CONTAINER CONTAINER BLOG

As 2012 draws to a close we can reflect that it’s been a very interesting year in the container business – or at ContainerContainer at least. Like others we have had to be flexible in purchasing, finding new suppliers and meeting the demands of a growing customer base.  In 2012 we consolidated our national sales of 20ft and 40ft new and used containers and one aim for 2013 is to expand our business of selling conversions and bespoke container projects nationally.  We joked at our Christmas bash the other night about ‘ContainerContainer International’.  Well maybe that’s not such a pipe dream.  It loks like 2013 is going to be interesting!

Supplying containers to sports clubs and school, college and university sports departments across the country is something we do regularly. In the North East where we started we have supplied football, rugby, cricket, archery, canoe, sailing, golf, tennis, rowing, athletics, running, hockey, bowls, gymnastics and trampolining clubs among others and even Homing pigeon and allotment societies. 

We haven’t actually supplied a snooker club but we have stored snooker tables.  Lately we supplied Sedgefield Harriers with a store for their athletic equipment for junior athletics, throws, jumps and strength and conditioning as well as hurdles and sprint equipment for runners.  Pretty soon the new 20ft container was full.  The club wouldn’t be able to offer the range of activities it does without having the space to store the equipment so now senior and junior athletes alike can benefit from a better range of equipment for training and competition and allows coaches to deliver higher added value sessions.  We feel sure they’ll soon be back for another.

20ft Bi-Fold Door Side Opening Container (2)

20ft Bi-Fold Door Container(1)

The innovation of folks never ceases to amaze and sometimes something comes along which makes you feel that you’re getting more for your money than you expected.  And so it is I feel with B-Fold door 20ft new shipping containers. A little more expensive than your average 20ft but a perfect solution for many jobs. Those old curtain siders which were a danger to everyone who came close are mostly long gone. Now if you want a complete side access you don’t need to wrestle with a stiff curtain (why’s it always cold when you have to do that?), a quick flick of the door handles and the side opens right up. Now I know we’re container enthusiasts but you’ve got to agree, there’s just something aesthetic about a 20ft bi-fold door container, it just looks neat.

Buying a shipping container for storage is not as straight forward as first appears.  20ft or 40ft? New or used? Painted or not painted? Locked or not locked? Some people are very familiar with containers and how good they are for secure storage, for others it is a bright idea that needs converting into action.  If you buy a contanier you are going to have it for a long time so it is important to get the best you can for your cash.  A 40ft is far better value foot-for-foot than a 20ft but it depends if you can fit it in.  A 40ft costs a little more than a 20ft - but not twice as much but the transport costs are usually higher.  But once a 40ft is in place it offers a lot more space.  A 20ft is very versatile and can fit in a lot of places a 40ft can’t.  A 20ft can also be fairly unobtrusive.  A new container costs a little more than a used one but you are likely talking about a lifespan of over twice as long for your investment.  A new container used for storage is also much less likely to develop problems as the years go by.  The roof of a used container will eventually corrode as water lies in the dents that were suffered during handling between ship and shore and the doors may become stiff or the seals fail.  If you have th cash a new container offers great value.  The choice is yours but is well worth getting the decision right.

Time was that trading in shipping containers was straight forward.  Like many, we came into the business from the freight industry, knowing our way around containers and where we could buy the from when the shipping lines were finished with them.  It was all nice and straight forward.  Shipping lines bought lots of containers every year to use for cargo and they depreciated them every year until they had a low book value then when they arrived somewhere where there was a demand - they sold them.  There was a small market for secure site storage.  Then of course, people started making things with them, like anti-vandal cabins and later on self-storage using shipping containers came along.  In the meantime, the quality of containers increased dramatically and the storage and site services users demanded higher quality and the Chinese were only too happy to oblige and manufactured containers just o make one trip from the Far East to Europe and then be sold for storage etc.  To feed sales of new containers the Chinese scrapped old ones and the re-sale market changed completely.

The upshot is that there is a real mix of containers in the storage and site ervices market and those in the container resale business have to keep a sharp eye on how things are changing.

We now buy containers from shipping lines and manufacturers as well as buying them back from customers and also buying from auction sites like ebay.  Types of containers have changed and expanded too.  As well as the ubiqutous 20ft we can get 40fts, reefers, half-heights, open tops, refrigerated, flatracks and others.

It all makes for an interesting life.  Gone are the days of ‘you can any size as long as its 20ft’!

