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.
Newcastle, NSW
Shipping containers Newcastle
Nobody in Newcastle needs a container explained to them. The harbour handles them by the thousand, the industrial land at Mayfield and Kooragang was laid out around moving steel and coal, and half the trades in the city have worked around one at some point. That familiarity is worth something, because it means the conversation starts at the useful end. What still catches people out is the last hundred metres. The inner suburbs were surveyed for a horse and cart, the coastal end is dune sand, and a fair slice of the western suburbs sits over ground that was mined long before anybody built on it.
- Delivered from
- Stock for the Hunter comes south down the Pacific Highway from our Grafton depot, with anything out of the ordinary carted from the Cornubia yard in south-east Queensland.
- Typical lead time
- Usually 4–7 business days, scheduled around the southbound run
- Usual truck
- Tilt-tray for 10ft and 20ft; crane truck for 40ft, for the old terrace streets and for any lift 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.
Where they turn up around here
Around Newcastle we deliver containers for lock-up storage behind the terraces at Cooks Hill, Islington and Carrington where the back yard is four metres wide, plant and consumables storage across the industrial land at Mayfield, Cardiff, Beresfield and Thornton, site stores on the constant knockdown and infill work through Adamstown, New Lambton and Merewether, gear storage for the marine and boating trades around Carrington and Stockton, feed, fencing and machinery storage on the small holdings out through Paterson, Dungog and the Williams valley, and vineyard equipment kept dry and locked around Pokolbin, Lovedale and Rothbury.
Access notes for this district
Newcastle splits into four kinds of delivery and it is worth knowing which one you are before ordering. The industrial belt is the easy one. Mayfield, Kooragang, Steel River, Cardiff, Beresfield and the Thornton estates were built for articulated vehicles, the surfaces are hardstand, and there is usually plant on site already. Those jobs are a phone call. The inner suburbs are the opposite. Cooks Hill, Carrington, Islington, Wickham, Hamilton and the older parts of Mayfield have terrace frontages on narrow streets with parking both sides, rear lanes barely wide enough for a ute, and a back yard that is reached through a gate a wheelbarrow was the design brief for. Plenty of those are still deliverable, but with a crane truck lifting from the street rather than a tilt-tray threading down the side. The third case is sand. Stockton, Fern Bay and the strip running north toward Anna Bay sit on dune sand, and dune sand looks like a road surface and carries almost nothing. A loaded rear axle will find that out on a nature strip in about two metres. The fourth is water and old workings. Out through Hexham, Tarro, Raymond Terrace, Maitland and the Hunter flats the soil is river silt and alluvium, which sets hard through a dry spell and turns to grease after a week of rain. Across a lot of Lake Macquarie, Cardiff, Wallsend and West Wallsend the ground has old coal workings under it, and while that rarely affects a delivery it is worth mentioning to us if your block has any known movement, because we would rather place the unit on the most stable part of the site than the most convenient one. Three photos settle most of it: the street from the middle of the road, the approach itself, and the ground where the container will end up.
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 Newcastle
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.
Newcastle
Coming down the highway, not out of a Newcastle yard
We will be straight about how a Newcastle container reaches you. It is carted down the Pacific Highway from the Grafton depot, or occasionally from the Cornubia yard further north, and it travels on a scheduled run rather than on a truck kept idling in the Hunter waiting for your order. That is why four to seven business days is the honest window and why we will not promise you tomorrow afternoon. What you get in exchange is that the run is regular and the container is chosen before it is loaded, so you are not taking whatever happened to be nearest the gate.
The practical upshot is planning. If you have a fixed date — a settlement, a site start, a removalist already booked, a shed being demolished — tell us at the enquiry rather than after you have ordered, and we will build the run around it. If your date is soft, say that too, because a flexible date can often slot into a truck that is already coming this way. The one thing that does not help anybody is finding out on the Thursday that the container was needed on the Monday.
