10ft Shipping Containers
Side access is pinched, the setback leaves nothing to manoeuvre in, or all that is needed is a lockable spot for the mower, an air compressor and a wall of hand tools.
Ballina, NSW
Shipping containers Ballina
Ballina is two landscapes stacked on top of each other and the difference shows up the moment a truck arrives. Down at sea level you have the river mouth, the sand and a water table that is closer to the surface than anybody expects, and streets in the older beach pockets that were pegged out when a family car was a small thing. Fifteen minutes up the hill at Alstonville and Wollongbar it is deep red basalt, macadamia rows and a completely different set of problems. We ask which one you are on before we ask anything else.
- Delivered from
- our Cornubia yard or the Grafton depot, whichever is holding the grade and size you want
- Typical lead time
- Usually 2–4 business days from order to on the ground
- Usual truck
- Tilt-tray for 10ft and 20ft; crane truck for 40ft, beach-suburb blocks and over-fence lifts
Every enquiry answered within one business day.You hear back from a person, not an autoresponder. Enquiries that land on a weekend are answered the next business day.
Before the detail, the shape of it.
What people order them for locally
Around Ballina we deliver containers for trawler nets, pots, marine gear and outboard spares along the Richmond River fishing side of town, boards, skis and beach gear for households at Lennox Head and East Ballina where the garage capitulated years ago, macadamia husks, harvest gear and orchard equipment up on the Alstonville plateau, cane and machinery storage on the flats out toward Wardell and Broadwater, site stores for the trades working the Cumbalum and Skennars Head estates, dry storage for the small food and beverage makers scattered through the industrial estate, and household storage while a Ballina cottage is lifted and worked on.
Getting a truck in
Getting to Ballina is the easy part now that the highway runs the way it does. Getting a truck into position is where the local knowledge earns its keep. The beach suburbs are the first constraint. Old East Ballina, the streets behind Shaws Bay, and the tighter parts of Lennox Head were subdivided small and close, with narrow carriageways, on-street parking on both sides, houses set hard against a boundary and side gates that are decorative rather than functional. On many of those a tilt-tray simply cannot be threaded down the side and the sensible answer is a crane lift from the road over the fence. Overhead services across the frontage and mature Norfolk pines and figs are part of that calculation. Then there is what is underneath. From the river mouth through East Ballina, Lennox and Skennars Head the profile is dune sand over a high water table, and around North Creek and the low ground behind the beaches the table is high enough that a post hole finds water. Sand drains beautifully and carries badly. A loaded truck can sit down to the axles on a nature strip that looked entirely solid, and a container corner casting will punch into it within a season if there is nothing spreading the load. Salt is the constant here too. Ballina sits in the wind off the Pacific and anything steel that has grass grown up around its base or leaf litter sitting on its roof will show it sooner than the same unit twenty kilometres inland. Up the hill it changes completely. The climb to Alstonville and Wollongbar puts you on deep red krasnozem basalt, which is superb soil and greasy going the moment it is wet, especially on the sloping orchard tracks between macadamia rows. Long private driveways up there tend to be crowned gravel with table drains, and they need real turning space at the top rather than optimistic turning space. The plateau roads also carry low canopy in stretches. A 20ft goes up without drama, a 40ft is a conversation about the approach before it is a conversation about price.
Grade moves the price more than size does, and it is what decides whether a unit is sold watertight — the full rundown is on the grades page.
The range
Containers we deliver to Ballina
Priced with delivery to your address - one call, one number.
20ft Shipping Containers
There is about seven metres of straight, reasonably level ground for it to sit on, and you would rather not discover in half a year that the bigger box was the answer.
40ft Shipping Containers
You have the space, the approach is genuinely open, and the aim is the largest amount of storage per dollar spent that anybody sells.
Ballina
Sand, water table and what actually holds it up
The single most common mistake on this coast is treating firm-looking sand as a foundation. It is not. Each corner casting on a loaded container concentrates a serious point load into a footprint the size of a dinner plate, and dune sand simply moves out of the way. What you get is uneven settlement, a frame that goes out of square and doors that need a shoulder inside the first year. The fix is cheap, permanent and takes minutes on delivery: concrete pads or hardwood sleepers under the four corners, bedded and checked level both ways and on both diagonals.
The high water table makes the second half of that matter more than it would elsewhere. A container floor sitting hard against damp sand never gets a chance to dry out underneath, and on a long-term store that is where problems start, from below rather than from the roof. Get it a hundred to a hundred and fifty millimetres clear so air moves under the bearers. It also makes life far easier if you ever want the thing lifted out again, because a container that has bedded itself into wet ground has to be dug free before a truck can get a chain on it. Tell us at the quote whether you are on sand, fill or a slab, and we will bring the materials and do the levelling as part of the delivery.
