STONEY POINT — More than half of an expansive new house was erected in a matter of hours Tuesday, as six hulking shipping containers were hoisted onto a concrete foundation facing Lake St. Clair.

Believed to be the first home in the region made from these 40-by-8-by-9-foot steel boxes, there will be a total of 10 containers once four more arrive in the next week to form the second floor.

“This is a ready-made house!”  the excited owner Sandor Abri said as he enthused about the benefits of this emerging construction trend that involves aligning the containers side by side and stacking them one atop the other, welding them together and then cutting out sections for windows, doors and big interior openings.

“This is when it’s finished,” Abri said, showing a rendering on his phone that looks like a California beach house, nothing like the current collection of rusty yellow and blue shipping containers. He’s ordering special big windows and doors from Germany and will coat the exterior with spray foam insulation and panels. There’s a double garage and a giant deck jutting towards the lake on the top floor.

When completed in the coming months, it will have about 2,000 square feet of interior space, including two 500-square-foot bedrooms each with ensuite bathrooms and walk-in closets on the top floor. He estimates the total cost of the project will be around $400,000.

“I believe it’s a little bit cheaper (than a conventional house), but way faster,” Abri said. “Just think about it, in the middle of August it was bare land and now (after shoreline protection and building a foundation) I have a structure on it.”

Each of the steel containers cost about $3,000.

“These containers are available everywhere,” he said. “China sends them (carrying manufactured goods to North America on ocean freighters) and they don’t want them back. This is an efficient way to use them.”

Albri, who moved from Hungary to Canada in the early 1980s, prefers the solid concrete homes built in Europe to how they build houses in North America — out of lumber, or as he describes it, “sticks.”

His current house in Whitby — he’ll eventually sell it to more than pay for his less expensive lakefront home in Stoney Point — is made of “sticks” and already the doors don’t close properly, he remarked.

When he started thinking about building a new home, all he knew was he didn’t want another “stick house.”

Then he started noticing shipping container homes popping up on the Internet. “And I started researching, deeper and deeper, and I decided I love it.”

When asked why he decided to build in Stoney Point, the transport driver motioned toward the lake. “The beautiful view. I love this, I love boating and fishing and everything is here.”

Abri expects to wind down his truck driving work in the next year or so, and he and his wife Desiree will move to their new home on the lake.

The total time he expects it to take to construct everything, will be about four months.

He pointed out his new home won’t require the killing of any trees. The steel panels he cuts out for windows, doors and other openings will be recycled. And the house product will be incredibly solid. These containers are built to withstand the salty sea air for months on end. Though they exhibit some exterior rust, they’re structurally sound, he said. “On a ship, they put them up nine containers high and each container holds 45,000 pounds, so they are extra strong.”

The containers are supplied by Coxon Sales and Rentals, a local firm that has about 1,100 of these containers in stock. For years, it provided them for people to use as storage at their residences or businesses. Now, the company is enthused about an emerging new business — making houses and other buildings from shipping containers.

“I think this is the way of the future — modularity — you’ll see more and more of it,” said owner Brad Coxon, who explained his company purchases the containers out of San Francisco for shipment to Detroit. They come in various sizes up to 40 feet long. Regular containers are eight-feet high but Abri opted for higher nine-foot containers to ensure he had ample ceiling height.

Around the world, people are coming up with innovative reuses, including swimming pools, apartment buildings, innovative homes and, in Detroit’s Cass Corridor, the Detroit Shipping Company food hall that opened up earlier this year. 

Coxon said Abri’s containers are “out of survey,” meaning they’re out of date so the shipping companies don’t want to put them back on a ship. But they still are structurally sound. Coxon said this is the first shipping container house in the Windsor-Essex region. Abri said he believes the next-closest one is in Hamilton.

Windsor heating and cooling contractor Tom Bradd, who’s installing the HVAC system, said he’s excited to see how Abri’s house will turn out.

“I love it, because it’s going to be so solid compared to wood framing,” he said.

Crane operator Dennis Tremblay of Moir Crane Service said he’s hoisted shipping containers before, but never to create a modular-type home. The precision job was successful thanks to experience and good people giving him signals, he said. He too is curious about what the home will look like.

“Right now, it just looks like a bunch of shipping containers jammed together, but I know there’s a bigger vision.”

Sign up to receive daily headline news from the Windsor Star, a division of Postmedia Network Inc.

A welcome email is on its way. If you don't see it, please check your junk folder.

The next issue of Windsor Star Headline News will soon be in your inbox.

We encountered an issue signing you up. Please try again

Postmedia is committed to maintaining a lively but civil forum for discussion and encourage all readers to share their views on our articles. Comments may take up to an hour for moderation before appearing on the site. We ask you to keep your comments relevant and respectful. We have enabled email notifications—you will now receive an email if you receive a reply to your comment, there is an update to a comment thread you follow or if a user you follow comments. Visit our Community Guidelines for more information and details on how to adjust your email settings.

365 Bloor Street East, Toronto, Ontario, M4W 3L4

© 2022 Windsor Star, a division of Postmedia Network Inc. All rights reserved. Unauthorized distribution, transmission or republication strictly prohibited.

This website uses cookies to personalize your content (including ads), and allows us to analyze our traffic. Read more about cookies here. By continuing to use our site, you agree to our Terms of Service and Privacy Policy.