We are all getting used to seeing shipping container conversionsof amazing h0uses, art galleries and classrooms but, in order to prove that uses of shipping containers and container conversions are really is only limited to yor imagination, here are some of the more unusal requests we have had over the last few months.
- Rogrigo the human cannon ball wants to be able to transport his cannon over to Australia and needs to be able to secure his cannon for the trip. Thisenquiryis relatively simple to do but how could anyone resist including such a request? 7 metres in length, 2 metres in width and 2.5 metres high it weights 2000-2500 kg so is a substantial piece of kit! Luckily shipping containers are used to taking a lot more weight than that so, providing the cannon is kept anchored in side securely it should not prove to be a problem.
- Refrigerated shipping containers are often put to the most unusual uses. Have you ever thought of them as being useful for bug extermination? A well-known country house uses them to put in their antique carpets and turns down the temperature to kill off all the nasties that are trying to chomp through the carpet fibres. Apparently if you keep the carpets at -20C for two weeks, let them slowly come back to normal ambient temperature for another two weeks before repeating the process again, this solves the problem. These carpets are priceless so the refrigerated containers have to be kept in a bonded warehouse or somewhere equally as secure to make sure the carpets don’t get stolen.
- Talking of creatures with more than 2 legs, we have also been asked for a shipping container conversion of a refrigerated container so it could be used as a climate controlled holding tank for crabs for a sea aquarium whilst the crabs were breeding. The floor had to be bunded to hold 1 metre depth of water at a constant temperature and have a ledge for the crabs to be able to climb up on. At the same time the refrigerator motor had to be totally secure so the crabs could not get into it!
- One of our refrigerated containers has been used to test a Range Rover! Regulations apparently required that the car underwent a series of tests at -20C and these were carried out in one of our containers that we hired out for 16 weeks. Amazing!
- Maybe not such an unusual shipping container conversion – but rather an unusual use – was the request for a shipping container to be converted into a mobile on-line auction room. Fitted out to a luxury spec it was to provide a place where clients would feel happy to bid for luxury yachts in all parts of the worldbe this at the Boat Show at Earls Courtor St Tropezor even Florida! With the different power requirements, lots of glass, sofas and expensive rugs, as well asthe need for air conditioning and heating (depending on where the conversion was sited at any particular time) it certainly proved to be a detailed job to undertake!
So there you are, next time you look at a shipping container you can think of these requests and see them in a whole new light!