Delivery
Getting the container onto your ground
Every unit we sell or hire arrives on a truck, and the truck is the part of the job with the least room to improvise. Here is where your container starts its run, what it arrives on, and what has to be true at your end for the driver to leave it where you want it.
- Leaves from
- The yard nearest you holding your unit
- Arrives on
- Tilt-tray, side loader or crane truck
- Days
- Monday to Friday, Saturday by arrangement
- Cartage
- Quoted with the container, per address
Before the price
The first question is which yard it leaves from
Containers are heavy, they are bulky, and every kilometre of road under one is money and time nobody gets back. So on any order the first thing worked out is not the figure — it is where the box is standing right now. Stock sits at yards and partner depots spread around the country, and the same cargo-worthy 20ft can be a couple of hours from your gate or the better part of a week away, depending only on which one has it.
That is the whole point of running it this way. Your unit starts its run somewhere reasonably close instead of being dragged across the continent, which means it lands sooner, it costs less to cart, and it gets handled fewer times. Handling is where paint gets scraped, door gear gets knocked out of line and a tidy container stops being tidy.
Cornubia, south-east of Brisbane, is the yard you can walk into on a weekday and look down the floor of a container yourself. Everywhere else, inspection is by arrangement and we photograph the individual unit on request instead. Either way, tell us the delivery town in the first message and you will get a straight answer about where yours would come from.
The truck
Three ways a box gets put on the ground
Which one your job needs is decided by the site, not by the container.
Tilt-tray
The bed lifts on rams and the container slides off the back under its own weight while the truck edges forward. It is the plainest gear for the job and the one you want if the site allows it. What it asks for is length — a straight, firm run at the spot with clear ground behind it for the box to travel back onto, and no bend halfway along that stops the truck lining up square.
Side loader
Two hydraulic lifting arms mounted on the trailer itself pick the container up and set it down alongside. It swaps the need for length for a need for width, so it suits narrow blocks, tight yards and anywhere the truck has to stay on the road while the box goes onto the property. One detail that catches people every time: the arms work off the driver's side, so the direction the truck can approach from decides which side of your block the container can land on.
Crane truck
Lifts the container clear and swings it over whatever is in the way — a fence, a hedge, a retaining wall, a garden bed nobody wants driven across. It is the answer for courtyards, sloping blocks and places behind a house that no wheeled option reaches. It wants firm footing under the outriggers, room to put them down, and empty sky above the swing.
There is no prize for booking heavier gear than the job needs, and the difference between these three shows up plainly on the invoice. Describe the site honestly and the cheapest truck that will actually work is the one that gets sent.
Access
Walk the approach before the truck is booked
Ten minutes and a tape measure at your end saves a wasted run at ours. These are the things that decide it.
- The straight run. Not the length of the driveway — the length of the straight part of it, ending square on the spot. A drive that doglegs is two short runs, not one long one.
- The narrowest point. A gatepost, a rainwater tank, a letterbox, a low branch on one side or the neighbour's ute parked half on the verge. The pinch decides the job no matter how open the rest is.
- Everything overhead. The service line off the street, the eave of the carport, the branch that looks high enough. A tilt-tray stands its bed up well above the height of the container to unload, so it needs far more air than the finished box will occupy.
- Two separate ground questions. What the loaded truck drives over, and what the four corners of the container will sit on afterwards. Turf that carries a ute after a wet week will not carry a semi.
- The way back out. A long approach with nowhere to turn means reversing the whole way to the road, and on a rural block that can be the hardest part of the day.
- Which way the doors end up. Decide it before delivery, not after. Spinning a container round once it is down is another truck and another day.
Most people skip the tape measure and send photographs instead, which works just as well: one from the road looking in, one from the entry looking towards the spot, one of the spot itself with something in frame for scale. Send those with your enquiry and you will usually get the truck, the timing and the figure back in one reply.
The long run
A drop at Longreach is not a drop at Logan
Once you are away from the coast the shape of the job changes. The driver may be out for two or three days, the truck is often carrying more than one unit because a trip that far has to earn its keep, and the delivery window widens from a morning to a day or two either side. None of that is a problem as long as everybody knows it up front and nobody has booked a crew to be standing there waiting.
What helps is detail. Property names do not appear on a truck GPS — give us the lot and road, the gate to use, whether there are grids a loaded truck should not cross, how many kilometres of station track sit between the gate and the shed, and a phone number that will actually be answered when the driver is half an hour out. Rural deliveries almost never fail on distance. They fail on the last two kilometres.
Season
In the north and the west, the road decides
From around November through to March or April the top end and a good deal of the inland run on rain rather than on schedule. Roads close with no notice and open again the same way. A road that is open when the truck is loaded can be shut by the time the truck gets to it, and no amount of planning at either end changes that.
