Shipping-container pools all the rage

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This article was published 24/03/2018 (2725 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

People are living in them, why not go swimming in them as well.

Coming up with new way to re-use steel shipping containers may be a cottage industry in itself.

All sorts of creative strategies have been deployed using shipping containers for housing, from high design to shelters for the homeless.

Delta 9 Cannabis Inc., the Winnipeg-based marijuana producer, is building and installing dozens of production chambers built inside of shipping containers.

Winnipeg’s Kustom Container Builders is now using them to build 20-, 30- and 40-foot swimming pools.

Kurt Wittin, the owner of Kustom Container, said he originally started out experimenting with shipping containers for the housing market but found that, in Winnipeg at least, the regulatory environment made it too cumbersome.

“But the swimming pools… all you need is crane to hoist it off the flat-bed truck and into your backyard and away you go,” he said.

A six-inch gravel or concrete slab foundation of sorts is needed as a base to handle the 45,000 to 95,000 pounds a full pool weighs, depending on its size.

He said there is a ready supply of steel containers — that have only been used once for actual shipping — that require painting, a little re-engineering and reconfiguring for windows and sizing. The result is a water tight unit that Wittin said will last for 15 years and that he will guarantee for five.

Kustom Container Builders sells turnkey above-ground shipping container pools, including chlorination system, pump and heating, for between $27,000 and $40,000.

— staff