This is an on-site spoken tour of the EverGreen Manufacturing model house (shipping-container construction) presented by James Blakemore and another speaker. The house is 1,440 sq ft with three bedrooms and two full baths, built from five shipping containers (four 40'×8'×9.5' stacked/bolted side-by-side and one additional). The video describes construction choices (spray-on polyurethane insulation yielding at least R‑30, leaving container walls intact, steel container roof overlaid with 4" polyurethane foam and a silicone barrier), HVAC (ductless 3.5‑ton cooling and 140,000 BTU heating intended to serve the whole house), build timeline (21 days actual build with an eight‑man crew; weather extended to ~30 days), disassembly ability (about 3 days to take apart, ~4 days to reassemble), exterior finish options, and an invitation to view the model in Melrose Park, Illinois (~15 minutes from O'Hare).
Questions this video answers
1,440 square feet
Three bedrooms; two full bathrooms
Five containers (four 40' containers plus one additional)
40 feet × 8 feet × 9.5 feet (four containers described with these dimensions)
Starts at R‑30 (with optional arctic package available)
Chapters
The house we're in is a 1440 square foot house.
We've got in this house three bedrooms, two full baths, eat in, kitchen, living room and a laundry room area.
This house is actually constructed of five containers. There's four 40 foot by 8 foot by 9 and a half foot containers that are stacked side by side and essentially bolted together.
They're not brand new containers. They're actually what's called a class B container. It's cargo worthy, but it's not a one trip brand new container.
There's two bedrooms in one container. Then the next container is a single bedroom and has the bathrooms in it. The next two containers, we cut the sides out of the containers and bolted them together to provide to give us a full kitchen, living room area. And that's the area you're looking at right now.
The insulation factor in this home starts at an R30 and we can go up from there. For an arctic package.
We insulated the entire structure using polyurethane spray on foam.
Once the cranes dry, dropped the boxes on our foundation. It took us 21 days from start to finish. We did have some weather issues which took us about 30 days out. But the actual build time for the house was 21 days and we had a eight man crew.
The construction time of this house is much, much shorter than it would be if we were using stick built technology.
The exterior of this house right now is an adobe look. It was prod actually for the Hopi Indian tribes. But we can put any type of exterior finish on it. Brick, lp, smart siding, stone and brick, stone and cedar, anything you'd need to put on this house.
The structural roof of the house is actually the steel roof of the container overlain with 4 inches of polyurethane foam. And we've got a silicone barrier on top of.
In this home we're using a ductless system. We've got three and a half tons of cooling and 140,000 BTUs of heat and it's coming out of that unit that's up on the wall. With the design of the home, one unit will heat and cool this entire house.
The container walls are typically left intact as much as possible to provide not only structural integrity, but also insulation integrity. The house is as tight as it can be. You can hardly hear anything. The noise from the outside is very low. The construction methods that Evergreen Manufacturing uses.
Are.
Are unparalleled in the housing markets today. Unlike most modular homes, once the modular home is constructed on site, bolted together and finished, it's not able to be disassembled. Our house is disassembleable.
It would take about three days to take it apart and approximately four days to put it back together.
If something were to happen on the lot, if the lot would become uninhabitable, for example, like one area I know the actual water table rose so much that they had to bulldoze the houses and haul the trash away. This is just a fantastically flexible construction meeting.
We're sitting here right outside of Chicago, in a house of this size, Using these type of countertops and cabinets, full appliances. You're probably in the 1 square 60 range. Walking into this house, you'll never, never feel like you're living in a tin can. And to prove it, we've left some of the containers exposed on the side and on the back to show that we're not trying to trick you. This actually is a shipping container home.
You've seen the possibilities of container housing. Now come see one for real. We have in melrose park, Illinois, a suburb of Chicago, about 15 minutes from O' Hare Field, you can actually come and see our container home. We invite you to come on out.
