Posts by George Runkle
Container Structures Made Offshore – The Challenges
Periodically I get e-mails from companies in China that fabricate container buildings and other modular structures. I also get calls from people that want to fabricate in an offshore location for the US. I have also talked to people in other countries that successfully built container structures that were fabricated in China, so it’s not…
Read MoreIda, The Tallest Shipping Container Building in North America
Ida on McKinley is a multi-use development made from shipping containers on 3rd Street and McKinley Street in Phoenix, AZ. The architect is Local Studio, the structural engineer of record is Schneider Structural Engineers. Runkle Consulting, Inc worked under Schneider to design the shipping container part of the structure. The building is 7 stories high,…
Read MoreAffordable Shipping Container Apartment Complex in St. Pete, FL
This project is a 34 unit apartment affordable shipping container complex in St. Petersburg that is being constructed as affordable housing. Each unit is one 40′ container, and includes a bedroom, shower, kitchen, and living room area. The complex includes a laundry room and bike storage room. The Architect on this project was Carbon Design…
Read MoreShipping Container Apartments, New Haven, CT
This shipping container apartment complex was challenging because it was located in a coastal flood zone and a high wind area in New Haven, CT. It sets up above the ground about 10 feet. This added a bit of complexity for stability of the foundations and the walls supporting the building. The developer of this…
Read MoreFoundation Failure – The Nightmare of Your Dreamhouse on the Hill
In this video I talk about how that wonderful house on the hill can be your worst nightmare. That house that overlooks a nice wooded valley and has a wonderful walk out basement can bring you a lot of problems in the future. To illustrate, I discuss a little bit of the geology concerned when…
Read MoreLeveling Up and Stiffening a Sagging Floor
In this video, we are leveling up and stiffening a sagging floor. The floor sagged over time because the builder didn’t provide properly designed trusses. We stiffened the trusses and jacked up the floor to fix the problem, and this is how we did it. The contractor is David Moore with Structures, Inc. I found…
Read MorePressurized Waste Plumbing In A Shipping Container Building
Most of the time the waste lines in a container building work by gravity – basically on the principle that water and…well other stuff go downhill. It presents a lot of challenges in shipping containers to keep all the waste pipes at a decent slope. In this earlier video I talk about the challenges. On…
Read MorePlumbing in Shipping Containers
In this video, I go over the issues with putting plumbing systems in a shipping container building.
Read MoreShipping Container Homes – The Pain and How It’s Done
This morning a good question came in to me by e-mail. It was: Can you give me the ins and outs of purchasing a container home and having it built and buying land? Can you give me the ins and outs of purchasing a container home and having it built and buying land? How long is the…
Read MoreVacation Home in West Virginia Made From Repurposed Intermodal Containers
This is one of our latest designs. It’s an existing cabin that the owner is putting an addtion around it made from shipping containers. In this design, I’m not touching the existing structure for the most part. The only modification I am doing to the existing structure is adding a beam in the basement. The…
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