You cannot quote around it, but you can leave slack for it. If a container has to be on a block up north or out west in the middle of the wet, order it earlier than feels necessary and expect the date to move once. It is also worth remembering that ground carrying a truck comfortably in August may not carry one in February — the wet season is when a delivery gets left at the gate rather than at the shed.
Cartage
Why you will not find a delivery price list here
Because the figure that is right for one address is wrong for the one down the road, and a wrong number is worse than no number at all.
Cartage is worked out per address and quoted alongside the container, so what you get is one figure with everything in it rather than a container price and a question mark. Three things set it: the length of the run, the yard the unit is released from, and the gear the site makes necessary. That last one moves it more than people expect. A tilt-tray reversing onto flat industrial hardstand and a crane lifting over a back fence a suburb away are simply not the same job.
None of this is an attempt to be cagey. It is the opposite — publishing a headline rate that only holds for easy addresses means half the people who ring get a different number to the one they read, and that is a rotten way to start. Give us the address and a description of the entry and you will have a real figure the same day, or the next business day at the outside. Every enquiry answered within one business day.
Sort the ground out while you are waiting on the quote. A container wants its weight carried on the four corner castings, sitting square and level, on sleepers, concrete pads or well-compacted base. Left slowly twisting on soft ground, the doors stop lining up and start needing a shoulder, and that is a siting fault rather than a fault in the container. Our guide to standing a container up properly walks through it, and the notes on shifting one later are worth a read before you decide where it goes.
Questions
Delivery, access and timing
Where does my container actually come from?
From whichever yard nearest you is holding the size and grade you asked for. That is the first thing we work out on any order, ahead of the price, because it sets both the cartage and the date. Sometimes the closest yard has the exact unit standing on hardstand; sometimes the grade you want is further away and the sensible answer is a slightly different unit much closer. Give us the town at the start of the conversation and we will tell you which way it falls.
How soon can a truck be there?
In and around the capitals and the larger regional centres it is usually a matter of days once the grade is settled and we know the site takes a truck. Further out it depends on when a truck is next running that way, because a container heading a long way inland generally travels with other freight rather than on its own. Deliveries run Monday to Friday, with Saturday mornings by arrangement, and you get a window rather than a minute.
Does somebody need to be on site when it lands?
Somebody should be, even if it is a neighbour with your phone number. The driver will place the unit where you point, and the person pointing is the one who knows which way the doors have to face and where the drainage runs. If nobody can be there, peg the corners out, leave the gate open and send a photo of the marked spot through beforehand so the driver is not guessing.
How precisely can the container be placed?
It depends on the truck. A tilt-tray sets the box down as the truck creeps forward, so the final position is a metre or so of judgement rather than a surveyed line. A side loader is far more exact and can drop a unit into a marked footprint. A crane truck is the most precise of the lot. If it has to land on pads, piers or a slab edge, say so when you enquire, because that is a side loader or crane job nine times out of ten.
What happens if the truck turns up and cannot get in?
The load goes back on and everybody has lost a day, which is why we would rather spend ten minutes on it beforehand than argue about it afterwards. Send photographs with your enquiry — one from the road, one down the approach, one of the spot — and we will tell you which truck the job wants, or tell you it will not work as described, before anything is booked. Phone photographs are fine. Nobody needs a survey.
Can it be dropped onto sleepers, pads or a slab?
Yes, and it is worth doing. Tell us at the quoting stage, get the pads in before the truck comes, and make sure they are level with each other rather than merely level individually. Keep the approach to them clear — a tilt-tray needs to run the box back over the ground behind the pads, and a stack of bricks in the way is the sort of small thing that stops a delivery dead.
Can I pick one up myself?
From the Cornubia yard at 51–55 Bromley Street, Cornubia QLD 4130, by arrangement, if you are turning up with a trailer rated for it and the means to restrain it properly. A container is not a load to improvise with — it is heavy, it is awkward, and it is uninsured on the road if it is not tied down to standard. Ring ahead either way so the unit is dug out of the row and the paperwork is ready when you arrive.
Why is there no delivery rate published anywhere on this site?
Because a published rate would mislead more people than it helped. Cartage moves with the length of the run, with the yard the unit leaves from, and then it moves again with what the site forces us to send. Two addresses in the same postcode can be a long way apart on cartage if one takes a tilt-tray straight off the road and the other needs a crane over a fence. One phone call and an address gets you an exact figure instead of a range.
Get a price
Tell us where it is going
An address and three photographs of the entry is usually all it takes. You will get the truck, the timing and a delivered figure back together. 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