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PETROLEUM DIRECTORY: Second chance containers: Modular Transportable Housing transforms cargo containers into camps
Susan Braund PNA Contributing Writer
Kids playing with Legos™ stack ‘em high and wide — going wherever their creativity takes them. The same goes for Steve Forney, owner of Modular Transportable Housing, except he uses giant cargo container building blocks.
“We’ve all enjoyed watching children play with Legos, watching them build fantastic structures, two-high, three-high and end-to-end,” says entrepreneur Forney. “At MT Housing our engineers have adapted this very concept with virtually indestructible ISO cargo containers to build any camp design and make it easily transportable.”
Units can be used separately, joined together side by side, or stacked to create multifamily high-density residential or larger commercial structures. They also conveniently stack for easy storage when not in use. After construction and delivery, the units can be set for immediate use with no foundation or mounted on piers or buried footings.
Over the years Forney worked in Washington state’s fruit industry, and when a severe shortage of orchard worker housing threatened the Northwest, he came up with the concept of using 20-foot and 40-foot sea cargo containers as the base component for easily transportable affordable housing.
The Yakima, Wash.-based firm has patented its conversion design to transform insulated shipping cargo containers into temporary and permanent structures for housing and other commercial uses. Modular Transportable Housing 's wind-and water-tight units are virtually indestructible and can withstand any weather condition.
Company literature lists a wide variety of custom configurations for the units: single and multi-family housing, lavatories and showers, kitchen and dining facilities, machine shops and offices, storage, mining camps, emergency shelters, fire site facilities, remote c oil and gas and mining camps and constructions sites — built to suit.
“We buy ‘reefers,’ or refrigerated containers with the insulation already in place,” says Forney. “Shipping companies sell the containers when they have finished depreciating them or when the refrigeration units wear out, usually between 10 and 14 years. It costs too much to replace refrigeration units. We just unbolt them and peel them out.”
Manufacturing “MTH targets your camp needs for oil exploration. We make them oilfield tough,” says Forney. “Our facilities are designed to meet your needs and specifications and we also offer project development services as well.”
The eight or nine foot high containers are made of aluminum on the outside with poured foam insulation and stainless steel on the interior.
At Modular Transportable Housing’s 68,000 square foot manufacturing plant, crews can work on seven to 10 units at a time, cutting doors and windows, installing electricity and plumbing in the floors and covering interior walls with vinyl-covered sheet rock. Each conversion averages about 80 man-hours.
The textured acrylic stucco-like applied exterior finish is flexible enough to stretch its length without tearing. Roofs get a code specified coating unless the customer specifies a peaked steel roof.
Custom exterior options include: T-11, log, or shake siding; steel peaked roof; additional windows or doors; glass sliding door; bay window; exterior decorative shutters; exterior security lighting. Color options are white, crème beige, sandstone, sequoia gray or seaweed.
After construction and delivery, units can be set for immediate use with no foundation or mounted on piers or buried footings. Unlike other modular units, containers carry a 6,000-pound load every 21 square inches. “In comparison,” explains Forney, “a house has to be built to carry 40 pounds to one square foot, and an office carries 50 pounds. Containers need pier block footings on ends only.”
Simple shipping Moved around easily by forklift after manufacturing, the eight-foot-wide highly portable units are transported with no trouble by truck, rail, ship or barge — a major benefit above other modulars. “They are all exactly the same size, and they fit on ships, stacked nine-high” stresses Forney. “The typical modular unit is 40 feet by eight feet or 320 square feet. We have the same square footage as the typical modular but it costs them $12,000 to ship one while it costs us $4,000 to ship one of ours.”
Projects Modular Transportable Housing won the contract with the state of Washington’s Esperanza Housing Project to provide migrant worker housing for 156 people. The company constructed 26 single wide 40-foot units. Orchard crews and families paid $10 a day and singles $3 a day to stay in the housing during picking season. Because part of the contract stipulated using work crews from the state Department of Corrections, Modular Transportable Housing employed prisoners, helping them learn new skills before release.
Northern projects include:
• Shower facility, University of Alaska on the North Slope: showers and sinks, water storage, diesel-fired pump system and backup systems all housed in one contained;
• Red Dog Mine: 25-man camp, including three-wides for Arctic corridor;
• Kodiak: four-unit shower facility;
• Alaska Power: 20 by eight sleeping quarters and main office at Prudhoe Bay;
• Kodiak: galley, nine containers side by side;
• Red Sam Construction, Kodiak: 75-man camp (barged back to Seattle and repurchased after company closure);
• 1,600 square foot office complex, five 40-foot units to Russia's Sakhalin Island;
• Current bids include ski area housing; a 14-man camp overseas; and sleeping quarters for 100.
Modular Transportable Housing’s second-time-around containers are sprinkled in locations around the world in various configurations.
Modular Transportable Housing — recycling on a grand scale.
Modular Transportable Housing
1-888-866-2780
FAX (509) 248-8656
website: www.mthousing.net
e-mail [email protected]
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