Crane Day #2 – Making It a House

Last week we brought the rest of the containers to make the Trammel Container Home. If you missed the first part of the process, check out our earlier blog here.

Since the first floor went into place, Justin at MJF Contracting and his team have been hard at work. They cut down a container to be a stairwell. They finished a lot of the site work for the home including back-filling the foundation.

We had to adjust our delivery date because of road restrictions. Since the Trammels are building their home in March in the Midwest, it is road restriction season. For those of you not aware of this, it is when certain roads have restricted weight limits. This is because during this period, the ground is thawing and it makes the roads more susceptible to road damage. Road restrictions were announced and went into effect before our scheduled date for bringing out the remaining containers. We were able to change the delivery date quickly to accommodate this.

However, to do that, we did have to bring one container out the day before the crane came in. It was a good example of why this is a tricky time of year for container deliveries. The ground is frozen, but that top layer freezes overnight with cold temperatures and then thaws during the day. You could see where the truck was sliding around during the delivery of the container. Dick’s Valley Service is our go-to for ground-level delivery and they did an amazing job. They came back with the remaining 2 containers while the crane was there. The drivers were joking around about how much they were sinking into the ground.

The crew really made the second round of container placements look so easy! MJF Contracting’s crew was ready to place the containers exactly in place and weld them to the bottom level of containers as we moved through the containers. Kuehn’s Crane Service was so precise in their placement. It was great to watch.

The big excitement was with the 7th container. We brought that container out right after the first level of containers were set down. Sam, the welder, cut off the nose end of the container including the corner posts. He then cut the container down and welded the end back in place. There was a height restriction that didn’t allow for the full 40’ of container to stand on end, but the plans call for the container to serve as a stairwell going all the way to the roof where there will be a terrace.

Container end welded back on

Once the 6 containers were in place, the 7th container was lifted up to an angle and set on supports so additional welds could be done to the floor of the container. Then the whole container was lifted upright and then swung into place. Great Lake Superior Walls had a perfect foundation set in place to accommodate the door end of the container.

Now that all 7 containers are in place, MJF Contracting will start cutting into the containers into rooms, building in support and finishing off the container.