Frequently Asked Questions

Containers arrive on a tilt-bed truck, which slides the container off the back. That means the truck needs a straight, level run at the drop point:

• 20ft container: about 70 feet of straight clearance from the drop point
• 40ft container: about 100 feet of straight clearance from the drop point

It also needs roughly 10 to 12 ft of width and clear air above. Low utility lines, tree limbs and roof overhangs stop a delivery more often than anything on the ground does. If you are unsure, describe the approach when you ask for a quote and we will tell you before anything is scheduled.

Watch a delivery: container delivery video.

Price moves with three things: the size, the grade, and how far your address sits from the depot holding the unit. That last one is why we do not publish a single statewide number. The starting prices on this site name the grade and the city they were captured in, so you can see the floor rather than a marketing figure. For your address, the quote form or a phone call gets you a real number, delivery included.

Warranty runs by grade: one-trip units carry a 10 year structural and no-leak warranty, cargo worthy and wind and water tight units carry 5 years, and economy units carry a 1 year no-roof-leak warranty. The warranty travels with the grade you buy, so if warranty length matters to you it is worth comparing grades before you compare prices.

Yes. We sell containers outright, and we work with financing partners who offer rent-to-own, which spreads the payments and leaves you owning the container at the end. We do not do short-term rentals. If you want the full comparison, our rent vs buy guide walks through when each path makes sense.

North Carolina pricing starts at $2,540 for a 20ft Wind and Water Tight container delivered in Charlotte, captured from Container One on 6 August 2026. The same 20ft Wind and Water Tight unit is $2,555 delivered in Raleigh and $2,616 delivered in Greensboro, so the whole state fits inside $76 on that grade. The grade you choose moves your number far more than the city you live in does. Price also moves with size, with what is in stock and with how far the truck runs, so the figure that matters is the one quoted to your ZIP code. Delivery is included in every number above.

North Carolina splits this into two questions handled by two different offices, and the people who run into trouble usually answered one and never asked the other. The building code is set statewide and every local inspections department enforces the same volumes. Zoning, which decides whether a container is an allowed thing on your particular lot, is entirely local, and the answers genuinely differ. Charlotte created a Temporary Outdoor Storage Container use and gives it 90 calendar days in every district. Greensboro caps portable storage units at 16 feet long, 45 days and two units on a site, which a 20ft container does not fit inside. Raleigh has no container rule either way and requires a permit for an accessory structure of any size. One call to the office that would issue your permit, with your parcel address in hand, settles nearly all of it.

Level and firm, with water running away from it rather than under it. A container carries its entire weight through four corner castings, so it needs solid bearing at those four points rather than along a wall. On Piedmont clay over saprolite, which runs from Charlotte through the Triad to the western half of Wake County, the clay is firm when dry and softens after a wet week, so blocks, timbers or a compacted gravel pad under the corners keeps the box level and the doors swinging true. A band through western and southern Wake sits in the Triassic Basin, where the clay shrinks and swells more than the surrounding Piedmont. Head east or south toward the Sandhills and the soil turns to deep sand over a high water table, and the concern shifts from softening to settlement. Same four corners, different reason.

Typically 1 to 2 weeks for the Charlotte region, the Triad, the Triangle, the Sandhills and the Cape Fear, and 2 to 3 weeks for western North Carolina, the High Country, the eastern coastal plain and the Outer Banks. Two depots serve the state. Charlotte and Greensboro run off the Charlotte depot, about 14.9 miles from Charlotte and about 104 miles up I-85 from Greensboro, and the Triangle and the northeast run off the depot at Norfolk, Virginia, about 182 miles from Raleigh. Out west the route matters as much as the distance, because the Blue Ridge Parkway does not allow commercial trucks and I-40 through the Pigeon River Gorge is carrying one lane each way at 35 mph while NCDOT rebuilds it. We give you a window when you book rather than a date we cannot hold.

There are four grades and the warranty runs by grade. One-trip containers have made a single loaded voyage, look close to new, and carry a 10 year structural and no-leak warranty. Cargo worthy units are certified fit for ocean shipping and carry 5 years. Wind and water tight units are dry and serviceable and carry 5 years, and they are the workhorse grade for storage. Economy is the budget grade and carries a 1 year no-roof-leak warranty. Refrigerated units are sold inspected and tested, with any service history we hold, and carry no separate refrigeration warranty.

