Naturally, the 40-foot shipping container is twice the size of the standard 20ft container, and it’s the mammoth of the container fleet.
We’ll take a glance at the dimensions:
05 metres long
35 metres wide
36 metres high
66 cubic metres of internal space
A lot of the time a 20 foot shipping container will be more than enough for your needs, but if you have a lot of stuff to store or move, then a forty footer might be what you’ll need, as it’ll be cheaper to transport one 40ft container rather than shipping two 20ft containers.
To keep the overall weight down, quite often these mammoth containers are used to transport lightweight items that take up a lot of room. Some examples might be:
Cotton
Electronics
Bulky furniture items
Reams of cardboard
Plastic bottles
And more…
This is not always the case, but it’s a common option for items that weigh less but still consume quite a bit of space.
If you’re moving house and you’re living in a fully furnished 5 bedroom home, then chances are all your furniture and possessions won’t fit inside a standard 20ft container. The forty footer is perfect for these big removal jobs.
When packing a 40 foot container, you’ll really want to think about it in detail beforehand and plan ahead. This is particularly important if you’re filling it full of furniture and household items but may need to access something in the container before it gets shipped.
Imagine completely filling a 40 foot container, only to discover there’s something inside that you need and you stashed it all the way down the far end. You would then have to unload the entire container to get to it. Not fun.
Organisation is extremely important when packing any container, but even more so when loading up the giant of the container fleet.
What else can you fit inside a 40ft container? Well, for starters, you could double the stats that were mentioned for the 20ft container. Let’s see what else:
Large machinery, such as a front end loader or excavator (possibly some disassembly required first)
Between 2 and 4 cars (depending on their size)
20 standard-sized pallets
TRANSPORTING OR STORING THOSE TALLER ITEMS
Let’s take the scenario of using a shipping container to move house. If you have some furniture items that are extra tall, just a little too high for the standard 20 or 40-foot shipping containers, then you’ll want to go for a high cube container.
The high cube shipping container has roughly one extra foot of headroom to accommodate taller items. Alternatively, you might almost be able to squeeze all your furniture and possessions into a standard 20ft container, but not quite. If you go for the high cube, that may just give you the extra room you need, rather than having to upgrade to the massive 40 footer or hire more than one shipping container.
