Sourcing Timbers and Brackets for our Post and Beam Great Room

March 22, 2014 By Leave a Comment

This past winter was the coldest Ontario has seen in 20 years. Spring is officially here however the nicer weather hasn’t exactly arrived yet. After checking in with our builder, it appears we’ll need a little more patience before the roads dry up allowing us to get back into the construction scene.

During our planned sea container construction downtime, we have been busy preparing for our next steps.

1. Source big timbers

We believe in local sourcing to support the community and to reduce shipping costs. These savings will ultimately reflect in our final construction costs so we searched for a nearby sawmill with the capacity and capability to mill up dimensional timbers as large as 10″ x 10″, and some as long as 26 ft.  Sure enough, just one concession road over from the project site, our friendly local sawmill was up for the task.  Timbers of this size require a long lead time. Our order was placed months ago in order to align with our spring construction period.

2. Source heavy steel brackets

Another long lead time item are the custom heavy steel brackets for connecting the post and beam timber works.  For ease of on site assembly, and for the beefy rustic look, we decided to go with heavy steel brackets instead of custom fit hand carved joints.  Once the final dimensions of the rough sawn timbers were confirmed, design and engineering of the brackets were finalized, and off they went into the fabrication shop for manufacturing, and over to the finishing shop for a hot dipped galvanized treatment.

Now we wait for the ground to dry up.

Once we mobilize the crane, the containers will be placed on their foundations. Then we start building the great room.

The following preparation and progress has occurred while the site lay in winter hibernation:

  1. Post and beam timbers sourced and cut, ready for delivery
  2. Manufacturing of enormous engineered brackets and hot dip galvanizing, ready for delivery
  3. Researching off-grid power and determining requirements of the cabin, keeping us busy –  interesting findings on the latest energy storage technologies post to follow
  4. Documenting interior design requirements so that a furniture, electrical and lighting plan could be created to optimize the living space. We have an exciting interior designer engaged – deserving of her own dedicated post.
  5. Did we mention we’re hoping to have the sea container cabin project filmed for a TV series?  Film producers are excited about the rich content of this project, so we’ll see if they can keep up with the speed of the build this summer.

white pine timbers for sea container cabin

First load of timbers for the great room are waiting to be delivered.

If you would like greater detail on any of these topics or just want to hear more about our experiences, contact us or leave us a comment below. Your interests do influence our future community blog topics. You can also follow us on our journey by signing up for our emails.

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Spotted in Shizuoka Japan

March 22, 2014 By Leave a Comment

Once you are in the business of building with shipping containers, you can’t help but notice these types of projects when traveling the world. We were recently in Shizuoka Japan, and drove by a retail storefront that caught our eye. A series of containers were painted black, placed along both sides of this building and have been integrated in a way to provide furniture and goods storage. I was particularly impressed with the beefy foundations and fastening detail they employed. What a neat find. If you come across anything neat, please let us know so we can share with our community of shipping container architecture enthusiasts.

 

Japan shipping container

Japan shipping container

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Building Foundations for a Rocky Landscape

November 26, 2013 By Leave a Comment

Old man Winter was finding its way quickly into Southern Ontario and we were knee deep in building foundations for our shipping container cabin. The Bobcaygeon area is known for rocky terrain with a clear presence of cambrian and pre-cambrian geology. The entire foundation area was excavated and scraped down to the granite bedrock. Due to the uneven rock terrain, we decided bringing in surveyors to accurately locate the centre octagon points and outer piers would be a worthwhile investment. After all, it isn’t exactly easy to undo concrete work.

Concrete forming commenced for the footings, with some crafty carpentry work to follow the natural granite. Rebar pins were drilled into the granite for all footings. Rebar reinforcements were inserted into concrete footings and with projections for foundation walls and piers to come next. Let’s just say these piers are securely fastened to mother earth and we won’t have any concerns for foundation settlement, that is for sure. And just in the nick of time with winter settling in!

 excavated area

Excavation of shipping container cabin site

survey pins 2

Construction plans for shipping container cabin

surveyors 1

Surveyors to accurately locate piers

surveyors 2

Measurements and anchoring to the rock foundation

survey pins

Straightening metal spikes from the disassembled barn for transformation into markers

surveyors 3

Marking our locates

footings 2

Crafty centre octagon form building

footings 6

Initial octagon cement pour

footings 7 done

Aerial view of future Octopod

Do you have any questions regarding building foundations in our project? We’d be happy to share our learnings. In fact, there’s been so much interest in our project we are putting together a free of charge sneak peek of our Do it Yourself Shipping Container Cabin kit. Sign up for our blog if you’d like to be the first to know once it becomes available. Or leave a comment.

