J+G gets a shipping container house

All the different ways of solving the shelter problem. To be static or mobile? Roots, legs, or wheels?
Jin+Guice
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by Jin+Guice »

@C40:

We aren't splitting up the lot, we are going to be co-owners. This will make doing anything much more difficult, but it will make the purchase of the lot much easier for me (it may be impossible to split, obviously this is different from lot to lot and place to place).

@AH: My friends container made it through Ida (Cat 4) with no damage at all and did not blow off the pilings.

Jin+Guice
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by Jin+Guice »

Does anyone know how to calculate what kind of solar power/ how much panel I would need to get to power this thing?

theanimal
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by theanimal »

You first need to know how much power you use each day. This includes everything that will be on your system and what you plan on powering/charging. Measure everything! Err to the higher side. You can most easily do this by measuring in watts. All electric devices will have some type of power panel on them and multiply the watts by the hours you use that specific thing. Add all these together and you'll come up with your daily electrical consumption. You can then use the average solar hours per day (average amount of time sun is high enough to provide substantial charge) for your area to figure out what you need to meet your needs for a day. It looks like where you're at is 4-6 hrs on an annual basis. It'll be higher than this in summer and lower in winter. A basic example to illustrate. You use 1000 wats/day (1 kw). On an average day, a 250 watt solar panel could provide all your electrical needs for the day, assuming 4 solar hours per day.

Most people size their system to provide for more power gain than what they typically use in a day (to account for cloudy days, days without any solar gain etc). For example, during the summer we use about 1.5 kw/day. My panels are 780W (slightly more in reality since they're bifacial) and I have over 8 hours of full capacity during the day from March-Aug, meaning in theory we could get around 5 kw/day, Over 3x our needs. You will also need a charge controller for the solar panels, this regulates the voltage that comes in from the solar panels so that you can use the electricity. Unless you plan on only using electricity during the day or tying into the grid, you will also want some form of battery. Car batteries can work if you have a really simple setup but they are not ideal. You will be looking for deep cycle batteries. The size will vary depending on how much electricity you use and how much of a buffer you want to have in your system to allocate for cloudy days, rainy days, low solar winter days etc.

Jin+Guice
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by Jin+Guice »

Cool, thanks, I'm sure I will have more questions once I get started out there. Approximately how much did it cost you to get your setup? Do you have a deep cycle battery or are you tied into the grid? Thanks again!

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mountainFrugal
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by mountainFrugal »

Not sure if you are looking to supplement grid or go full off grid, but if on the lower end of production and storage here are the major costs for our van solar system:
200 amp hour deep cycle battery -$350 (~4 days of small chest fridge, lights, charging devices with no input in mild temps)
2-175W panels - $175 each (this price may have come down since 2020)
Charge Controller 150V/50amp~$320 (you will likely need a larger one depending on your setup)

Potential other costs that will depend on how and where it will be set up:
Mounting hardware/structure
Cables/wire
water proof cable connectors from outside to in

theanimal
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by theanimal »

I'm not connected to the grid. The batteries are the most expensive aspect of the whole system. I have two 6 volt deep cycle batteries that make a 12 volt system. Each or our batteries were about $500 (445 amp hour). This can be more or less depending on your electrical needs. For us this works out to 3 days of electrical use before the batteries need to be charged*. 12 volt systems aren't as popular now as 24 volt systems. Most new off grid builds are 24V and 12V is being phased out. For a 24 volt system, you would need 4 batteries. If you end up using batteries, you will have to decide if you want to use 12V or 24 V as to my knowledge most solar panels, inverters, charge controllers etc are setup to work with one or the other. You might be able to use lower capacity batteries than I (meaning less $$$) since you can get a charge throughout the year. I need larger batteries than I would elsewhere since we don't get any solar power for some of the winter.

Overall costs will vary depending on the size of your needs. When I first started living off grid I was by myself in a 144 sq ft log cabin and had almost nothing that I needed electricity for besides a light and to charge my laptop every so often. I only had one 300 watt panel then, a charge controller, a small inverter and a couple of batteries. I don't remember the exact cost of that but it was probably something like $1500. This setup I have now was much more expensive, now I have 2 larger bifacial panels (PV cells on both sides), an inverter charger and bigger batteries. I think it was about $4k in total. My costs are going to be much higher than yours though. There is limited supply of all this stuff in AK so prices are a bit higher. You can figure generally about $1/watt for the solar panels if you are buying them new. They last a long time, but do lose some of their capacity over that time. If you find one used, I wouldn't get it if it's more than 5-10 years old.


*They are charged at roughly ~50% depletion. We have 2 lights, laptops, phones, no fridge, occasional other thing to charge, and occasionally some kitchen appliances. Chest freezers on a timer in summer. Our inverter also draws 50w just idling ( :evil: ) which probably ends up being the bulk of our electrical use. We don't get any power from our panels November-end of January and charge the batteries with a generator.

