Shipping containers have generally lived a hectic life by the time they are retired from overseas service work. Lots of shipping containers are retired following a single ocean crossing but the rest may end up journeying the high seas three to five times before hitting their golden years. It’s at this stage they are bought and begin a new career in the storage business, or they are modified into a house or small business or else they get buried and become a storm shelter. One item that’s critical for a shipping container to continue to perform in any of these areas is the condition of the container’s roof.
Shipping container roofing is simply corrugated sheet metal with a small side to side pitch to drain water. The steel is a special formulation called Cor-Ten steel that will protect itself by forming rust layer deterioration stops. If water puddles in a particular spot the roofing will continue to deteriorate and you may encounter small pin holes in the container roof. A simple Google search gives you many fixes for this problem that you can select from and I would like to add another one here for your consideration.
Along with storage containers, I have spent some time selling and leasing mobile offices. Newer mobile offices are typically made with a commercial rubber roof system but many of the older ones were constructed with a galvanized steel roof. The galvanizing was just a coating rather than hot dipped therefore it would wear out with time and like containers we would experience small pin holes in the roofing system. To repair this problem we had a great deal of success using a product called “Kool Seal.”
If you find a large tear or other kind of opening in your container roofing material during inspection you’ll need to repair that with patches or perform a complete tear off and replace the roof, but if you just have a deteriorating roof condition then look into Kool Seal reflective roof coatings. The Kool Seal Elastometric roof coating system forms a heavy rubber-like blanket of protection that protects against moisture and expands and contracts along with your roof. It remains flexible from -10F to 160F. Unlike galvanized metal roofs, after you have applied Kool Seal it’s going to last for many years, I can’t think of an occasion where I’ve had to re-coat a container that was coated in Kool Seal. Simply follow the manufactures application instructions and you’ll have a long-lasting and efficient roof system on the shipping container and you’ll seal up any small pin holes that may have formed. Kool Seal is available at many major home improvement retailers and at mobile home part retailers.