On the ground
Up the hill, into the macadamias
Alstonville, Wollongbar, Tintenbar and the country either side of the plateau road are a different job entirely. The soil is deep red basalt, which is why the macadamias are there, and it is beautiful ground until it rains. Then the orchard tracks and crowned gravel driveways get slick, the camber starts working against a loaded truck, and a wheel off the crown puts you in a table drain with nothing to do but wait for a tractor. We would rather ring and move a plateau delivery by two days than write off your driveway and half our afternoon.
The other plateau constraint is the shape of the block rather than the surface. Long driveways between tree rows are narrow by design and a tilt-tray needs to line up straight before it can unload, so turning space at the far end has to be genuine. Low canopy over the track catches people out too, because the bed on a tilt-tray goes up before the container comes off and it needs clear air above it. Send a photo from the gate looking down the drive and one of the spot itself with its surroundings, and we will tell you what will make it up there before anybody books a truck.
Worth knowing
Salt air, and the maintenance that is not really maintenance
A shipping container spent its working life at sea, so salt is not new to it. What is new is standing still. On a ship it is moving through clean air and getting rained on and dried off constantly. In a Lennox Head back yard it sits under a tree with leaf litter building up on the roof and kikuyu growing up over the bottom rail, and that is what actually starts surface corrosion, far more than the breeze off the water does. Wet leaves held against a roof panel for six months, and long grass trapping moisture against the steel, are the two things worth eliminating.
The whole regime is a sweep of the roof a couple of times a year, a whipper snipper around the base, keeping the underside clear of stacked timber and drums so water and air can get away, and leaving the doors open on a dry breezy day now and then so any condensation clears. That is it. On this coast it is the difference between a unit that looks tired in five years and one that is still square and solid in twenty. If it is going to live outdoors permanently within sight of the water, ask us about grade when you order rather than after, and we will point you at the right one for the job instead of the dearest one on the list.
What delivery to Ballina costs
We do not publish a delivery rate for this area, because a straightforward industrial drop and a tight residential one on the same street are not the same job. Ring and you will get an exact number.
One call sorts it. Size, grade, where it is going and what the entry looks like — that is everything we need to price it properly.
We deliver around here too
We also deliver to Lennox Head, Alstonville, Wardell, Wollongbar, Evans Head and the surrounding district. If your town is not on the list, ring — it almost certainly still works.
Common questions
Buying a container in Ballina
Will a container sink into the sand at Lennox Head or East Ballina?
It will settle unevenly if it goes straight onto sand or thin turf, and the first symptom is doors that stop closing cleanly. Sand drains brilliantly and carries very little, and each corner casting is a large point load in a small footprint. Concrete pads or hardwood sleepers under the four corners, bedded level, fix it permanently. On the beach side it is worth going a step further and getting the floor properly clear of the ground, because the water table here is high and a floor sitting against damp sand never dries out. Mention the ground when you enquire and we will bring what is needed on the truck.
There is no side access at my place. Can you still deliver?
Usually, with a crane truck lifting from the street over the fence into the yard. That is routine in the older beach streets around East Ballina and Lennox where the house sits hard against a boundary. What decides it is reach and clearance: how far the container has to travel horizontally, what height it has to clear, whether there are service lines across your frontage, and whether the street is wide enough for the outriggers with cars parked. Take a photo from the front gate, one from the back yard looking toward the street, and one straight up at the lines, and we can usually answer the same day.
Can you get a container up to an Alstonville or Wollongbar orchard block?
Regularly, and the plateau is good delivering country in the dry. What stops us is red basalt after rain, which turns greasy fast on a crowned gravel driveway or a track between macadamia rows, plus low canopy over the drive and turning space at the top that is not as big as it looked. A 20ft goes up comfortably. A 40ft needs the approach checked first, and where it will not work, two 20ft placed end to end usually gives more useful space anyway. Send photos of the gate, the drive and the spot.
Where does a Ballina container actually come from?
Either our Cornubia yard north of the border or the depot at Grafton, depending on which one is holding the size and grade you want that week. Practically that means two chances at getting you the exact unit rather than one, and it usually means two to four business days from order to on the ground. If you want to look at a container before it arrives, ask and we will send photos of the actual unit on request before delivery, including the corners, the door end, the roof and the internal floor.
Get a price
Tell us about the job
We deliver to Ballina and the surrounding district. Tell us what is going in it and what the access is like, and you will get a price with the cartage worked out. Every enquiry answered within one business day.
Or skip the form and ring us — 1300 467 776, Mon-Fri 7:30am-5pm, Sat 8am-12pm