Moving a shipping container you already own

First question: can it still be lifted?

A container is designed to be picked up by its eight corner castings and by nothing else. Those castings and the rails they are welded into carry the whole load during a lift. If the corners are sound, the box travels. If they are not, it may be perfectly safe standing where it is and still not safe to hoist.

Before anything else, go and look at the four bottom castings and the four top ones. You are checking for cracked steel around the openings, for a casting that has been rewelded, and for corrosion at the joint where the casting meets the rails. Then run your eye along the bottom rails. Rot-through along a bottom rail is common on older units, because that is where water, dirt and grass sit for years, and a bottom rail that has gone soft is a real limitation on lifting.

A unit that has been sitting on soft ground with one corner dug in is worth extra attention. Take a photo of each corner and send them through with your enquiry. It is far better to find the problem in a photograph than to find it with a crane hooked on.

Second question: is it stuck to the ground?

Containers that have stood for years develop attachments nobody planned. Work through this list on foot before you book anything.

• Sunk corners. If castings have settled into soil or sand, the unit has to be broken free and the truck needs a plan for lifting from a hole.
• Vegetation. Lantana, blackberry, wattle regrowth, a tree that was a seedling when the box arrived. Clear it, and clear the swing path as well.
• Additions. Awnings, lean-tos, roofs run off the top rail, decking, a carport post tucked against the side. All of it has to come off, and all of it takes longer than you think.
• Services. Power leads, water lines, a solar panel on the roof, an aerial, a security camera. Disconnect properly.
• Concrete. If somebody has poured a slab hard up against the rails, or worse, poured around the castings, that is a jackhammer job before it is a truck job.
• Neighbouring structures. A container built into a shed complex may not have clear air above it any more.

Third question: does it have to be empty?

Usually, yes, and almost always it should be.

A 20ft with nothing in it weighs a shade over two tonne. The same unit packed with household goods can be five or six, and packed with anything dense — pavers, tiles, steel, tooling, feed — can be a great deal more. That extra weight changes which truck can handle it, how far a crane can reach with it, whether the ground on either end will carry the vehicle, and whether the whole thing is legal on the road.

There is a structural reason too. A container's floor and frame are designed for load that sits still and is spread evenly. A stack of gear at one end, unsecured, becomes a moving load the moment the unit is tilted or swung, and that is how floors get punched and doors get sprung.

Where a partly loaded move is possible, it has to be planned for: known weight, evenly distributed, strapped down, nothing loose. Tell us what is in it and roughly what it weighs. Guessing low here is the single most common reason a relocation fails on the day.

Which truck moves it

Tilt-tray

The everyday answer for a 10ft or a 20ft where both ends of the job have room. The bed tilts, the container is winched on, and it comes off the same way at the far end. It is the cheapest method to run and the most widely available. What it needs is a straight, level run behind the unit at pick-up and again at drop-off, plus ground that will carry a loaded truck without rutting.

Side loader

A trailer with hydraulic lifting arms that picks the unit off the ground beside it and sets it on its own deck. It needs no run-in at all, which solves plenty of tight sites, but it works off the driver's side only, which means it must be able to sit with that flank presented to the container at each end of the job. It handles 40fts as a matter of routine and it can stack.

Crane truck

A knuckle-boom crane behind the cab, lifting the unit up and over whatever is in the way. This is what solves the jobs that look impossible: a container in a back yard with a house in front of it, a unit hemmed in by sheds, a courtyard, a steep drive. The trade-off is reach — lifting capacity falls away sharply the further the boom extends, so the distance from where the truck can stand to where the container sits often decides the whole job.

Mobile crane and a flat-bed

For the genuinely awkward ones: long reach over a building, two-storey lifts, or a 40ft out of a confined industrial site. It is the most expensive option and sometimes the only one. Where a lift crosses a road or a footpath, a traffic permit may be needed, which takes lead time.

Both ends of the job, not one

The mistake people make is planning the pick-up and assuming the drop-off will sort itself out. A relocation is two deliveries with a drive in between, and the harder of the two ends governs the truck.

For each end, you want the same four measurements: the straight run available behind the placement spot, the narrowest pinch point on the route in, everything overhead including power lines and branches, and whether the ground carries a loaded truck. Walk both sites with those four in mind and you will know within ten minutes whether this is a tilt-tray job or a crane job. The delivery page sets out what each vehicle needs in detail.

Prepare the new spot before the old one

Everybody focuses on getting the container off the old pad and nobody prepares the new one, which is how a unit ends up sitting on bare soil "just for now" and stays there for a decade until the doors stop closing.

Have four pads laid, levelled and bedded before the truck arrives. Hardwood sleepers, besser blocks bedded on firm ground, stacked pavers or poured pads all work; what matters is that they sit under the corner castings and that all four are within about ten millimetres of the same plane. Decide which way the doors face and peg it, keeping roughly 2.5 m clear at the door end so they can swing right back. Think about drainage — do not put it in the low spot where water crosses the site — and lay gravel or weed mat underneath first, because doing it afterwards means crawling.

What it costs, in the terms that actually apply

We do not publish figures for cartage or lifting, because a relocation price is made of variables that are specific to your two sites. What drives it is worth knowing so you can influence it:

• The type of truck the harder end demands. Tilt-tray at both ends is the cheapest outcome by a distance.
• Distance between the two sites, and whether the route has any restrictions on it.
• Time on site at each end — clearing, freeing and levelling all burn hours.
• Whether the unit is empty, and whether that can be verified rather than asserted.
• Permits, traffic control or a second crew, where a lift crosses public land.

One comparison worth doing honestly: for an older unit moving a long way, the cost of the move can approach what a sound used container would cost sitting on a depot near the destination. If that is the case, selling where it stands and buying at the far end is sometimes the better call, and we will say so.

Before you ring

Have these ready and the quote comes back straight: the size and rough age of the unit, whether it is empty, photographs of all four corners and both sites, both addresses, and any deadline you are working to. Send them through the contact page or ring 1300 467 776. If the unit turns out not to be worth moving, we would rather tell you that on the phone than on the day.