Frequently Asked Questions

Containers arrive on a tilt-bed truck, which slides the container off the back. That means the truck needs a straight, level run at the drop point:

• 20ft container: about 70 feet of straight clearance from the drop point
• 40ft container: about 100 feet of straight clearance from the drop point

It also needs roughly 10 to 12 ft of width and clear air above. Low utility lines, tree limbs and roof overhangs stop a delivery more often than anything on the ground does. If you are unsure, describe the approach when you ask for a quote and we will tell you before anything is scheduled.

Watch a delivery: container delivery video.

Price moves with three things: the size, the grade, and how far your address sits from the depot holding the unit. That last one is why we do not publish a single statewide number. The starting prices on this site name the grade and the city they were captured in, so you can see the floor rather than a marketing figure. For your address, the quote form or a phone call gets you a real number, delivery included.

Warranty runs by grade: one-trip units carry a 10 year structural and no-leak warranty, cargo worthy and wind and water tight units carry 5 years, and economy units carry a 1 year no-roof-leak warranty. The warranty travels with the grade you buy, so if warranty length matters to you it is worth comparing grades before you compare prices.

Yes. We sell containers outright, and we work with financing partners who offer rent-to-own, which spreads the payments and leaves you owning the container at the end. We do not do short-term rentals. If you want the full comparison, our rent vs buy guide walks through when each path makes sense.

Georgia pricing starts at $2,067 for a 20ft Wind and Water Tight container delivered in Savannah, captured from Container One on 6 August 2026. The same 20ft Wind and Water Tight unit is $2,382 delivered in Macon and $2,650 delivered in Atlanta. Price moves with size, grade, what is in stock and how far the truck runs, so the number that matters is the one quoted to your ZIP code. Delivery is included in every figure above.

Georgia splits this into two questions handled by two different offices, and the people who run into trouble usually answered one and skipped the other. The building code is set statewide by the Department of Community Affairs and enforced the same way in all 159 counties. Zoning, which decides whether a container is an allowed thing on your particular lot, is entirely local, and the answers genuinely differ. Savannah names shipping containers directly and restricts them outside industrial districts and active construction sites. Atlanta does not name them, so a container is judged as an accessory structure under the district rules. Macon-Bibb exempts a container sized accessory building from a building permit and still requires zoning approval for it. One call to your local planning and zoning office with your parcel address settles nearly all of it.

Level and firm, with water running away from it rather than under it. A container carries its entire weight through four corner castings, so it needs solid bearing at those four points rather than along a wall. On Piedmont red clay, which runs from metro Atlanta north to the Tennessee line, the clay is firm when dry and softens after a wet week, so blocks, timbers or a compacted gravel pad under the corners keeps the box level and the doors swinging true. Below the Fall Line the soil turns sandy over a high water table and the concern shifts from softening to settlement, and the same corner support does the same job for a different reason.

Typically 1 to 2 weeks for metro Atlanta, the coast, Middle Georgia, north Georgia and the Athens to Augusta corridor, and 2 to 3 weeks for South Georgia, the Okefenokee counties and remote rural sites. Two depots serve the state, one at Atlanta and one at Savannah, and Macon runs off the Atlanta depot about 90 miles down I-75. We give you a window when you book rather than a date we cannot hold, and we would rather move a field placement by a day after heavy rain than force a truck through soft ground.

There are four grades and the warranty runs by grade. One-trip containers have made a single loaded voyage, look close to new, and carry a 10 year structural and no-leak warranty. Cargo worthy units are certified fit for ocean shipping and carry 5 years. Wind and water tight units are dry and serviceable and carry 5 years, and they are the workhorse grade for storage. Economy is the budget grade and carries a 1 year no-roof-leak warranty. Refrigerated units are sold inspected and tested, with any service history we hold, and carry no separate refrigeration warranty.

Containers are built from Corten steel, which forms a stable surface layer that slows corrosion, and they spend their working lives crossing oceans in salt spray. What actually causes trouble in Georgia is condensation on the inside, not rust on the outside. Warm humid air meeting a steel roof that cooled overnight puts water on your ceiling. Cross ventilation high and low on opposite ends, setting the box up off the ground, and keeping it level so the roof sheds water handle most of it. On the coast, add a look at the roof and the door gaskets on arrival, and touch up the paint anywhere the finish is thin.

Yes, and across most of Georgia that is easier than an intown driveway. Fields, hunting clubs, packing sheds and equipment yards usually have room to work. What decides it is the last quarter mile and the drop spot, because a tilt bed truck needs a firm, reasonably level path and a long straight run to slide the box off. Deep sugar sand in South Georgia, a creek bottom that stays wet a week after the rain quits, a tight farm gate or a low limb are the usual reasons a delivery has to be repositioned. Send photos of the approach and the drop spot when you book and we will tell you honestly whether it will work.

Yes, rent-to-own is available in Georgia, and it is worth understanding how it differs from renting. With rent-to-own the monthly payment builds toward ownership, so at the end of the term the container is yours. With a straight rental the payments end and so does your claim on the box. Which one costs less depends entirely on how many months you actually need it, so ask for the delivered purchase price, the monthly rental and the rent-to-own terms on the same call, and the arithmetic makes the decision for you.

