains inside. It should be understood that good thermal insulation means not only the thickness of the thermal insulation layer! Efforts should be made to reduce any heat leaks that could be caused by:

Slots;

Cold bridges;

Any elements with high thermal conductivity.

Now let's explain the points.I hope that with point # 1 everything is clear anyway? If there are cracks in the house (anywhere) that will allow drafts to form, then no matter how you insulate yourself and no matter how you heat your house, all the heat will be drawn out by drafts.According to point # 2, a cold bridge is understood as such a part of the structure that has high thermal conductivity and through which there is an increased heat exchange. Let's try to "explain on the fingers" - imagine a well-insulated house, inside which is + 25 ° С, while outside it is minus 25 ° С. Now pierce the wall of such a house with a metal crowbar and leave it in the wall. Metal is an excellent conductor of heat, so this scrap will act as a bridge of cold, through which cold will get into the room, like an electric current flows through wires. This is a very conditional explanation. The most common cold bridges are: metal door frames; various steel anchors that pierce the walls of the house through and through; non-insulated concrete structural elements connecting the internal volume of the room with the street; improperly installed window blocks; non-insulated window and door openings, etc. In one of our articles: “Window insulation.Insulation of a window opening ", - we described in detail the option of forming a cold bridge in a non-insulated window opening.According to item 3, this refers to areas of enclosing structures with high thermal conductivity. For example, windows with a thin glass package, in which the thickness of the layer of the air gap between the glass does not provide normal thermal insulation. Or the walls are made of a material with high thermal conductivity, have a small thickness and are not insulated. So, for example, even from such a "cold" material as reinforced concrete, you can make a "warm" wall if its thickness is about 6 meters. This is not a typo! It is about SIX meters thick. With such a thickness, it is not even possible to insulate it (if we are talking about the climatic zone of the Moscow region). Below is a table of minimum wall thicknesses made of materials with different thermal conductivity. The table shows an approximate calculation of the thickness of walls made of a homogeneous material to meet the requirements of SNiP 23-02-2003 "Thermal protection of buildings" (for a comparative analysis, data from the climatic zone of Moscow and the Moscow region are used)Insulation of the container from the outside by spraying a heat-insulating layerNow let's try to answer the question of which side to insulate the container - from the outside or from the inside. Let's say right away that, in principle, it is possible to insulate both outside and inside, but in order to make the correct, final choice, it is necessary to take into account some additional points due to the fact that the metal is a rather specific material, fundamentally different from other materials by its high thermal conductivity, lack of porosity and a high tendency to corrosion. It is these three features that bring their own specifics to the choice of the side for insulation.Indeed, usually all houses built from traditional building materials such as concrete, foam concrete and the like should be insulated from the outside, since:Everything described above is aimed at preventing the formation of a dew point inside the wall.Now, from traditional materials, let's return to our container made of iron and try to remember what a dew point is. Dew point - This is the temperature to which the air must be cooled in order for the vapor contained in it to reach saturation and begin to condense into dew. Of course, this parameter will also depend on atmospheric pressure, but these are subtleties that we, in this article, can not take into account. Simply put, Dew point Is the temperature at which condensation occurs (moisture from the air turns into water).Dew point versus temperature and humidity tableFor example, if the indoor temperature is + 20 ° C, and the indoor humidity is 60%, then condensation will fall on any surface with a temperature below + 12 ° C (see the table above).If we talk about traditional materials, such as concrete, then it must be borne in mind that the dew point is not only a temperature point, it is also a point that has its own geometric position in the thickness of the material. For example, if we are talking about such a porous material as concrete, moistened and having a certain thickness, then with a temperature difference from different sides, the dew point will be somewhere inside this material, where the combination of temperature and humidity will allow the steam to condense into water.When we talk about a container made of iron, we understand that metal is not a porous material, so there cannot be steam in its thickness that can condense into water. Metal is not vapor permeable! Therefore, of all the possible options, you can leave only those two in which the dew point will be located either on the inner or outer surface of the metal wall of the container. Now let's define what each of these options can threaten us with.Corrosion? Perhaps, but it is easy to protect yourself from it, for this you just need to thoroughly cover the surface with a stable waterproofing material, be it paint or bitumen-polymer mastic. So, we have protected ourselves from corrosion, what else is the risk of dew falling on the inner or outer side of the container walls? If dew falls on the outside of the container walls, this is not a problem, such moisture will be no different from precipitation. If dew forms on the inside of the walls, it will begin to flow to the floor, forming puddles, causing dampness, and possibly the formation of mold and mildew.