Container homes are not only an excellent and affordable way to get that extra building on your land, but they’re also great for environmental disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes. Sukup SafeT Homes are were created as a form of housing after the horrible earthquakes in Haiti. Brett Nelson, the safety director from Sukup, shares that these small buildings are practically indestructible, making them perfect for natural disaster relief. The silo style homes are made using 20 gauge steel, and they’re 18 feet in diameter giving people 254 square feet of livable space within.
They also have heat shields, so the interior stays cool all the time, and there is a continuous ventilation space at the top of the wall as well, so it doesn’t get too congested in there. The front door is also solid steel with a lock set. The interior is ventilated and protected from wind and has screened in windows. The windows aren’t your typical windows though as they are meant to withstand high winds and to protect the people inside. So they open and shut from the inside and are locked up with heavy duty locks when they need to be.
These units can be built to be as large or small as the customer needs. They can also be made into different compartments and rooms as needed. You could even add a little kitchen if you wanted and make it into a livable home in case of emergencies where things will take a while to get sorted out. The floor in the show model is gravel, but they can be made out of concrete and regular flooring materials as well. Since everything is fireproof, they are safe from fires, and they are also bug proof as well. Galvanized Steel is very easy to take care of and will last for years of wear and tear. The company states that they have about a 70- year life span.
The Sukup Safe T Home also has an interior loft which adds 50% square footage and can hold up to 1,200 pounds of weight that’s evenly distributed. The space between the base angle and loft bottom is 7 feet, and the loft is easy to install with no holes to drill. All of their buildings are very easy to assemble and can be done by people who have little to no building experience. There’s also the option for water collection too. The rainwater would be captured by the louvers in the heat shield and then be used for various purposes.
As for securing the building to the ground, there are a few different options. They can use a ballast box which comes standard on every Safe T Home. The boxes are filled with any type of available material and can also be used as a planter. They can also be secured to a concrete slab or to the ground using soil penetrating anchors. All of the materials come with everything that the customer will need to build their own shelter. It would also be great to put solar panels on them too, and they’ve partnered with a solar panel company to provide those for customers.