Edited:battery costs

Jin+Guice
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by Jin+Guice »

Thanks, I'm going to have a 320 sq ft shipping container (probably less sq footage on the inside). I am going to have a window AC and a refrigerator (as well as other lights) so my guess is the draw will be much larger than yours. It's probably possible for me to run the refrigerator from grid power using a nearby source. Actually refrigeration is a huge problem for me, I'll start another thread about it.

theanimal
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by theanimal »

What about using a swamp cooler instead of A/C? I've read that uses about 1/4 of the energy as that of an A/C unit.

For the fridge you could convert a chest freezer to a fridge. It's ridiculously efficient compared to a regular standup fridge. I imagine less than 1/4 of the energy. There are lower powered fridges and DC powered fridges but they still have a decent electrical draw that adds up to a lot of kW when you're plugged in all day.

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Slevin
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by Slevin »

@Jin+Guice any updates on this project? I'm considering doing something similar right now, interested to see if you had made any progress.

AxelHeyst
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by AxelHeyst »

theanimal wrote:
Fri Jan 14, 2022 1:27 pm
What about using a swamp cooler instead of A/C? I've read that uses about 1/4 of the energy as that of an A/C unit.
Ironically, swamp coolers don't work well in places that are humid, such as swamps. :lol: They work best with dry air.

Jin+Guice
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by Jin+Guice »

The initial plan fell apart on me.

Here's what happened: I had 6 months to move the container from northern MS. I got triangulated by my friend and his ex-gf on buying the property and adding improvements to the property to place the shipping container on. This lead to a last month scramble to find somewhere, which turned out to be the most beneficial part of the process. I now have 4 offers of places to put a tiny house. None of them were feasible in the time frame I had and needing to build pillars to put the house on. Additionally moving the shipping container was a bit of a logistical nightmare. I have no doubt that if I had known the right people I could've made this happen, but everyone I was depending on basically fell through. The dude who I bought the house from graciously offered me a full refund which I took.

I'm a bit bummed bc this would've def been the cheapest option with a well built house. The two upsides from this are 1) I learned a 40ft shipping container is too long for the properties I have access to, 2) I have more and better prospects for places to put my container and 3) I've decided to make my tiny house mobile so I can move it bc it will def be illegal.

I'm also not going to buy land since my house is mobile. I wasn't thrilled about buying land in New Orleans or with current land prices anyway (my land deal was insanely good, though could've had problems in the future. It's probably still open to me if I ever want it).


The tl;dr is, I couldn't get land in time so I got a refund on the initial house I bought.


So now I'm looking at mobile tiny houses. I had written off shipping containers, but actually I think a 20 ft shipping container on a permanent trailer would work.

I'm trying to come up with a checklist for evaluating used and new tiny houses. I could use y'all's help brainstorming since I've never bought a house?

Some New Orleans specific things:

It is humid af.
It is hot af.
It is rarely cold.
There are termites.
It rains a lot.
There are hurricanes (ideally I move it to Mobile for bad storms, which is far enough away to negate a hurricane that directly hits New Orleans if the hurricane is really bad. Would be nice if it could withstand up to a Cat 2 hurricane).


I'm also hoping the house can eventually be taken offgrid, though regular trailer hookups would also be great to start with.

Some weird J+G notes: I'm pretty confident in my ability to put this in a friend's backyard and borrow a car to toe it once or twice a year. I would also devise a hurricane plan to move in the event of a major storm, when resources are more scarce... but small off-grid house is a pretty major asset in the week or two after a bad storm, no matter where you are. The thing I'm not confident about is my ability to assess the quality and gulf coast specific attributes of the tiny house itself. What am I not thinking of?

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mountainFrugal
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by mountainFrugal »

A number of years ago I was looking into sailboats. I contacted Airbnb hosts that offered these as options. The hosts were often really interested in talking about their boats/builds even if I did not plan to stay with them. I assume this could also be true for tiny homes in your area. Take a look at their designs and ask what they might do differently next time for your area specifically?

shaz
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by shaz »

Definitely be aware of the towing capacity your house would require if moving it is a key part of your plan. My guess is that you will require something more substantial than a car in order to tow even the tiniest house safely and without destroying the transmission and if you do destroy a transmission or two you may find it difficult to borrow a car in the future.

Jin+Guice
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Re: J+G gets a shipping container house

Post by Jin+Guice »

Here's my list of questions for a potential tiny house seller:

Weather:

How is it sealed for rain?
How does the roof drain?

Exterior:

What kind of siding?

Interior:

How is it insulated?
How is the internal power wired?
What are the walls made out of?
What is the floor made out of?


Kitchen:

Stove?
Fridge?
Sink?
Counter space?

Bathroom:

Sink?
Toilet?
What type of shower?

Bedroom:

What size bed?

Off-grid capabilities:

Electric?
Water?
Compost toilet?


Termites:

What wood is in the home?
Is it termite treated?

Utilities:

Electric?
Water?
Sewage?




What else should I be asking about/ concerned about?

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