A few weeks ago we published a post about 10 Houses Built on Maritime Containers, highlighting the quality of reuse of the container, which made the interest of many flourish regarding this issue, resulting in questions such as:
Are these constructions really sustainable?; Can they be called green or ecological constructions?
For this reason, we thought it necessary to go deeper into this constructive concept (baptized as "Cargotectura"), and show them its advantages and disadvantages, so that if you are thinking about carrying out the space of your dreams through this method, They can count on enough information.
So, LET'S GET STARTED!
The main advantage of using containers is that they are designed to be resistant to weather, water, fire (with fireproof exterior paints), hurricanes, floods and even earthquakes. In addition, its main design allows the load to be transferred when being stacked across the entire structure, releasing the weight.
When thought of as infrastructure, these benefits can grow to a great extent, since factors such as:
- Its reuse. Investment of the life cycle from being trash (container cemetery) to a new constructive element. In addition, this fact eliminates the possibility of returning to the foundry to be converted into pure steel, which reduces the CO2 emissions for each reused container by more than 5,000 kg.
- The foundation As it is a type of prefabricated construction, it minimizes its ecological footprint.
- Mobility and ease to make bioclimatic designs optimizing their location and orientation.
- The type of steel "Corten" with which they are manufactured gives it greater durability since it creates a waterproof oxide film that protects its interior.
But, like everything in life, it can not be perfect. There are certain factors against these units:
- Its great thermal conductivity. Although it is easily solved by means of the use of insulating materials and installations necessary to create a living space.
- In certain environments, the protective patina of Corten steel may not stabilize and may corrode. To avoid this, the containers are painted with anticorrosive paints, which can sometimes contain lead or other harmful chemicals as a base.
- The woods that are usually placed in the bottom of the container can be impregnated with dangerous pesticides such as arsenic and chromium.
In short, we could conclude that the use of maritime containers for housing meets the basic premises of sustainability (the famous three R: Reduce, Recycle and Reuse) and contributes, effectively, to the creation of a sustainable architecture affordable to the consumer.
However, the degree of energy efficiency of the house, as well as its durability, will depend, both on the preliminary works and on the subsequent ones, on insulation, installations and maintenance of the container.
