The majority of shipping container conversions are designed with an expected lifespan that can either be measured in days or in decades. Either they are built to be a temporary exhibition or they are designed to last as long as any other permanent dwelling.
For people looking into a shipping container home, this is an interesting question because the modern history of cargotecture is so new that not even the oldest major shipping container projects have ever been tested.
The first major shipping container project in the UK, London’s Container City 1, still exists in its resplendent red industrial glory on Trinity Buoy Wharf, looking as striking and beautiful now as it did when first constructed in 2001.
That gives homeowners peace of mind that a well-constructed project will last at least 23 years.
However, working out how long they could theoretically last is a question that requires some exploration into the lifespan of the containers themselves.
How Long Does A Container Last?
Shipping containers do not have an easy life. They are constructed to face the unburnished wrath of some of the world’s most treacherous bodies of water. Whilst they are designed specifically to weather the literal and metaphorical storms found in international shipping, it does come with a cost.
This means that the lifespan of a shipping container depends a lot on how it is used. Typically, shipping containers have a lifespan of around a decade of use on the sea before they start being decommissioned and eventually retired, assuming nothing extreme happens to them.
These retired containers, if suitably repaired, maintained and absent of any major corrosion issues, could potentially last another two decades or potentially even longer.
Not all shipping container homes are constructed from containers that lived a rough life at sea, however.
Aside from the expensive but ideal solution of buying new shipping containers, there are plenty of shipping containers that are primarily used for storage and thus have faced far more favourable environmental conditions than the most heavily used cases.
These shipping containers will have a lifespan far closer to the 70 years a house made from brick or stone tends to last without significant renovation, and certainly around the level certain parts of a house such as roofing lasts.
If cared for, converted properly for construction and installed in a way that preserves its internal structure, a shipping container can last as long as half a century, which puts it in the range of many widely used construction materials.
All of this is currently just theoretical lifespans. At present, the oldest container structures are not even half as old as that, and due to their effective maintenance schedule, they could last well beyond that point.
The lifespan of a shipping container project is usually based not on the lifespan of the containers themselves but on the needs of the people who use them. Even Container City was designed to be a temporary accommodation, albeit one designed to last a decade or two, but is still going strong to this day.
Time will tell exactly how long they will last, but a container conversion is an effective long-term prospect.
