What are insulated shipping containers?

How Can Insulated Shipping Containers Be Used for Business

A key word in the business community these days: adaptability.

That’s always been a key word in business, you need to adapt to survive, but it’s become more important than ever. Where businesses could once afford to adapt at their own pace, it’s a whole other story now. You need to be able to change your plans at a moment’s notice.

For many businesses, this makes insulated shipping containers critical to their daily operations. Here’s what you need to know.

You’ve seen a shipping container before, and you probably know what “insulated” means, so you can piece together the basic idea here. The question then comes down to how they’re insulated, and what they’re for.

There are a number of ways to insulate a shipping container. Aztec Container prefers to frame the container (ceiling and walls) with studs, insulate with R13 insulation and cover it with the customer’s choice of drywall or plywood. This is done in order to preserve the internal temperature, keeping cold and heat out.

As to what insulated shipping containers are used for, well, that could be just about anything.

For instance, there are ski lodges that use insulated shipping containers as a stylishly utilitarian building component for their cabins. You can use insulated shipping containers to send shipments of raw food over long distances without having to spend anything on refrigeration. Or you could add refrigeration and turn that insulated shipping container into a walk-in freezer.

If you’re planning on building any sort of living or working quarters out of a shipping container, for a hotel or a restaurant or an on-site office at a construction project, insulation is a must. This will keep the interior from getting too cold in the winter, or too hot in the summer.

Essentially it breaks down like this: any time you need a temporary, semi-temporary, mobile, or simply cost-effective structure for secure storage, a shipping container can do the job. And if temperature is a concern, an insulated shipping container is a must. Simple as that.

We’re seeing more and more businesses using shipping containers as a handy alternative to conventional buildings lately. Pop-up stores that can be tucked away once you’ve sold everything, outdoor dining areas for restaurants and coffee shops looking to comply with Covid measures without losing too much business, overflow storage for grocery stores, even hip little hotels in remote areas where it’s difficult to move construction trucks up and down winding roads.

The magic of a shipping container is that it’s just a sturdy box, and that’s all it really is. That means that, with a few tweaks, it can be anything that you need it to be.

Shipping Containers Made to Order

Fair warning: if you go looking for shipping containers for sale, you’re probably not going to find exactly what you’re after. Every business needs something different from a shipping container. One buyer might be looking to open a bar out of a 40 ft shipping container. Another might be looking to store dairy products in a refrigerated 10 ft shipping container. One buyer might want wide-opening garage-style doors on the side of their container, while another wants a front door and a window.

You can make many of these adjustments on your own after purchasing a container. But it’s easier if you have them take care of it for you before you make the purchase. Aztec Containers is set up to customize a container to your needs on-site, and that’s going to be a lot less hassle than hiring a crew to come out and saw a doorway into it after the fact.

If you’re thinking of using an insulated shipping container for your business, or for any other reason, get in touch with Aztec Containers for a quote, and see what they can do for you.