Containers are built from Corten steel, which forms a stable surface layer that slows corrosion, and they spend their working lives crossing oceans in salt spray. What actually causes trouble in North Carolina is condensation on the inside, not rust on the outside. On a clear night the roof radiates heat to the sky and can fall below the temperature of the air around it, and when the steel drops below the dew point of the air inside, water forms on your ceiling. Cross ventilation high and low on opposite ends, setting the box up off the ground on its corner castings, and keeping it level so the roof sheds water handle most of it. On the coast and the sounds, add a look at the roof and the door gaskets on arrival, and touch up the paint anywhere the finish is thin.

Yes, and across most of North Carolina that is easier than an intown driveway. Fields, hunt clubs, packing sheds and equipment yards usually have room to work. What decides it is the last quarter mile and the drop spot, because a tilt bed truck needs a firm, reasonably level path and a long straight run to slide the box off. NCDOT maintains nearly every rural road in the state, so that last stretch usually carries a four digit SR number, and the usual reasons a delivery has to be repositioned are deep sugar sand in the Sandhills, a pocosin edge that stays soft a week after the rain quits, a tight farm gate or a low limb. Send photos of the approach and the drop spot when you book and we will tell you honestly whether it will work.

Yes, rent-to-own is available in North Carolina, and it is worth understanding how it differs from renting. With rent-to-own the monthly payment builds toward ownership, so at the end of the term the container is yours. With a straight rental the payments end and so does your claim on the box. Which one costs less depends entirely on how many months you actually need it, so ask for the delivered purchase price, the monthly rental and the rent-to-own terms on the same call, and the arithmetic makes the decision for you.

A container is exceptionally strong in compression at the corner posts, which is why they stack nine high on a ship, and it is comparatively light for its surface area, which means uplift and overturning are the conditions worth planning for rather than crushing. For ordinary storage, setting it level on firm bearing and keeping the doors closed handles normal Carolina weather. If you are anchoring it, or building with it, that is engineering work rather than a rule of thumb. The state Residential Code carries Chapter 45 for the 130, 140 and 150 mph wind zones, and its anchorage requirement is a continuous load path from the roof to the foundation wall or pier, and to the footing in the two higher zones. Hurricane Helene in September 2024 reached counties hundreds of miles from the coast, so inland is not the same as calm. Ask your building department for your design wind speed and have the connection between container and foundation designed by a North Carolina licensed engineer.

Two questions decide it, and neither is about how much you own. The first is what the truck can do at your site: a 40ft needs a longer straight run to set down than a 20ft, so a constrained lot often takes two 20ft boxes where one 40ft will never place. That comes up constantly under the oak canopy in Raleigh and on the older streets in Dilworth and Fisher Park. The second is the shape of your load: a 40ft is one long room, while two 20ft units give you two doors, two locations, and the option to move one of them later without moving both. Tell us where the box has to land and we will tell you which one your ground can actually take.

• One-trip: made one loaded ocean crossing. Clean floors, intact paint, close to new.
• Cargo worthy: certified fit to carry cargo at sea. Structurally sound, cosmetically used.
• Wind and water tight (WWT): inspected to confirm the doors seal, there are no holes, and the interior stays dry. Surface rust, paint wear and minor dents are normal.
• Economy: the lowest grade we sell. Weathered, and priced accordingly.

For a grade-by-grade walkthrough with photographs, see the container condition guide.

It depends on what the container is for. If it is going to be seen, lived in, or converted, the clean interior and intact paint save real work later and the 10 year structural and no-leak warranty is the longest we carry. If it is going behind a shed to hold equipment, a wind and water tight unit does the same job for less.

We offer 20ft standard, 40ft standard and 40ft high cube containers, plus modified containers and refrigerated units in 20ft and 40ft.