The camera panned around and up at the end of the weather report to look up from ground level to where Gary Lineker and company were holding fort for the Olympic Games. Coming into shot were a series of doors of 20ft new shipping containers stacked to create an innovative platform on top of which was located the studio.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/schoolreport/18894293

The shot shows how the containers were used to create walls and spaces in an ideal solution to be used for the limited period of the Olympic Games. Day after day and night after night Team GB’s medal winning hero’s appeared on the balcony above while excited crowds gathered to cheer.  This use of containers is not untypical.  More and more companies are finding that temporary buildings made from shipping containers provide an inexpensive solution to their needs while building in innovation and style.  Recycling is not a problem as, just with lego blocks once the job is done the containers are unstacked and reused.  For many years we have fitted doors and windows to containers and often internally lined them for office use and fitted plumbing, electrics, communications cabling etc. Forming a building for office space or accommodation is simply an extension of this using modular units.  The BBC have highlighted the versatility of this method of building.

I heard an interview on BBC’s Today programme recently about the British withdrawal from Afghanistan which will happen in the next couple of years.  If I heard right it was stated that the British forces have £4B of equipment deployed and - as you can imagine - managing the repatriation of that equipment will be a very significant logistical challenge.  In all military withdrawals a lot of equipment is left behind but the challenge is to minimise this.  In modern military campaigns the shipping container plays a significant part.  Camp Bastion is the size of Reading and the number of shipping containers stuffed with stores and used as accommodation at that location and throughout Afghanistan will be mind boggling - lets guess - 10,000(?) for the UK forces alone.  Many will be left in situ and will not only be a monument and legacy of the campaign but will also prove extremely useful to the local population.  Many will return to the UK and be ‘demobbed’ and find their way back into the used container market.  The military deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan impacted on the availability of shipping containers in the UK and when they return there will also be an impact.

As a footnote, it is interesting to reflect that the rise of the shipping container in modern shipping and transportation began with their use for deploying equipment for the Viet Nam war in the 1960’s when Sealand and Matson were the pathfinders of what became a global revolution in freight transportation.

It’s not so long ago that the vast majority of people had no idea what a shipping container was.  When the pint-with-a-stranger question ‘what do you do?’ moment arrived it was accompanied by an intake of breath and the knowledge that the answer would leave the questioner blank and vacant.  But all that has changed.  Now, not only do folks know what wonderful things containers are for storage and secure anti-vandal cabin conversions and they’ve realised that the steel shed they have down their local sports club or full of school equipment was designed to spend its days on the high seas full of plastic toys from China or trainers from Taiwan, but also containers have appeared in the public consciousness in main-stream media.  Your latest detective drama isn’t cool unless it involves a dockside scene on a container park like Felixstowe or Southampton but also the tough, street-wise scene of stacked 20fts is a regular in ads these days.  Just the other day while watching the latest programme on Usain Bolt and the 2012 London Olympics up popped a commercial for a well-known paint company (the one with the dog I think) which features a stack of containers and people living in them and working in them while different shades of paint are applied to the adaptable chameleons of the shipping world.  Long may it continue, after all as we said in our own advertising in 2001, the container is a masterpiece of modern design.

We were very honoured that the Managing Director of Containex, the Austrian based container and cabin manfacturer paid us a visit this week.  I’m always very impressed with Containex’s products, their cabins are well designed and look good.  We have bought containers - mainly new 20fts and new 10fts - from them on many occasions and they are always good but like the quality company Containex are they are always looking at ways to improve.  Franz accompanied us to our U Hold The Key Self Storage site at Birtley where the latest units we purchased from them are to be put into our fleet.  We have our own locking system using Mul T Locks and therefore we always attach a hasp to each container in the fleet.  Unfortunately for Franz this means we need to grind off some of the paint on the edge of the doors so that the hasp can be welded on.  Franz’s face was a picture.  He has obviously spent many years discussing paint systems and improving quality.  To find our welder grinding away at the paint was almost too much.  Credit to Containex, I imagine the effect would be something similar if the MD of Audi saw someone sticking Go-Faster stripes down the side of a brand new A6!  Well almost - at least the Mul T Lock adds something to our stores.

Everyone you talk to who is in the throes of emigrating gives you the impression that eveyone is doing it and that living in the UK is terrible.  Recently we had a call from someone who is heading for New Zealand. Quite ironic really as he was having to empty a perfectly good container he was using for storage of equipment for his secuirty business and then use one from a shipping line to put his stuff in to take with him.  Its funny where we pick stock up from.  This one had shelving and electrics and it won’t hang around with us very long before being snapped up by someone wanting space.

