The Big Day (or days as it turned out) has arrived to take delivery of our shipping containers for our future shipping container cabin.
All 8 containers have arrived from China. So we headed up to the shipping container yard to do a pre-inspection of the containers. Most importantly was to verify the shipping placard labels for the pesticide treatments used during manufacturing of the wood floors. The treatment was not what we expected to receive (this is not a feature that you can specify when ordering containers), but after some research we satisfied ourselves with it’s characteristics and that it will be satisfactory for our project given our construction techniques.
In Ontario, with all the snow melting in the spring time, it results in load restrictions for hauling heavy loads during this time of year. In our case, the last 1km of travel is on a seasonal dirt road which is even more susceptible to road damage. As a result, we needed to wait until the “half load” trucking restrictions were lifted by the local municipality, and delayed our ability to take delivery of the containers.
Before the containers arrived, 50 cubic yards of gravel was brought in to expand the lay down area to accomodate all 8 containers beside the proposed construction site. Here is a video of the existing cabin and lay down area, the Octopod will cover the area of the existing cabin and the drive shed. VIDEO: cabin before 360
All 8 containers were planned to be shipped up on a Tuesday. The shipping company asked to advance shipment of half the cans to the previous Friday night and Saturday. After waiting all evening, the 4 containers arrived at 12 midnight under a full moon. The containers were unloaded from the tilt and load trucks and placed onto railway tie timber. The truck drivers didn’t leave until 2am after working in the dark, and decided not to return on Saturday. This meant the remaining containers would be shipped on Tuesday as originally planned. Upon returning again on Tuesday, we noticed some damage to one of the containers on the front top beam above the door. With the beauty of technology we were able to take photos and send them to the container company, who with excellent customer service in mind, had one of the trucks backhaul the damaged container and send a replacement unit that same day. Here is a video of a container being unloaded from a truck onto railway tie blocks. VIDEO: container unloading
