03Tools

Draw it before you price it

Two working tools, both fed by jobs we have actually delivered across Oregon and Washington. The configurator redraws your shell as you choose it. The calculator returns a starting range and shows exactly where every dollar of it goes. Neither one is a quote, and neither one pretends to be.

Where the numbers come from

The starting prices published on our design gallery, and the same seven-line cost split we work to in the yard. Not a market average, and not a wish list.

Where they stop

Site works, foundations, utility connection and permit fees are priced against your actual plot. Slope, access and soil move that figure more than any choice on this page.

03.2Cost calculator

What a build like that starts at

Set the size, be honest about the complexity, tick only the add-ons you actually want. The range below is where comparable builds start with us. The breakdown underneath is the same seven-line split we work to, published exactly as we use it.

01 / Size

Floor area is measured inside the insulation, which is the number that ends up on your permit drawings, not the container manufacturer’s external footprint.

02 / Design complexity

Standard shellx1.00Stock opening positions, stock layout, our standard joinery set. Nothing gets cut that we have not cut forty times before, so the yard hours are predictable.Modifiedx1.18Openings moved, custom joinery, services relocated to suit your plan. Drawn from scratch, built on the same jigs. Adds roughly three weeks and a round of shop drawings.Structuralx1.42Party wall removed between containers, a cantilever over a slope, a welded moment frame. Every one of these is stamped by our structural engineer before steel is cut.

03 / Add-ons

Rooftop solar array and battery$24,0003.6 kW on the welded roof frame with a 10 kWh battery. Carries a two-person load in the Willamette Valley from March through October without the grid.Rainwater harvesting and filtration$9,500A 40 ft roof catches around 900 gallons from an inch of rain. Includes the tank, a first-flush diverter, sediment and carbon stages, and a pressure pump.Composting toilet and greywater$6,500Separating composting toilet, so there is no black water line to run. Greywater goes to a mulch basin where the county permits it, and to the sewer where it does not.Notched or folding deck$8,000A bay cut out of the envelope, or a steel-framed deck that folds down off the long elevation for transport. Cedar boards, hot-dip galvanised frame.Premium glazing package$12,500Triple-glazed, argon-filled, thermally broken frames throughout. Roughly U-0.20 against the U-0.30 of our stock double-glazed units.Off-grid plant room$15,000Inverter, charge controller, pressure pump and heat-pump water heater in an insulated end bay with its own external access door.

Estimate

USD, ex site works

Starting range

$89,000–$107,000

320 sq ft, standard shell, no add-ons. That works out at about $280 a square foot at the low end.

Where the money goes

The shell subtotal of $89,000, split the way we split it internally. Rounded to the nearest hundred.

Fabrication labour$26,700
30%
Interior fit-out and joinery$17,800
20%
Mechanical, electrical and plumbing$13,400
15%
Envelope: insulation, glazing, cladding, coatings$10,700
12%
Design, engineering and permitting$8,900
10%
Transport and installation$7,100
8%
Containers$4,500
5%

Add-ons

Priced as separate packages, fitted in the yard before the unit ships.

None selected.

Starting point$89,000

This is an estimate, not a quote. It covers the unit as it leaves our yard: steel, structure, envelope, services and fit-out. Site works, foundations, utility connection and permit fees are quoted separately against your actual site, because slope, access and soil move that figure more than anything you can pick on this page. A fixed price is issued with the contract, after a site visit and a stamped drawing set, and it does not move once we start cutting.

Turn this into a fixed price

→Next step

Tell us about your site and we will tell you what fits on it

A free consultation is a real conversation about access, slope, zoning and budget, ending with a written view on whether a container home is the right answer for your plot. Sometimes it is not, and we will say so.

Request a free consultation Estimate your build cost

Draw it before you price it

Pick the boxes, then the holes in them

How many boxes are we cutting?

Where the light gets in

What it is lined with

Your layout, as we would write it up

What a build like that starts at

Tell us about your site and we will tell you what fits on it