A container is exceptionally strong in compression, which is why they stack nine high on a ship, and it is comparatively light for its surface area, which means uplift and overturning are the conditions worth planning for rather than crushing. For ordinary storage, setting it level on firm bearing and keeping the doors closed handles normal Georgia weather. If you are anchoring it, or building with it, that is engineering work rather than a rule of thumb. Chatham and the coastal counties carry a higher design wind speed and stricter opening protection than inland counties, and Hurricane Helene in September 2024 carried damaging winds hundreds of miles inland across Georgia, so inland is not the same as calm. Ask your building department for their filled in design criteria and have the connection between container and foundation designed by a Georgia licensed engineer.

Two questions decide it, and neither is about how much you own. The first is what the truck can do at your site: a 40ft needs a longer straight run to set down than a 20ft, so a constrained lot often takes two 20ft boxes where one 40ft will never place. The second is the shape of your load: a 40ft is one long room, while two 20ft units give you two doors, two locations, and the option to move one of them later without moving both. Tell us where the box has to land and we will tell you which one your ground can actually take.

• One-trip: made one loaded ocean crossing. Clean floors, intact paint, close to new.
• Cargo worthy: certified fit to carry cargo at sea. Structurally sound, cosmetically used.
• Wind and water tight (WWT): inspected to confirm the doors seal, there are no holes, and the interior stays dry. Surface rust, paint wear and minor dents are normal.
• Economy: the lowest grade we sell. Weathered, and priced accordingly.

For a grade-by-grade walkthrough with photographs, see the container condition guide.

It depends on what the container is for. If it is going to be seen, lived in, or converted, the clean interior and intact paint save real work later and the 10 year structural and no-leak warranty is the longest we carry. If it is going behind a shed to hold equipment, a wind and water tight unit does the same job for less.

We offer 20ft standard, 40ft standard and 40ft high cube containers, plus modified containers and refrigerated units in 20ft and 40ft.

Personnel doors, roll-up doors, windows, vents, skylights, electrical wiring and a panel, LED lighting, insulation, spray foam, HVAC, shelving, workbenches and exterior paint. Which of those matter depends on the climate the box will sit in: Georgia is cooling led in the south and genuinely mixed through the middle and north of the state. Savannah and the coastal plain sit in climate zone 2, hot and humid, where the job is keeping heat out. Atlanta and Macon sit in zone 3, with real cooling and real heating and a vapor drive that reverses with the season. The far north mountain counties sit in zone 4, with enough heating hours to change the answer on floors and crawl spaces. What does not change anywhere in Georgia is that moisture governs. R-value matters, but controlling where humid air meets cold steel matters more, so the insulation plan is a moisture plan first..

A reefer has a refrigeration unit built into one end. It runs on a 460V 3-phase supply, or a compatible generator where 3-phase power is not available, and holds anywhere from -25 degrees F to +70 degrees F. The walls are insulated as part of the original build, not retrofitted.

Start with the ground you actually have. In Georgia, Piedmont red clay, which runs from the Tennessee line down to the Fall Line at Columbus, Macon and Augusta. Georgia's kaolinitic red clay is less aggressively expansive than the smectite clays further west, but it holds water, drains slowly, softens when saturated and compacts under load. That matters more for a container than for a house, because a container puts essentially its entire weight through four corner castings rather than spreading it along a continuous footing. Four point loads on clay that has softened after a week of rain is how a box ends up out of level, with doors that no longer close and a roof that ponds water.

For temporary placement: Set the container on solid bearing at the four corner castings rather than straight onto turf. Pressure treated timbers, concrete blocks or a compacted gravel pad under each corner keeps the box level, keeps the doors square and keeps the wood floor out of standing water. Grade so surface water runs away from the corners rather than under them.

For permanent placement or a conversion: Poured piers or footings under each corner casting, bearing on undisturbed soil, with drainage that carries water away. IRC Section R403.1.4 requires exterior footings at least 12 inches below the undisturbed ground surface, and below the frost line where one applies. On Piedmont clay or coastal sand a soil test is cheap next to remediating a settled corner, and any structural build needs the foundation and the anchoring designed by a Georgia licensed engineer.

Frost depth: Shallow throughout Georgia, and rarely the governing factor. The IRC minimum of 12 inches below undisturbed grade is the practical floor. There is no single statewide figure to look up, because IRC Table R301.2 is filled in locally, so ask your building department for their number. Anything meant to be permanent needs its bearing points below that line, or the whole assembly moves with the first hard freeze.

Slab on grade and shallow crawl space construction are the Georgia norm, because frost depths here are shallow and the frost line is rarely the governing factor. What governs instead is water: where it goes, how fast the soil sheds it, and whether the ground under the corners stays firm through a wet week.

At a minimum, make the placement area level and firm, and clear debris, rocks and brush out of the way. Confirm the straight run above, and look up for lines and limbs. Soft ground is the single most common cause of a delayed delivery: a loaded flatbed will sink, so a driver will wait for the ground to dry rather than tear up your property. Send photos of the site with your quote request and we will tell you if anything needs doing first.

The box itself is 14-gauge Corten steel and is very hard to cut. The lock is the weak point, so use a hidden shackle lock, sometimes called a puck lock, inside a lockbox welded over the handle. Many of our units already have a lockbox fitted.

The recurring signs are a price far under the market, a seller who will not let the container be seen or photographed, payment demanded by wire transfer or crypto, no physical business address, and pressure to decide today. A real dealer will give you a phone number, answer questions before payment, and put the quote in writing.