On the ground
Ground that remembers what used to be under it
Newcastle ground changes character in the space of a few streets. Harbour-side land at Carrington, Wickham and parts of Mayfield is reclaimed fill with a long industrial history and a shallow water table. Stockton and Fern Bay are dune sand. The Hunter flats through Hexham and Maitland are river silt. The western suburbs sit over old collieries. A shipping container puts a serious point load into each of its four corners, and on every one of those ground types, dropping it straight onto turf means uneven settling within a season.
The fix is the same everywhere and it is cheap: hardwood sleepers or concrete pads under the four corners, bedded in and checked level both ways and across both diagonals. That spreads the load, keeps the floor clear of damp ground so air can move underneath, and keeps the frame square. A square frame is a frame whose doors still swing with one hand in ten years. If the block has a fall on it, put the door end at the high side. Tell us what the ground is at the quote — sand, fill, silt, clay or a proper slab — and the timber comes on the truck.
Worth knowing
Hire while it is temporary, buy when it is not
Newcastle runs on projects, and hire suits anything with a finish date attached. A knockdown-rebuild at Merewether, a site store while a fitout runs, household contents parked somewhere dry while a Hamilton semi gets underpinned, gear for a shutdown that lasts six weeks. You are not carrying an asset you will be trying to move on afterwards, and you are not the one arranging a truck at the end of it.
Buying wins the moment the timeframe goes open-ended. A permanent store on an industrial lot at Cardiff, a workshop out the back of an acreage block at Paterson, a lock-up on a vineyard that will still be doing the same job in fifteen years. Grade is the other half of that decision and it is worth a minute rather than a guess. Cargo-worthy units are inspected wind and watertight before they are loaded, which is the standard to ask for when the container lives outdoors and holds anything you would be annoyed to lose. The grades page sets out the differences properly. Tell us what is going inside and how long for, and we will point you at the right one rather than the dearest one.
What delivery to Newcastle costs
Delivery is worked out per address and quoted with the container. Access moves it more than distance does, which is why there is no published figure.
Tell us the date you actually need it, not the date that sounds polite. It changes which depot the unit comes out of.
Other towns on the same run
We also deliver to Maitland, Lake Macquarie, Cessnock, Port Stephens, Singleton and the surrounding district. If your town is not on the list, ring — it almost certainly still works.
Common questions
Buying a container in Newcastle
My Cooks Hill terrace has no side access at all. Can you still deliver?
Usually, with a crane truck lifting from the street over the roof or the rear fence. It is routine work in the inner suburbs, where the house fills the block width and the only gate is a metre wide. What decides it is reach and clearance — how far the container has to travel horizontally, what it has to clear on the way, whether there are power or comms lines across the frontage, and whether the street is wide enough to set the outriggers without closing it. Photos from the footpath, from the back yard looking toward the street, and one looking straight up at the wires will let us answer quickly.
Does mine subsidence affect putting a container in at Cardiff or Wallsend?
Not usually for the delivery itself, but it is worth telling us about. Much of the western Newcastle and Lake Macquarie area sits over old coal workings and falls inside a declared subsidence district, and any approval question there is between you and Subsidence Advisory NSW rather than something we can answer for your street. What matters to us is whether your block has known movement or a spot that has settled before, because we will site the container on the most stable ground available and set it on pads rather than straight on the surface.
How long does delivery to Newcastle actually take?
Four to seven business days is the normal window. The container comes south from the Grafton depot on a scheduled run rather than sitting in a Hunter yard, so this is a planned delivery, not a same-day one. A crane booking, a unit that needs a lockbox or vents fitted, or a stretch of wet weather on soft ground will add a day or two. Give us your date at the enquiry and we will work the schedule around it.
Can I see the container before it turns up in Newcastle?
The yard you can walk around is at 51–55 Bromley Street, Cornubia, about half an hour south-east of Brisbane, which is not a realistic drive from the Hunter for most people. So the practical answer is photos of the actual unit on request, sent before delivery — corners, door end, roof and the internal floor, not stock images of something else. If you are heading north anyway, ring first and we will have the unit accessible when you arrive.
Get a price
Get a delivered price sorted
We deliver to Newcastle 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