Shipping container hay barn

[3Lfarms]

I am in the planning stages of a barn I want to build. The purpose of the building is to eventually be a hay barn for a small cattle ranch and homestead. In the shorter term, the containers will store our belongings while we build a house on the property and be a place to park our 43’ fifth wheel.
I am not in the city limits, just the county to deal with and it is very rural. It’s not in the middle of nowhere, but you can see it from there. Since it will be considered AG, I do not expect any permit issues, but I want it to last at least 75 years.

I want to set both containers on poured footings and piers. Frost depth is 30”. I am planning on digging down 36” and pouring 24”x24” footings with rebar and then setting sonotubes on them, then backfill and fill the tubes to 6” above grade. My soil is 24” of hard clay on top of a mix of sand and clay. It’s very dry here, but it does get down to about -25f in the winter.

The containers would then be secured to the piers to prevent any movement.

My main question is since I intend to put a large roof across these, do they need footings other than at the 4 corners of each container? I saw a show on TV where they built a house out of shipping containers, and they poured 4 footings on each side of the container so it sat on 8 rather large footings. I know the containers are designed to only be supported by the 4 corners, but if it has to support a roof structure, would it be that much better?

Once the containers are in place, I intend to add 5’ or so of poles or beams to raise the the height of the trusses over the center part of the barn. This is where I do not know which method would be both strong and economical. I could weld short vertical beams on top of the containers to give me the height I want and brace them adequately with a beam running the length of the containers to support the roof trusses. Any ideas on how to do this are welcome.

I plan to work with a truss company to figure out the design and sizing of the roof trusses, I’m not willing to risk building those myself.

Here is a sketch I drew up to help illustrate my plan so far. I am planning on the two lean-to style roofs that are separate from the main span to give ventilation for hay and keep the top of the containers dry.



I am not set on the dimensions. I am planning on using 40’ containers, but have the main roof section over hang in front and back by 3 or 4 feet to make the total length 46 or 48 feet long to keep my trailer dry.
I imagine some dimensions are more economical than others on truss width, so the dimensions may change once I decide on what I am willing to pay.

I think this plan gives me enough storage, is something two guys and a 70hp tractor can build, and is good bang for the buck.
What am I not thinking of?

 

[Industrial Toys]

You might want to Google Andrew Camarata, on youtube, and his shop built out of containers. Quite interesting. He put one upright for an observation platform, like a castle, but that's optional.

 

[CMV]

They are designed to carry their load - and the load of others stacked on top - just at the corners. That's all you need for support. A few thoughts....

1. 6" is fine above ground. Just note the higher it is, the longer or steeper the ramp to drive in (if you are driving in - even ATV or whatever) and the ramp has to be below the locking lugs at bottom so there's a little lip to climb - on a steeper angle that little lip can be a wheel chock for smaller tires or hang a deck on a riding mower. 4" would be fine too - just needs a little air circulation underneath.

2. They settle. a Lot. Maybe not with the poured footings however. Just blocks, I've had to readjust mine. So, keep that in mind for the roof structure - if one settles a bit make sure it won't break anything on the roof structure.

3. You'll want to fix something in your poured footings to clamp the corners. It's not hard to nudge one - esp empty - off its blocks. Since either moving could break the roof (best case?) they need anchored pretty well.

4. You typically angle them a little higher in the rear if it only has doors on one end. That way if doors are left open in rain the water can find its way out the front door opening and won't pool inside.

5. The vents are for pressure equalization only and allow 0 airflow. With your roof structure you might want to incorporate a small roof vent that's screened so bugs can't get in. They get crazy hot in the summer. The roof will help that a lot on its own probably, but would be a good opportunity for a vent.

6. That roof will collect insane amounts of rainwater - consider a gutter along one side with a 330 gal IBC tote at the downspout. Amazing how quick mine will fill one.

7. I didn't have enough sense to check, but see if ones with doors on both ends are available and not crazy expensive. It's really hard for anything to "pass" anything else inside an 8' wide box. Can potentially waste a lot of time emptying things upfront just to get something near the back. Depends on how much big stuff you want to keep inside. My plan was store all my implements in it to keep them out of the sun/weather and secure them some. Seemed like a good idea and 40' is pretty long....but empty the whole thing to get the least frequently used one from the front out? Too much hassle shuffling around.

8. Buy from a logistics company or a yard that does container sales. A lot of the ads you see on clist or wherever is literally a guy with an F350 & a rollback trailer. He has 0 containers. You buy, he goes to port and gets whatever they have, then brings to you 2 weeks later. Congrats - whatever heap he brought you is yours - you already paid for it..... You want to inspect them first OR have the option to refuse delivery and they bring you another - can't do that with the yahoo with the F350 who already has your $.

 

[EddieWalker]

About 15 years ago, give or take a year, I did something similar. I bought the land and lived an hour away, so to keep everything secure, I bought to 40 foot containers. I set them on gravel with 24 feet between each one.

I built "A" trusses for the roof and set them on a ledger board that I bolted into the top inside edge of each container. This is where I leveled out the containers. They where not perfect, and getting them perfectly level was more work then I wanted to do. Getting them parallel to each other was enough work!!! Then I ran 2x6's from the trusses, over the containers, and out another 12 feet to create a lean to type storage area on one side, and a one bedroom cabin on the other side.

