Cladding Gaps Between The Shipping Containers

Most of our weekends lately have been wet. Therefore, cladding on the North side of the container house project has been a bit slow. It’s not safe to be standing on “slippery when wet” scaffolding while moving weighty and fragile boards into place. The wet weather did give us some time to consider another problem; cladding gaps between the shipping containers.

The Problem

The north side of the container house is the side we have a double storey. This top section will eventually be our guest rooms, but chances are that Kevin and I will move into one of the rooms while we await our east wing to be completed. When we started cladding this side we encountered a problem. The containers sit atop each other on the corner castings, leaving quite a bit gap between them. There is nothing for us to attach the fibre-cement cladding boards to!

The Solution For Cladding Gaps

In the end, our solution was quite simple. The cladding boards above and below this strip are securely attached to the container. Therefore, we could attach the problem boards to those above and below, instead of to the shipping container.

This is how we did it.

• After sticking the foil insulation into place, we carefully measured the gap so we could skip a board and attach the next one up (PS: Our new favourite foil insulation brand is this one by the BMI Group, previously known as Monier Coverland)
• For extra security we used paintable silicon on the overlap before holding it in place
• Then with short screws, we secured this board to the other two boards, both top and bottom

We used more hardware than we did on the other boards, because we want to be doubly sure that it is not going to fall out. We can currently see some of the hardware, whereas you normally wouldn’t as it would be hidden under the overlap. However, this is not a problem because it is quite high up and people don’t usually look up, and also because it’ll all be hidden under paint.

With the cladding gaps problem solved, we could finish a full section of cladding on this side of our house.

And Another Window is Installed

Which also leads me to announce that we have our first window installed in our top container. We are one step closer to being able to invite guests to stay over (in comfort).