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Why shipping container homes?

July 29, 2013 By 2 Comments

Why are we interested in Shipping Container Homes?

Jason Rioux has always been intrigued by the fabulous creations and multiple uses of shipping containers for living space around the world. Many years ago, we purchased a retired shipping container and gave it new life storing our toys. Why? It was very cost effective, a quick solution given all you needed was to arrange delivery and we realized we couldn’t build a new garage that would parallel in keeping pesky rodents out.

Building, or dreaming of building, with containers is becoming a global trend with a lot of buzz.  Google searching shipping container projects will reveal some amazing projects around the world.  Dreamers and designers love playing with these giant lego blocks, imagining many creative ways to stack and assemble structures for all sorts of purposes. Uses range from residential, to institutional, to commercial, to industrial, to non-occupancy structures.

sea container cabin3 things propelled Workbench Corp. to pursue container development projects:

  1. Developing small urban spaces while being “green” and cost efficient
  2. Using non-standard building methodology of shipping containers as the primary building blocks
  3. High security and off-grid construction features

1. Developing small urban spaces in a “green” yet cost efficient manner.

We recently stumbled across a sliver of vacant land in downtown Toronto sandwiched between two existing buildings on a high traffic main road. Immediately the questions started flying. How can we optimize that skinny piece of land by developing a low cost commercial and residential building? Could we build something attractive and trendy yet energy efficient? Would anyone be interested in urban shipping container home living? Parcels of land come in all sizes, and shipping container building structures can be designed and constructed to footprints as small as 8′ x 20′.

The expectation of building with sea containers is that somehow you can build at a lower cost than standard construction materials and methods.  The objective on this project is to build the complete project for $100/sqft, as compared to standard construction budgets of twice this amount.  To achieve this, we are maximizing the benefits of working with containers, with the philosophies further outlined in the Concept and Design section.

2. Using non-standard building methodology of shipping containers as the primary building blocks

Projects have been developed around the world with containers, but very very few have been done in Ontario.  The ideas and construction methods used around the world have mostly been in warm climates.  Developing a project made of steel containers in a cold climate is much much different.  Ontario has extreme hot and cold spells, presenting many different challenges to be overcome.  Ontario has many containers structures in place as temporary structures, like construction offices, back woods containers modified into hunt camps, and various structures built without permits.  This project intends to break through the process of meeting Ontario Building Code, obtaining Building Permits, and building a permanent structure that will last the test of time.

Workbench is set on proving the design, construction techniques, and cost advantages of shipping container homes.  After proving out concepts and construction techniques, we intend to develop more projects in Ontario, and provide advice those who wish to develop their own.

3. High security and off-grid construction features

The property being developed is quite remote and has attracted some theft over the years.  Sea containers are not invincible, but they are a certainly a deterrent given the extra work required to cut several locks, lock boxes, and steel panels.  The seal and security of keeping out mice and insects is a common issue with cottage properties, and sea containers provide an amazingly tight envelope to work with.

Living and working with this off grid property over the last many years has enabled us to experience and improve many aspects of off grid living. In this container project we intend to build upon this experience with additional off grid creativity and simplicity. These off-grid features are useful for both off-grid and on-grid applications, as they provide a level of energy and water supply redundancy and self sufficiency in either situation.  As energy costs rise, the business case will continue to improve for the off-grid lifestyle.  It is a personal lifestyle and philosophy choice that isn’t for everyone, but for those up to the challenge, it is very gratifying to be less reliant on the “system” in day to day life.

Benefits of Shipping Containers

There must be millions of retired shipping containers just waiting to be reinvented. Why not create living space from sea container cabins, cottages, homes to garages? Your imagination will only bring countless uses of this product. They are available immediately, little preparation is required for their final resting place, they’re cost effective, green, fit in small places, secure and if necessary you can move it!

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