The roll up door is 12x12.

I sold the land ten years ago, give or take a year, and I've only been back there a few times. I talk to the owner of the land about once a month and the only thing that he's done to it was have it painted a different shade of red.

 

[ArlyA]

We are looking into these shipping containers for temporary storage. So far, looking on Craig'slist, we haven't found anyone within 200 miles from us retailing them. I guess we really do live in the boonies! :laughing:

They are designed to carry their load - and the load of others stacked on top - just at the corners. That's all you need for support. A few thoughts....

1. 6" is fine above ground. Just note the higher it is, the longer or steeper the ramp to drive in (if you are driving in - even ATV or whatever) and the ramp has to be below the locking lugs at bottom so there's a little lip to climb - on a steeper angle that little lip can be a wheel chock for smaller tires or hang a deck on a riding mower. 4" would be fine too - just needs a little air circulation underneath.

2. They settle. a Lot. Maybe not with the poured footings however. Just blocks, I've had to readjust mine. So, keep that in mind for the roof structure - if one settles a bit make sure it won't break anything on the roof structure.

3. You'll want to fix something in your poured footings to clamp the corners. It's not hard to nudge one - esp empty - off its blocks. Since either moving could break the roof (best case?) they need anchored pretty well.

4. You typically angle them a little higher in the rear if it only has doors on one end. That way if doors are left open in rain the water can find its way out the front door opening and won't pool inside.

5. The vents are for pressure equalization only and allow 0 airflow. With your roof structure you might want to incorporate a small roof vent that's screened so bugs can't get in. They get crazy hot in the summer. The roof will help that a lot on its own probably, but would be a good opportunity for a vent.

6. That roof will collect insane amounts of rainwater - consider a gutter along one side with a 330 gal IBC tote at the downspout. Amazing how quick mine will fill one.

7. I didn't have enough sense to check, but see if ones with doors on both ends are available and not crazy expensive. It's really hard for anything to "pass" anything else inside an 8' wide box. Can potentially waste a lot of time emptying things upfront just to get something near the back. Depends on how much big stuff you want to keep inside. My plan was store all my implements in it to keep them out of the sun/weather and secure them some. Seemed like a good idea and 40' is pretty long....but empty the whole thing to get the least frequently used one from the front out? Too much hassle shuffling around.

8. Buy from a logistics company or a yard that does container sales. A lot of the ads you see on clist or wherever is literally a guy with an F350 & a rollback trailer. He has 0 containers. You buy, he goes to port and gets whatever they have, then brings to you 2 weeks later. Congrats - whatever heap he brought you is yours - you already paid for it..... You want to inspect them first OR have the option to refuse delivery and they bring you another - can't do that with the yahoo with the F350 who already has your $.

 

[ustmd]

What everyone else said with ++++1 on the venting.

We use one for hay storage. There are three issues:
1. It gets crazy hot in the summer.
2. There is no ventilation, so if you get moisture or hay that has a higher end moisture level, you will get mold.
3. Underneath is an ideal spot for every creepy/crawly in the area to set up residence. You are going to be 6" off of the ground, so you are better off, but beware.

 

[SirMaxwell]

I would seriously consider calling your local contractor lumber store, find out who they use to supply steel trusses and go that way. Likely they already have something for you and can discuss the load bearing. Obviously you are like most of us on here, you don't want to deal with the nanny state, but you plan to overbuild anyway. Fairly easy design, catch the knee bracing inside, carry load to footing, catch sill bracing on both sides, carried to footing

Steel trusses are fast, cost effective as ****, span nice distances and surprisingly available all over the place (turns out a lot are manufactured in almost every metro locale, but us little folk just don't know. I found 2 within 50 miles of my home, and another 2 within 200 miles. I time travel -20 years when I leave the interstate).

Good luck. Please keep us all informed, and know that we love photos and all the little stories that go with them.

 

[ArlyA]

If it was our barn project, I'd raise the center portion of his monitor roof enough to add light panels to the gap between the 2 roofs. I've used those translucent panels and really appreciate them for letting light in.

 

[fjcruiser]

About 15 years ago, give or take a year, I did something similar. I bought the land and lived an hour away, so to keep everything secure, I bought to 40 foot containers. I set them on gravel with 24 feet between each one.

I built "A" trusses for the roof and set them on a ledger board that I bolted into the top inside edge of each container. This is where I leveled out the containers. They where not perfect, and getting them perfectly level was more work then I wanted to do. Getting them parallel to each other was enough work!!! Then I ran 2x6's from the trusses, over the containers, and out another 12 feet to create a lean to type storage area on one side, and a one bedroom cabin on the other side.

The roll up door is 12x12.

I sold the land ten years ago, give or take a year, and I've only been back there a few times. I talk to the owner of the land about once a month and the only thing that he's done to it was have it painted a different shade of red.





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That is a great looking building. I'm intrigued.

 

[traderfjp]

You might also want to talk to several companies that sell the containers because I've seen this setup a few times when I was shopping for a container to use as a shed. They might have insight on what works best. I wonder if you can weld the trusses on to the containers. Containers are quite heavy so I doubt they will blow away once everything is secured together.