"Do refrigerators still come in big cardboard boxes?" "Yeah, but the rents are outrageous"
The problem with housing is not the cost of the house itself, is the zoning laws that limits the amount of housing that can be built close to workplaces and where people wants to live. Just let construction companies built residential buildings, duplexes and other denser housing that single family detached houses and prices are going to go down.
Mass produced shipping container housing might not be a bad idea though if governments can fund it. As long as they have consistent design requirements factored in (electricity, water, and sewage hookups), a place to set up that hasn't been NIMBY'd, and offered free to the people, I'd be all for it.
Let's end the housing crisis. Let's end homelessness. It isn't impossible.
Sounds like the tin box is a solution for an individual looking for housing, worth $20,000 in the current environment. Nobody thinks this is a solution to the entire housing crisis.
It’s not a solution tho. Shipping containers are designed to hold freight not people.
- The walls are thin steel bakes/freezes with temperature, adding insulation just takes away more of the already thin container width
- Flat roof means rain, leaves, snow, etc just piles up and creates rust
- Shipping containers are valuable for transport - the real reason you see these and the tiny houses on wheels is because they conveniently ignore land needs for the house to actually sit on
Just to add, as long as the roofs aren't damaged they are curved enough so rain drips off.
And while steel isn't a good insulator it's not like they insulate any less than other thin materials. But yeah they are too narrow to make the ideal tiny house.
They are also way too heavy and sturdy, you don't need your tiny house to be able to be able to hold like 100 tonnes on the roof (posts) or 40 tones on the floor.
These do help though. They're great for student housing for example. Here in Albuquerque there is a long tradition of casitas that is thankfully being expanded through relaxed zoning. It provides a relatively quick way to increase density in areas built up with SFH without facing much nimby pushback. Housing prices are detached from supply/demand somewhat but not entirely, increase supply enough and prices drop.
I looked into container houses and I'd absolutely love a house that I can move from city to city. Moving without packing shit up. I just wish they weren't as heavy and a bit wider.
I'd also love the idea of "stacks" where you can slot in your container home into a vertical grid. The problem is that you generally want your entry to be on the long side, so you'd need lots of corridors in such a stack.
You forgot to include that because of bad politics we now rely on corporations to help..
Some one has to make money to help the poor!
This is Sears all over again. You used to be able to order a house from a catalog.
They would basically ship you everything you needed to build the house, with some plans, and that was it. Bearing in mind that was a very long time ago.
Then all houses were built by professionals and prices rose. Houses got better overall, since someone who knew WTF they're doing, put it all together.
Now, they won't even go to where you want the house. Just building the houses for you in some house factory or something and they ship it to you pre-built.
This is just a trailer home without the wheels! What the actual hell.
Don't get me wrong, mobile and trailer homes can be rather nice, but having no wheels... I dunno man, I think we're moving backwards.
Hey Alexa, one box please.