Personnel doors, roll-up doors, windows, vents, skylights, electrical wiring and a panel, LED lighting, insulation, spray foam, HVAC, shelving, workbenches and exterior paint. Which of those matter depends on the climate the box will sit in: North Carolina is genuinely mixed, and the counties do not line up the way most people picture them. The 2018 North Carolina Energy Conservation Code assigns every county to a zone in Table R301.1, and the state lands in zones 3A, 4A and 5A. Zone 3A covers the coastal plain and a broad band of the southern Piedmont, Mecklenburg County and Charlotte included. Zone 4A covers the central and northern Piedmont and most of the west, which is where Wake County and Raleigh and Guilford County and Greensboro sit. Zone 5A is six high elevation counties: Alleghany, Ashe, Avery, Mitchell, Watauga and Yancey. Charlotte therefore sits in a warmer zone than Raleigh even though Raleigh is farther east, which is worth confirming rather than assuming. What does not change anywhere in the state is that moisture governs. R-value matters, but controlling where humid air meets cold steel matters more, so the insulation plan is a moisture plan first..

A reefer has a refrigeration unit built into one end. It runs on a 460V 3-phase supply, or a compatible generator where 3-phase power is not available, and holds anywhere from -25 degrees F to +70 degrees F. The walls are insulated as part of the original build, not retrofitted.

Start with the ground you actually have. In North Carolina, Piedmont residual clay over saprolite, which carries Charlotte, Greensboro, Winston-Salem, Durham and the western half of Raleigh. The Cecil series is the signature soil and the official state soil: very deep, well drained, formed in residuum weathered from felsic igneous and high grade metamorphic rock, and kaolinitic rather than smectitic. Kaolinitic clay is far less aggressively expansive than the smectite clays of Texas, but it holds water, drains slowly, softens when saturated and compacts under load, and the saprolite beneath it changes strength over short distances. That matters more for a container than for a house, because a container puts essentially its whole weight through four corner castings rather than spreading it along a continuous footing. Four point loads on Piedmont clay that has softened after a wet week is how a box ends up out of level, with doors that no longer close and a roof that ponds water. One local wrinkle is worth naming: a wide band through western and southern Wake County sits in the Triassic Basin, where the clay shrinks and swells with moisture more than the surrounding Piedmont does.

For temporary placement: Set the container on solid bearing at the four corner castings rather than straight onto turf. Pressure treated timbers, solid concrete blocks or a compacted gravel pad under each corner keeps the box level, keeps the doors square and keeps the wood floor out of standing water. Grade so surface water runs away from the corners rather than under them, and leave enough space beneath for air to move.

For permanent placement or a conversion: Poured piers or footings under each corner casting, bearing on undisturbed soil, with drainage that carries water away. North Carolina fills in Table R301.2(1) of the Residential Code at the state level and sets a frost line depth of 12 inches, so frost is rarely what governs your footing depth here. Bearing capacity, drainage and slope almost always are. The same table requires termite protection statewide under Section R318, which constrains how foam plastic is used at and below grade and drives an inspection gap detail at the foundation, so it belongs in the foundation conversation rather than the finishing one. Any structural build needs the foundation and the anchoring designed by a North Carolina licensed engineer.

Frost depth: 12 inches statewide. North Carolina fills in Table R301.2(1) of the Residential Code at the state level rather than leaving it for each jurisdiction, so there is one number to work from. It is shallow, which is why piers and footings under a container here are about bearing and drainage rather than frost heave. Anything meant to be permanent needs its bearing points below that line, or the whole assembly moves with the first hard freeze.

Slab on grade and shallow crawl space construction are the North Carolina norm, because the statewide 12 inch frost line is shallow and rarely the governing factor. What governs instead is water: where it goes, how fast the soil sheds it, and whether the ground under the corners stays firm through a wet week.

At a minimum, make the placement area level and firm, and clear debris, rocks and brush out of the way. Confirm the straight run above, and look up for lines and limbs. Soft ground is the single most common cause of a delayed delivery: a loaded flatbed will sink, so a driver will wait for the ground to dry rather than tear up your property. Send photos of the site with your quote request and we will tell you if anything needs doing first.

The box itself is 14-gauge Corten steel and is very hard to cut. The lock is the weak point, so use a hidden shackle lock, sometimes called a puck lock, inside a lockbox welded over the handle. Many of our units already have a lockbox fitted.

The recurring signs are a price far under the market, a seller who will not let the container be seen or photographed, payment demanded by wire transfer or crypto, no physical business address, and pressure to decide today. A real dealer will give you a phone number, answer questions before payment, and put the quote in writing.