Personally I don’t mind the rain in June - at least its warm.  Mind you I hope we get some good weather for the Olympics in a few weeks time.  We also know a couple who are heading off for a new life in Australia and are getting rid of a load of stuff.  The thing is, a lot of people come back again - even if only for a short while before deciding they really didn’t like the rain in the first place.  Either way a container is a handy thing, it’ll either get your stuff there for you or you can store your stuff until you really are sure you don’t need it.  You know, in our U Hold The Key business we even have stuff in store from people who went abroad ten years ago - now that really is hedging your bets!

We concentrate so much on getting our containers – new and used – ready for sale and delivery that we have to make sure we remember where we get them from.  It’s not as simple as it used to be.  When we first started it was simply a matter of going to the shipping lines and buying a stock of ex-shipping units that had just been written down off their books.  New ones and single trip containers for re-sale and storage were few and far between but that changed a few years back and re-sale of new containers became mainstream. 

The recession has made everyone resourceful and we are finding new opportunities.  Suddenly we are finding many more containers available on sites like e-bay as people either go out of business or look to cash in on assets that are no longer needed.  We have found ourselves buying back many that we have sold previously – and thankfully most of them are still in good nick!  A credit to our painters.  We like to keep a range in stock so we are just as happy to buy back a used unit as we are to buy in new ones – it’s horses for courses depending on customer requirements.  Whatever type of unit we supply we try to make sure it meets our customers requirements at the right price.

We have long since discovered that fitting out containers is not always straight forward.  Spraying the outside, spraying the inside and fitting a lock-box is bread and butter to us and apart from repairs required during the refurbishment of used containers, it doesn’t present too much of a challenge to our experienced staff.  But with increasing regularity ContainerContainer is the company people come to if they want something a little different done to suit their individual requirement. 

On this occasion our customer, an off-shore company wanted a store which would fit a very specific space on-board a vessel.  The critical dimension was the width, so that meant we’d have to take a slice - approximately two feet (that’s around 600mm) out of the width.  We had to make two longitudinal cuts down the 20ft container, cutting through the cross-members, the floor and the roof, and then move the original side in to reattach it.  This being a job for offshore it then had to be rigorously tested for the quality of the welds and for load.  It passed with flying colours.  Internally the unit was fitted out for slings using hooks welded to the walls and with a PPE cage for secure storage.  It was an unusual job, but with careful planning proved relatively straight forward and we have another satisfied customer with just the unit they wanted.

A great thing about storage containers is their versatility. While they are used primarily for shipping or storage, a little imagination can turn them into something completely different.

A charity has recently started using old containers as classrooms in Africa. Computer Aid International has been setting up recycled computers in the new rooms to bring the wonders of computers and the internet to people who may have found it difficult to access books before.

Now, farmers can get updates on the market and nursing students have the opportunity to read the latest research.

And to think all of this started with the help of the humble storage container!

40fts are big!

It’s often easy to forget just how big!

Even when you’ve been in the business a long time you can still get caught out! 

The site visit went well, the preferred location was great, the job was booked, but ….. but nobody mentioned the tree on a bend at the entrance.  The site inspector went by car and parked in the car park.  The 40ft shipping container went by artic.  But, nothing’s a problem; booking swapped for 30fts and the jobs a good’un.  Morale of the story - always enter the site the same way as the delivery will.  Sometimes things don’t go to plan but in this case the customer was delighted it was sorted quickly.  And what were we saying just yesterday about 30fts?

Ah 30fts!  The curse of the supplier and the requirement of the customer!  When a 40ft is just too big for what you need or you just can’t get one in (mind you they are big) and when a 20ft is just too small or just won’t do, the answer is a 30ft.  Only the brave can offer them.  Unless you get one of those with the funny doors which you have to step over to get in then you’ll have to have a cut-down.  And the problem with cut-down’s is off course that we are left with a 10ft!  (10ft’s - hmmm, now they come in handy …. when a 20ft is just too big and you only have a small space! …. - they don’t offend the neighbours either.  Best tale I heard about a 10ft was the mother who wanted one to put her son and his drum kit in at the bottom of the garden - true story!).  Nice size 30fts.

Two strip lights, a consumer unit, an isolator and some wire and palstic tube (conduit) turn a steel cargo container into a workspace.  Simple but effective.  That’s another job done.

Another container certified and on it’s way to be loaded, this time with machinery for export.  How many containers released from how many container yards from how many towns in how many countries just this morning? It’s nice that ContainerContainer plays it’s small part in the cycle of worldwide trade.  It might have been a “Used Shipping Container” but it still does it’s job and the certificate guarentees the standard.