Building a Shipping Container Home | EP05 Connecting to Electricity and Water

In this episode of Building a Shipping Container Home I will start by going over to connect a shipping container to water and electricity. I will also show how I added mechanical systems to heat and cool the shipping containers with mini split ductless heat pumps.

Shop the Container Home:
Explore the Container Home:
Link to the drawings for the container house:

This is going to be a technical episode covering some boring but really important topics:

How to transform raw land to house with utilities
I looked at a lot of different properties on Zillow and got frustrated but the lack of information provided about utility hook ups. I found that getting the APN# and reaching out directly to the providers was the quickest way to get solid answers.

An overview of the electrical systems
I went all electrical for everything including cooking, heating, cooling, and hot water. Gas systems can be really efficient but that involves installing different infrastructure and I like having all the power one system.

How I connected the shipping containers to the electrical grid
We connected the house to electrical pole that was about 70 feet away from the house.

Why I went grid tied instead of off grid
I used a battery backup system from Goal Zero. They are not a sponsor, but I love how easy and versatile their products are.


An overview of plumbing systems
We used an Electric Tankless Water Heater by Rheem and it has been great!

Rheem Performance 27 kw Self-Modulating 5.3 GPM Electric Tankless Water Heater


Heating and air conditioning installation
I used the Home Services team from Home Depot to design and install Mitsubishi mini split ductless heat pumps. Here is a link to their site but I recommend calling 1-800 HOME DEPOT to get a free in home consultation.

During the free in-home consultation, their experts will provide multiple options based on your comfort and efficiency priorities as well as your budget. Minisplit units can start as low as $3,000-6,000 for a single head, which can often heat and cool a tiny house the size of a shipping container.

Here are the components of the system we installed:
THE EQUIPMENT INSTALLED FOR THIS PROJECT WAS 2 MITSUBISHI MULTI ZONE DUCTLESS MINI SPLITS

ONE SYSTEM WAS A 2 ZONE HP SYSTEM WITH THE OUTSIDE UNIT MXZ-2C20NAHZ2
INDOOR UNITS
1ea. MSZ-GL09NA & 1ea. MSZ-GLO6NA

ONE SYSTEM WAS A 3 ZONE HP SYSTEM WITH THE OUTSIDE UNIT MXZ-3C30NAHZ2
INDOOR UNIT
1ea. MSZ-GL09NA & 1ea. MSZ-06NA AND A 12K CEILING MOUNT CASSETT (MODEL NUMBER UNKNOWN )

Link to the company i bought my shipping containers from:

Link to my electric motorcycle / motorbike


This video is sponsored by home depot

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