Containers and flood risk on the Clarence — what steel can and cannot do
How a shipping container really behaves when water comes up: what watertight means, why an empty container floats, and what steel genuinely gives you on low ground.
Grade is the word doing the most work on any container quote, and it is the one most often left vague. These are the three grades we sell and exactly what each one means.
Manufactured overseas, packed once and shipped here. In practice that is a container with one voyage on it: paint intact, seals fresh, floor unmarked, no repair history. It is the right buy when the container will be visible, when it is being converted or lined, or when you simply want the thing to still look good in fifteen years.
You are paying a premium for condition and for predictability. Nothing about a single-trip unit is a surprise.
The grade most people buy and most people should. "Cargo-worthy" originally meant fit to carry freight internationally, which is a meaningful bar — it covers structural soundness, sound flooring, working doors and weather sealing.
Every cargo-worthy unit we sell is checked wind and watertight before it leaves the yard. That is a specific test rather than a slogan: someone climbs in, shuts the doors and looks for daylight at the roof line, the corners and the door seals. The floor is walked and sounded for soft patches. The locking bars are worked so they will still work when the timber has swollen in February.
What it is not is cosmetic. Expect surface rust, dents, patched paint and another shipping line's colours. That is what makes it half the price of new.
The cheap grade, and an honest option when it suits the job. As-is means sold exactly as it stands. It has not been repaired to a standard, and it is not sold as watertight. Typical faults are a patched repair somewhere on the roof or side, a soft patch in the plywood floor, a door seal that has gone hard and no longer seats, or door gear that needs a shoulder.
We will tell you what is wrong with an as-is unit before you buy it, and we would rather you came and looked at it. It is a good buy for dry storage on a farm, a site box for gear that does not mind weather, a shell for cutting up. It is the wrong buy if what goes inside has to stay dry.
If you can get to the yard, this is what to do — and it is the same list we use.
Shut the doors and stand inside. Give your eyes twenty seconds. Then look along the roof line, into all four corners, and along the bottom of the doors. Any daylight is a leak. This one test tells you more than everything else combined.
Walk the whole floor. Slowly, listening and feeling. A soft or springy patch means water has been sitting on it. Look for staining and for repairs from underneath.
Work the doors. Both of them, fully open and fully shut, and throw the locking bars. Doors that need a hip against them now will need two people in five years.
Look at the bottom rail and the door sill. Rust starts low, where water sits. Surface rust is normal and fine. Perforation or flaking layers are not.
Check the roof if you safely can. Ponding and pooled leaf litter are what kill roofs. From the ground, look for obvious dishing.
Ask for the grade in writing, not just a price. "Used 20ft" is not a specification — "used 20ft, cargo-worthy" is. If someone will not name the grade, that is the answer.
Ask whether the price includes cartage to your address, or whether freight is billed after. And ask for photographs of the actual unit with the serial number visible before delivery, which is a reasonable request and one we are happy with.
The yard is at 1a Reid St, South Grafton if you would rather see it than read about it. Ring (02) 5616 9099 first.
How a shipping container really behaves when water comes up: what watertight means, why an empty container floats, and what steel genuinely gives you on low ground.
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Grades, sizes, salt air, council questions and delivery access on the Coffs Coast — written for people buying their first shipping container.
One call, one delivered number, cartage included.
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Call (02) 5616 9099