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.
Lismore, NSW
Shipping containers Lismore
Nobody in Lismore needs a container company to explain water to them. This town has a better collective memory of levels and heights than any document we could write, and the people asking us questions here are usually asking a sharper version of them than we get anywhere else. So we will be blunt about what a container is and is not, and then talk about the things that actually make a difference: where it sits, how high it sits, and what happens on the streets and the driveways between the flats and the hill.
- Delivered from
- the Grafton depot, run north up the highway and across on the Bruxner
- 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, the older narrow streets and anything lifted over a fence
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.
The bit that is specific to here, first.
The jobs they end up doing here
Around Lismore we deliver containers for site storage for the trades still working through repairs and rebuilds across the basin, tools and materials for owner-builders doing the work themselves, household contents kept somewhere secure while a place is stripped back and started again, macadamia and small-crop gear on the farms out through Dunoon, Clunes and Modanville, beef and fencing equipment on the grazing country toward Casino, stock and equipment for businesses working out of premises that are smaller than they used to be, and gear storage for the sporting clubs, halls and community groups that lost sheds.
What has to be right before the truck books
Lismore is a basin with a river through it and a ridge on one side, and the delivery changes completely depending on which part you are in. Down on the flats through South Lismore, North Lismore, the CBD fringe and the streets behind Union Street, the housing stock is old, timber and mostly up on stumps. The subdivisions are tight, the carriageways are narrow with cars on both sides, driveways are short and pitch away hard at the kerb so a tilt bed grounds out before a container is clear, and the side gates were set out for a wheelbarrow. On top of that there are enormous camphor laurels through those streets, dropping limbs at exactly the height a raised tilt bed wants to occupy. A good share of those addresses are crane jobs rather than tilt jobs and it is far better to know that at the quote than at seven in the morning. The ground on the flats is river alluvium, deep silt that has been laid down and re-laid for a very long time. It is superb soil and it is a liar underfoot. It dries hard, it looks like hardstand, then a wet week goes through it and a corner casting carrying a couple of tonne sinks a hundred millimetres while you watch. Up on the hill it is a different world. Goonellabah, East Lismore and Girards Hill sit on red basalt, and the driveways up there are steep, often with a crest or a sharp break of grade at the kerb that will ground a truck bed just as reliably as a soft flat will bog one. Basalt is firm going when dry and slippery within minutes of rain. Then there is the rural country out toward Dunoon, Clunes, Modanville and Nimbin, which brings crowned gravel driveways, table drains, causeways that come up quickly after rain in the hills above you, and gates that measure less than they look. Whatever the address, three photos settle most of it: one from the middle of the road looking in, one down the length of the approach, and one of the spot itself.
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 Lismore
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.
Lismore
Height is the only thing that helps
We are going to be direct, because in Lismore the polite version is useless. A shipping container is not flood protection and we will not sell it as such. A cargo-worthy unit is checked wind and watertight, and what that means is rain from above, on a roof, on a container standing upright. It says nothing about water rising against the doors. Floodwater that reaches the door sill gets past the seals and comes in, because door seals are built to shed rain running down a face, not to hold back a head of water pushing against them. Anyone who tells you otherwise is selling you something they should not be.
The second thing is buoyancy, and this town saw it. An empty or lightly loaded container is a very large sealed steel box, and in deep water it will float, turn and travel. Containers moved in 2022. That is not a theoretical risk here. So the useful conversation is not about the box, it is about where you put it and how high. Site it on the highest usable ground on the property rather than the flattest. Keep it out of the overland flow path, because plenty of damage in the basin comes from water running across blocks rather than from the river alone. And if the contents are genuinely irreplaceable, height beats every other decision you will make about it.
On the ground
Getting it up off the ground, properly
The practical follow-on from that is elevation, and there is a right and a wrong way to do it. Setting a container up on stacked blocks, a raised pad or a purpose-built stand does two useful things at once: it lifts the floor above ordinary nuisance water and it keeps the underside dry and ventilated so the bearers are not sitting in damp silt for a decade. It also makes the unit easier to lift and shift later, which matters more than people think on a block that might be reconfigured.
How high and how it is engineered is a question for someone qualified when you are going beyond routine levelling, because a container up on stands is carrying its whole load through four points and those points now have to be built to take it. We will do the ordinary work as part of delivery, which means concrete pads or hardwood sleepers under the corner castings, checked level both ways and on both diagonals, with the door end on the high side of any fall so the doors swing with gravity. Beyond that, if the plan is a serious elevated stand on the flats, get it designed rather than improvised. On the alluvium down there, spreading the load matters as much as the height does.
Worth knowing
Rebuild work, and why hire suits it
A lot of what we put on the ground around Lismore is tied to work with an end date on it. A house being stripped and reworked, a shop fitted out again, a shed rebuilt, an owner-builder doing it themselves across eighteen months of weekends. For all of that, hire earns its keep. You are not tying up capital in something you will be trying to move on the moment the job finishes, you are not the one arranging a truck at the far end, and if the job changes shape you can swap the container for a bigger or smaller one instead of selling and buying again.
Buying gets better the moment the timeframe goes vague or the container becomes part of how the place works permanently, and there is a real second-hand market in the Northern Rivers if you ever want out. What decides it is usually simpler than people expect: how long, what is going inside, and whether it needs to be dry. Tell us those three and we will point you at the right size and grade instead of the dearest one. The full explanation of what each grade is and what it is checked for sits on our grades page, which is a better place to read it than a locality page.
What delivery to Lismore costs
Freight to this area is quoted per job. The truck the site needs is usually the bigger variable, not the kilometres.
We would rather ask two more questions on the phone than send the wrong container up the road.
More of the region
We also deliver to Goonellabah, Casino, Alstonville, Nimbin, Clunes and the surrounding district. If your town is not on the list, ring — it almost certainly still works.
Common questions
Buying a container in Lismore
Is a shipping container safe from floodwater in Lismore?
No, and we will not dress that up. A container is checked for weather from above, not for water rising against the doors. Floodwater that reaches the door sill gets past the seals and gets inside, and an empty container is a sealed steel box that will float, turn and move once the water is deep enough. That happened here in 2022. What protects contents is height and siting: the highest usable ground on the block, out of the overland flow path, and set up on a raised pad or stand if it is a long-term store on the flats.
Can you put a container up on stands or blocks so the floor sits higher?
We can set a unit on concrete pads or hardwood sleepers as part of the delivery, level in both directions with the door end on the high side, and that lifts the floor clear of the ground and keeps the underside ventilated. If you want a genuinely elevated stand, well above routine levelling, get it designed by someone qualified. A container carries everything through its four corner castings, so once it is up in the air those four points have to be built to take the load. Tell us the plan at the quote and we will place it to suit.
Can a truck get into the narrow streets in South and North Lismore?
Often, but not always with a tilt-tray. Those streets are narrow with cars parked both sides, the driveways are short and break away hard at the kerb so the bed grounds out before the container is clear, and there are big camphor laurels dropping limbs right where a raised bed needs air. On plenty of those addresses a crane truck lifting from the road over the fence is quicker and safer than trying to thread a tilt down the side. Send a photo from the middle of the road looking at the house and we will call it.
How long does delivery take to Lismore, and where does the container come from?
Stock for the Northern Rivers is held at our Grafton depot, which is a straightforward run north, so two to four business days from order to on the ground is the normal window. What stretches it is a crane booking or wet weather on soft ground, where waiting a couple of days beats bogging a truck on your block. If you want to see the unit first, inspection at Grafton can be arranged, or ask for photos of the actual container on request and we will send them before delivery.
Get a price
Work out the right container with us
We deliver to Lismore 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