Shipping Container Guides

Every length from 10ft to 53ft in one chart, outside and inside, with door openings, weights and square footage. The place to start if you’re torn between sizes.

The 20ft in feet, inches and millimeters: about 19′4″ of length inside, its payload, how many pallets it takes and the room a truck needs to set it down.

Both 40ft heights in detail, with road weight limits, pallet counts, what fits inside and how the box is lifted off the truck.

A high cube is a foot taller, 9′6″ instead of 8′6″. See what that foot buys inside, what it adds to the price at each size, and when a standard box does the job.

Why Americans call shipping containers conex boxes, a name that goes back to a US Army box of the early 1950s, and whether a conex is any different from a shipping or storage container.

Cargo worthy, wind and watertight, one-trip: what each label tells you about a used box when no industry standard pins it down, which suits storage or shipping, and what to get in writing from the seller.

How a refrigerated container holds the temperature you set, how cold it gets, the power it needs once it’s on land, and what to check before buying a used one.

A storage container rests on its four corners, so it rarely needs poured concrete. The options run from timbers and gravel to piers and slabs, with published costs and how to get the box level.

Your city or county sets the rules. What usually triggers a permit, the 200 sq ft threshold in the model residential code, and what to ask the planning office before delivery day.

Which costs less for the same floor area, what each one does better, and how to set up a container as a shed.

Planning to build? The price of the containers themselves, how many a floor plan takes, and which parts of the budget only a builder can quote.