An extra foot of roof. It sounds minor and it changes the use entirely — if a person is going to stand up and work in it, or you are stacking two pallets high, buy the high cube and stop thinking about it.
Check the grade before the price. Grade decides whether a container keeps the rain out. Cargo-worthy units are checked wind and watertight at the yard before they are loaded. As-is stock is the cheap end and is not sold watertight: expect a patched panel, a soft spot in the floor or a door seal that has stopped seating, and expect us to show you the fault rather than leave you to find it. New single-trip units arrive sealed and unmarked. For anything that has to stay dry, buy cargo-worthy or new.
The door opening is the reason, not the ceiling. A standard container gives you 2.28m at the doorway; a high cube gives you 2.58m. That 300mm is the difference between a forklift mast, a boat on a trailer, a mezzanine frame or a tall tank going in and not going in. People measure the inside, order a standard, and discover the problem at the door. Both sets of figures are on the dimensions page.
For anything habitable or worked in — a site office on a Coffs build, a workshop behind a Grafton house, a studio on an acreage block at Bellingen — the extra height is what makes insulation possible. You lose 50 to 75mm off the ceiling to batts and lining, and taking that out of 2.39m leaves a space that feels like a corridor. Taking it out of 2.69m leaves a room.
It also buys you ventilation. A sealed steel box in summer here gets genuinely hot, and the practical fix is a vent high on the wall with airflow above head height. In a standard container that vent is level with the top of a doorway. In a high cube there is somewhere to put it. High cubes come in 20ft and 40ft lengths, and they come in to order more often than they sit in the row at South Grafton, so ring ahead if you want to stand inside one.
About 300mm, or one foot. External height is 2.90m against 2.59m, internal is 2.69m against 2.39m, and the door opening is 2.58m against 2.28m. Everything else — length, width, footprint — is identical to a standard container of the same length.
Only on overhead clearance, and it is worth checking. An extra 300mm on the container plus the height of the truck bed matters under low power services, shop awnings and the big street trees in the older river towns. Tell us if it is a high cube when you describe the access.
Yes, in both 20ft and 40ft, though used 40ft high cubes move through faster than the standard ones because everyone converting a container wants them. Ring for what is in the yard rather than assuming — this is the size where availability genuinely swings.
Honestly, often not. If you are storing furniture, tools or feed and nothing tall has to go through the doorway, a standard container does the same job for less. Buy the high cube when height is doing work: conversions, workshops, tall gear, stacked pallets.
Specialist units come and go from the yard, so ring to hear what is on the ground.
Or skip the form entirely.
Call (02) 5616 9099