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As people already mentioned, containers are hot in summer. I spend couple weeks in a such temporary office. Daily 30 degrees, not enough windows, sweat and very

by lnsru 7y ago

As people already mentioned, containers are hot in summer. I spend couple weeks in a such temporary office. Daily 30 degrees, not enough windows, sweat and very bad smell around. At the moment a school in neighborhood is being demolished and a temporary container building was assembled as replacement. It’s very comfortable and nice inside, though school has vacation in summertime and this application is ok. ICU in a container might be good for Scandinavia or Alaska...

chrisseaton 7y ago
You can put an air conditioner on them. I worked in a medical station built in a shipping container in the Afghan desert in 40 degree heat for a summer and it was fine.
- lnsru 7y ago
  The problem is, that there are enough buildings in other places than Afghan desert and containers make no sense at all. One can find many empty government buildings in every city. From offices left days ago, empty schools to not yet finished hospitals or empty exhibition halls.
  - kaydub 7y ago
    You also need to consider the build out. I feel like it'd be easier to get the experts required to build out a mini-icu in one central location and develop methods to mass manufacture the standardized container than it would be to fly people around the country to one off a bunch of buildings. The portability also brings other benefits.
    - lnsru 7y ago
      Think about availability of doctors, not the ICUs. There’s a need to accommodate 2-3 shifts of doctors and nurses. And these are not endlessly mobile unlike containers.
  - chrisseaton 7y ago
    I don't think it's about the building - doesn't matter what kind of room it goes in. It's all supplying all the equipment and connecting it up and powering it all. A shipping container is a useful pod to do all that in and then take it where it's needed - where the patients and doctors are. Like how they build hotels nowadays by shipping furnished rooms to the building site.
tyingq 7y ago
I wondered why containers and not the mobile office things you often see at construction sites. Less durable, but insulated and less heavy.
- LinuxBender 7y ago
  I don't know the answer, but if I had to guess, cost and availability. I've been researching containers, as I plan to put many of them under ground in concrete. A 9x40 foot in good condition can run $6k to $8k. I bet some people know places to get them cheaper. They are designed to be moved by trucks, cranes and ships. There are also many of them available in all locations that deal with shipping. I do not know how much one of those mobile offices costs or what the backlog / order time for them is.
  - redis_mlc 7y ago
    > I've been researching containers, as I plan to put many of them under ground in concrete. Why? Prepper?
    - jacquesm 7y ago
      Grower?
    - LinuxBender 7y ago
      Prepper is sometimes used as a pejorative, but my goal is to document building a modern home under ground, step-by-step, including everything required to keep local governments happy. I believe that all homes should be under ground when feasible. It is the optimal path to a sustainable carbon neutral, energy efficient home while maximizing the surface area for garden space and minimizing eye-sores. This would be especially useful for people that live in areas of extreme heat, extreme cold, tornado's, hurricanes, flooding (if done right). If you are curious, there are literally thousands of videos on youtube of folks that have built such homes and they are very nice on the inside. Some people get fancy with tubes that bring in natural sunlight. The temperature under ground is about 50-54 degrees F all year, so heating and cooling is very easy. A rocket mass heater combined with a large stone heat bank can warm up an underground home in 30 minutes and keep it warm for days afterwards. This isn't a new concept at all. It just happens that storage containers are very sturdy and can handle large amounts of concrete pressure. There are companies that sell / build these as fallout shelters, but they charge a lot and do not design them as full time homes. I am not going to link to the shelter companies, as most of them are shams.

by lnsru 7y ago

chrisseaton 7y ago

You can put an air conditioner on them. I worked in a medical station built in a shipping container in the Afghan desert in 40 degree heat for a summer and it was fine.

lnsru 7y ago
The problem is, that there are enough buildings in other places than Afghan desert and containers make no sense at all. One can find many empty government buildings in every city. From offices left days ago, empty schools to not yet finished hospitals or empty exhibition halls.
- kaydub 7y ago
  You also need to consider the build out. I feel like it'd be easier to get the experts required to build out a mini-icu in one central location and develop methods to mass manufacture the standardized container than it would be to fly people around the country to one off a bunch of buildings. The portability also brings other benefits.
  - lnsru 7y ago
    Think about availability of doctors, not the ICUs. There’s a need to accommodate 2-3 shifts of doctors and nurses. And these are not endlessly mobile unlike containers.
- chrisseaton 7y ago
  I don't think it's about the building - doesn't matter what kind of room it goes in. It's all supplying all the equipment and connecting it up and powering it all. A shipping container is a useful pod to do all that in and then take it where it's needed - where the patients and doctors are. Like how they build hotels nowadays by shipping furnished rooms to the building site.

tyingq 7y ago

I wondered why containers and not the mobile office things you often see at construction sites. Less durable, but insulated and less heavy.

LinuxBender 7y ago
I don't know the answer, but if I had to guess, cost and availability. I've been researching containers, as I plan to put many of them under ground in concrete. A 9x40 foot in good condition can run $6k to $8k. I bet some people know places to get them cheaper. They are designed to be moved by trucks, cranes and ships. There are also many of them available in all locations that deal with shipping. I do not know how much one of those mobile offices costs or what the backlog / order time for them is.
- redis_mlc 7y ago
  > I've been researching containers, as I plan to put many of them under ground in concrete. Why? Prepper?
  - jacquesm 7y ago
    Grower?
  - LinuxBender 7y ago
    Prepper is sometimes used as a pejorative, but my goal is to document building a modern home under ground, step-by-step, including everything required to keep local governments happy. I believe that all homes should be under ground when feasible. It is the optimal path to a sustainable carbon neutral, energy efficient home while maximizing the surface area for garden space and minimizing eye-sores. This would be especially useful for people that live in areas of extreme heat, extreme cold, tornado's, hurricanes, flooding (if done right). If you are curious, there are literally thousands of videos on youtube of folks that have built such homes and they are very nice on the inside. Some people get fancy with tubes that bring in natural sunlight. The temperature under ground is about 50-54 degrees F all year, so heating and cooling is very easy. A rocket mass heater combined with a large stone heat bank can warm up an underground home in 30 minutes and keep it warm for days afterwards. This isn't a new concept at all. It just happens that storage containers are very sturdy and can handle large amounts of concrete pressure. There are companies that sell / build these as fallout shelters, but they charge a lot and do not design them as full time homes. I am not going to link to the shelter companies, as most of them are shams.