You don’t have to be a environmental activist, an architectural whizz or a design loving bohemian to want to convert a shipping container into a work, hobby or living space. It is fast becoming THE building material of choice when thinking about that site office, house extension, site canteen or even recording studio. Why is this? Well, shipping containers are reasonably priced, big, sturdy, versatile and most importantly in this day and age… great for the environment. 

Here at Lion Containers Ltd, we can either provide shipping containers for your own
conversion project, or via our
Lion Containers (Fabrications) Ltd company can see the conversion through for you. Below, we give some of the main reasons why more and more of our customers are using shipping containers for conversions. Why don’t you view some of our recent
case studies for inspiration?

1. We sell new and used shipping containers by purchasing a used container you are recycling that container. Once it has been given a lick of paint, and converted into it’s intended use (or simply used for storage), no-one will ever now that it was pre-owned. Whether a container is new or used it has already served its main purpose by taking at least one trip by sea to transport cargo to the end location, therefore, when a shipping container arrives in the UK for example, it “owes” nothing to the environment thus providing an excellent environmentally friendly construction material.
2. Containers can be siting on or near construction sites, hospital sites, universities, or disused land in big cities. By creating cheap, temporary housing, it cuts the cost of commuting for the temporary project workers, rural living workers or students. It is also a very affordable way of creating housing. A typical 40 foot container represents about 8,000 pounds of steel, which can require about 8,000 kilowatt-hours of energy to melt and re-manufacture. That’s about half of what a typical home uses in a year. As a result, buildings created from used shipping containers function like carbon reduction and long-term storage devices.
3. Containers are built to be stacked up high, so the higher they can be stacked, the less space they require. Container City is a collection of London-area developments drawing on container techniques perfected by a company called Urban Space Management. The first project was built in East London, in 2001. The Container City projects include offices, retail shops, artists studios, a nursery, a youth centre, and a school as well as housing.”This modular technology enables construction times and cost to be reduced by up to half that of traditional building techniques while remaining significantly more environmentally friendly,” states Urban Space Management.
4. Containers are now being used for hotels, the Lego-like stack-ability of a shipping container means that multiple floors can be created very quickly, as well as keeping costs down.
5. Once converted, shipping containers can be very easily lined either with ply or aluminium lining depending on the conversion. People may want to line their container for aesthetic reasons (e.g in an office or canteen) or to control temperature swings, whatever the reasons it is extremely environmentally friendly.
6. Containers are strong so it is becoming increasingly popular, for the flat roof to be used for solar panels, solar hot water roofs, moss roofs, or even gardens. This is a great way of continuing the environmental care.

So we hope we have given you some food for thought there. We feature a wide range of conversions on this site, as well as on our fabrications company website, so please
click below for more information or call us on 0333 600 6260.