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One of my childhood dreams was to live in a small farm with a farm house. Have been working on the farm the past 6 months. What was missing was a place to stay. Installed a container based house in the farm last weekend. Made by Techno-Cap a container home manufacturer based in Coimbatore. They did a fantastic job with the finish and quality. The house was completely fabricated at their factory including interiors, and was shipped in three trailers - bottom part, top part and the deck. It was then assembled on site and finished in two days. As there is no grid power on site, I have installed a small 300W solar power setup. Planning to get grid supply in the coming months. Had to rent a generator for three days for the assembly work that required lots of welding.

The main structure measures just 20'x12' with compact rooms. Due to wide angle shots, interiors may look spacious. So, "objects in pictures are smaller than what they look" :D

Did a simple family-only house warming on Wednesday and had a camp fire the first night of stay.

A few pictures of the installation.

The house arrives on site in trailers.


Bottom part being installed.


Top part being assembled.


Deck being assembled.


Work in progress picture


Installation completed.


Some exterior pictures.




Some interior pictures.
The hall/kitchen


The kitchen opens to a view of the farm. Once the trees around the house grow, this view may be blocked.


The compact bedroom.


The compact bath.


A stowable ladder to access the loft. When not needed, the ladder collapses and gets stowed above.


The loft space. Enough for 4 to 5 persons to sleep.


Camp fire.




Now planning to spend most of the weekends developing the farm.

Absolutely lovely. It looks like such a nice, cozy place to go to every now and then!

What's the compelling reason you chose this over a brick and mortar construction? The container finishing looks terrific, didn't know this has become an established thing in India; abroad, containers are a very common and acceptable permanent homes. What about the heat though; these things must be getting really cooked in the summers. I assume rust in the monsoon is not a short/medium term worry?

First Dhanush and now you. Much inspiring! :) I hope to have a place by the shore in Konkan (not realistic), but close to the beach (possible) sometime in this lifetime.

Now for Graaja and Dhanushs to critique each others get away from it all boltholes!

Amazing. How Earth/eco friendly is this? I mean from a living inside perspective not from a renewables perspective.

Congratulations graaja :thumbs up
Wow, that is something clap: looks beautiful!

Back in 2005, a friend and I would often discuss floor plans for a small family's house and we both had this idea of a container home and did lot of reading about them and made some sketches on the whiteboard often. This was something we considered would be fun for a DIY retirement home/weekend getaway. What you have here is a much more sophisticated version of what we thought of back then.

Would you mind sharing the total cost incurred ? Pm will do as well.

That’s beautiful Graaja!

This looks so cozy and inviting-pun intended!
How will it fare in south India summers?

And if I may ask, how much would such a set up cost? for my bucket list.

Awesome!

One of the coolest container homes I've seen, and most definitely the most "house-like" one.

I always wonder: Doesn't the metal get blazing hot in the sun and then continue to radiate heat for the rest of the day?

Back in February (thank goodness we got a holiday trip in then!) we visited an ex-colleague of my wife who has an organic farm setup near Theni. His core-business business is wind-farming but he takes his farm farm very seriously too. He has built himself a modest house there. Was lucky enough to get stuck there rather than the city, when lockdown came.

Thank you for the kind words

The main reason for choosing this option over normal brick and mortar construction is the time taken and the effort. With a concrete structure, it would have taken a year to get it completed. This one took just 4 months (excluding the two months of lockdown). With brick structure, I would have spent a lot of time managing the mason, work force etc. (due to the distance from city, good engineers were not willing to take the project). With the container house, except for a few visits to the factory to check progress and provide inputs on my requirement, and being there at site for the two days of installation, I did not have to spend any time following up.

Wishing you all the best for you to fulfill your dream of having a place near the beach!

Dhanush is totally a different level. I stand no chance. He built, I bought!

Thank you

Though I did not order this from an Eco-friendly perspective, there are some good eco-friendly features. The container itself is recycled material. These are containers that are scrapped as unusable in shipping, but have decades of life left. Also, though the inside looks modern, everything is minimalistic. Water and electricity consumption is minimum, I have constructed the soak pit such that the waste water will be used by a few trees that are planted around the soak pit etc.

Thank you for the kind words! I hope you have kept your dream alive and will fulfil it some day, and my best wishes

Thank you so much for the kind words :)

Thank you for the kind words

Thank you for the kind words :)

That is really awesome! After the house warming, we stayed at the farm for two days and the totally laid back life was just a different experience. And BTW, Theni is my place of birth as well, though I moved out 25 years back.

There is a thick layer of insulation using PUF material and then a cement sheet which makes the wall. So, there is very good heat insulation. The temperature inside is quite close to what you would experience inside a concrete building. Also, the steel sheet that is used to make the container is quite thick and even if the surface gets rusted, the container would last decades. And they apply multiple layers of primer and paint. With all these treatment, theoretically, the container should last my lifetime.

The container house itself cost me 12.5L including interiors. This was at a discounted price. The regular price would have been about 15L. I had to spend another 2.5L for constructing the pillars, solar setup, plumbing, transportation etc.

We overnighted in Theni. His farm is at Thevaram. We were on the way to spend a few days at Meghamalai.

His farm was a lovely place, with awesome views.

This is just perfect, instead of building one and spending more money for a lesser finish, though larger space.

Loved it, especially how the interiors are done up. clap:

If you dont mind, please do share the cost.

Thank you Dhanush 😊

The house cost 12.5L including tax. Spent another 2.5L for pillars, plumbing, solar and transportation etc.

Thanks for sharing!

How many sq feet? Also, I think the best part about it is if you need to change it to some other place you can do it without much fuss?

Also, may I ask, what was the intent behind getting a ready made 'movable(?)' house in the farm, instead of a regular one, or rather one with truss work and cement board walls, and may be false roofing.

Total area is about 550 sq.ft including the loft and deck area.

Yes. If needed, it can be dismantled and transported to another location if needed. But for the amount of work involved in assembling the two layers, I doubt if I would ever plan to move this :) I would probably order a new one with a different design.

Many reasons for choosing this over concrete based structure.

Concrete based structure would have required lots of time from me in arranging work force, managing them, buying raw materials etc. As my farm is far from the city, I could not get any good engineer to own the project. Only option would be to hire local work force. I would have been confined to an asylum by them time the house was completed :uncontrol

Also, it would have taken 8 months to a year to finish a good concrete structure. This one took just 4 months to complete (excluding 2 months of lock down).

My friend had bought his container house from this manufacturer. I had visited their factory with him. Before I saw the designs at their factory, I was also thinking container houses are spartan and would be very hot in summer. But that opinion changed after this visit. I fell in love with the concept when I saw this structure at the manufacturer's place. He had started this as his dream project and for some reason, it had not taken off. He had completed the main structure and had kept it aside for three years. He offered me a very good price and I placed the order within the week.