once you buy or hire shipping container usually you do so by size. The size you choose is normally to suit what space you have available or how many things you need to store or ship. Most people ask for a 20ft or a 40ft container as these are the most often available. Why is that? In fact the shipping industry was responsible for shaping shipping container sizes. For what you probably don?t realise as you choose the size you want is that the usual sizes of shipping container ? either 20ft or 40ft long by 8ft wide and 8ft 6in tall ? revolutionised the cost of shipping.
For these standard sizes meant that the loading and unloading of shipping containers could be mechanised meaning that only a few pieces of equipment are needed to move the containers rather than the considerable manpower and different types of machinery that had been required to move the varying shapes of palletised goods that had up until then been normal. It also meant that large numbers of steel containers could be organized on a single ship as they are easily arranged in large stacks.
Of course the standard 20ft and 40ft are not the only sizes of steel containers available. As such items such as cars, food, clothes etc were shipped inside the containers from all over the world at considerably reduced costs than had previously been available.
There are 20ft and 40ft high cube ship containers available which are 9ft 6in tall and are particularly of use for putting taller machinery and equipment in. Smaller sizes of shipping container are also used - such as the 8ft and 10ft long containers although these often have to be shipped as ?special cargo? rather than going on the main container decks.
But nowadays, shipping containers are not just used for shipping. They are often used for secure, dry storage. As such, shipping container dimensions can be altered to any length from 40ft downwards. A common size is the 30ft container for example, but people will often ask for a 16ft of 18ft if that is all the room that they have. Mind you, it is vital when working out the container for you to take into consideration that an extra 4ft will be required if the doors to the container are to be opened fully.
So how do you know what size of shipping container to choose. It is difficult to picture what number of goods a 20ft shipping container could hold. It is useful to compare a 20ft container to a single garage and a 40ft to a double garage from a point of view of storage.
Indeed you can fit most models of car into a 20ft shipping container, although the 8ft width does make it difficult to get out, and the car has to either be pushed in the last few feet or the driver has to get out out of the window!
Normally, people ask for an 8ft or 10ft container believing that it will be cost less than the 20ft. Yet because a 10ft or and 8ft is usually cut down from a 20ft container, the additional labour means that the 10ft or 8ft is as ? if not more ? expensive than the standard 20ft size. So, if you have room for the larger size, it is often worth buying as you get more storage space for a similar amount of money.
Next time you are considering what size of ship container to buy or hire, think about a 20ft or a 40ft if you are on a budget, and remember that if space is an issue to allow enough room to open the 4ft container door!
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