Before purchasing the shipping container, make sure your community, county or state allows you to have a shipping container on your property or modify and do ground preparation, and if they do, see if you need any permit to do so. Once you have the permit then you can go ahead and purchase the unit and have it delivered to you. But first make sure you have everything ready before delivery happens.
Most of the companies that sell and deliver leave the ground preparation for you. Rarely they can hire a local contractor to do it. Why to pay extra if you can do it yourself. Before delivery we recommend checking and preparing the ground for your shipping container yourself. You need a leveled area at least as big as your shipping container and accessible for the delivery truck. You want this area to be free from debris and you want to make sure the ground isn’t very soft. You don’t want the container sinking once its been put into place. Shipping containers don’t necessarily need a concrete base to sit on but this is a great option if possible.
Double check if there are no overhead obstructions such as tree branches, frowns, phone or power cables that might obstruct the lifting process. This is not only above the area where your container will be placed, but also above the area the truck will sit and any area in between. If you are in any doubt over the access from the main road to the delivery site, we recommend sending some pictures or perhaps even a video walkthrough of the site. You should start with the main entrance to your property, maybe road entrance as well, so that way everyone can best understand the challenges or not will be facing during delivery. Always think of a second access way and a second or third delivery site. because if the driver cannot deliver where you want, he will try to deliver as close as possible or at a different close by location. Most of the time if the delivery won’t take place because of narrow spots, inadequate access way from the main road onto the property or delivery area, they can cancel the delivery but still charge you for delivery so pay attention to the terms and conditions each delivery company has.
Spend some time initially thinking about where you want to place the shipping container before preparing the site for it. Which way the doors are going to face? Make sure if you have enough space and room to open the doors to get in and out, if you need to put in a car or you use a forklift to place goods inside. Sometimes we suggest physically marking out the space with cones, sticks tape, rope so you can understand how the space is taken up and how you will have to work around it, making sure you avoid blocking any fire exits for nearby buildings and that you allow good access to and around the shipping container.
We recommend that the shipping container is raised up slightly from the ground to ensure its not sat in any wet puddles or mud, and to allow an airflow underneath which will dry out the underside of the container.. All this will extend the life of the underside of the container and keep it safe from water and sometimes pests.
To prepare a site for a shipping container ideally you want a set of supports on each of the 4 bottom corners of the shipping container. These containers are designed to be lifted from these 4 corners, stacked and loaded with 20+ tones of cargo, so unless you’re loading very heavy weights inside you won’t need to worry about additional supports along the base of the container – just in the 4 corners. Just to be on the safe side, if you do store heavy goods, we advise to support the middle part of the unit as well.
These shipping containers need to be kept level. If they aren’t level you may find the doors become very stiff or you won’t be able to open or close them, or you may find that the hasp on a lock box doesn’t correctly align with the hole in the lock box on the other door (meaning you can’t close the door correctly). Shipping containers themselves are designed to flex slightly, when the container is on the boat, may pitch in the sea, and this means if you place a shipping container on uneven ground the container itself might flex to one side, but your container doors are still a square shape and won’t fit into the frame.
Make sure your supports will be able to take the weight of the container plus the weight of your cargo without any risk of moving or settling.
- Pairs of bricks, cinder blocks – 4 for each corner and 4 for the middle ( for the 20ft units it can be just 2 towards the middle )
- heavy duty paving slabs or cement blocks – at least for for the corners, and as many as you need towards the middle
- 4×4, 8×8, railroad ties are common supports used – 3-4 beams 2 towards the ends and 1-2 towards the middle of the box
- gravel pad – is recommended and allows drainage and airflow underneath the unit, to these pad you can also place all the above supports
- cement or tarmac pad – also recommended and can be combined with first tree options as well
If you already poured cement posts that will stick out, will only make the delivery hard and the driver will not be able to drive over them. Build small ramps to ease up the delivery and
Keep in mind, that besides the pads, the wooden beams can be placed easily only DURING the delivery and unloading is done, during the unloading you can slide the beams as the box slides off the trailer. Cement pads, cinder blocks, concrete slabs they can only be placed AFTER the unit has been delivered and is sitting on the ground or pad, because you risk to break the supports during unloading. You will need to lift the box on each corner with a jack or totally with a forklift or heavy machinery and then precisely place the supports under each corner and side.
Remember a 20ft shipping container weights roughly 5000 lbs that is approximately 2.5 tons, almost like a small pick up truck. The 40ft shipping containers weight between 8000 lbs to 8500 lbs, meaning 4 tons – 4.25 tons, almost like a heavy pick up truck. So think about the area that the shipping container will be delivered, they are coming on a pick up truck with a goose neck tilt bed trailer, it’s light and maneuverable but also all together until the box is delivered will be measuring between 80ft long and 8 ft wide and at least 27000 lbs total ( 13.5 tons ). That’s why ground needs to be hard, no mud or after a heavy rain otherwise they will get stuck and delivery will take longer ( sometimes there might be some extra charges : time the driver spends on delivery and / or towing truck to pull him out ).
Any support that’s larger than the corner castings, 7 inch square, and that can take the weight will be enough. If you use a support that crumbles away with a few tones of pressure then this can then lead to the racking issues described above. The same goes if you’re are placing the container on soft ground – the ground may be level to begin with but if one corner will sink away over time can potentially cause issues down the line, damage the container and the goods you want to store inside.
This may sound silly but we often come across this problems. If you have 4 equal slabs to use as your corner supports and put them on uneven ground, then the container will still be uneven and you may still get racking problems. We recommend having handy additional smaller or thinner supports in such an instance that can help keep the container level when placed on uneven ground.
Hope this post will bring you more information and help you understand better what a shipping container delivery means and next time when we deliver, you will be prepared and ready to receive your shipping container.
