Hi I have this opportunity to use a Japanese lakeside property that presently has no building on it. I can have a structure there as long as it can be removed quickly and cleanly. I was looking at some pretty impressive container homes on Alibaba and wondering what issues I will run into here if I import one – one would consist of several 20 foot container cubes fitted out with kitchen and bath and windows, doors, floor and ceiling, wired, everything. Is there anyone here that can describe the regulatory walls I will come up against?
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I had a architect do a 40ft container building for serving coffee. It totally Depends on how you do it. If you do everything above board, you need to buy a special container made for building use, import from china, drill the container into a foundation you lay and even reinforce the walls with steel if you thinking of putting anything on top. If you don’t do this your city won’t authorize a building permit and you won’t be able to pay proper property tax.
Of course you don’t need to do this, no one is stopping you from buying a used shipping container and plonking it down on your property and DIY the inside. Depends on your municipality and the location of the land they would never know
Is there any reason why you won’t source locally? Is the price difference that much?
They finally figured out what to do with all the toxic building materials that were banned from the US…
Google “Chinese Drywall.” Then have a thought about spending a significant amount of your time living in a box that somehow costs less, including freight, than the same thing made domestically.