His Neighbors Thought He Was Crazy To Bury A Shipping Container In His Backyard

A Huge Hole In The Ground

Picture this: you’re at home, spending a relaxing evening with your family in the backyard. All of a sudden, you look over to your neighbor’s house and notice that he’s dug a ten-foot hole in the ground. Most people would be completely surprised and some may even question the neighbor’s sanity. But this neighbor, in particular, isn’t crazy, he has a plan. And the end result of his plan is extraordinary.

When homeowner Wayne Martin started working on his larger than life project, he decided that he needed to go out and make a pretty big purchase. That’s right, Wayne went out and bought one regulation-sized shipping container. Used shipping containers can be purchased online and for a pretty decent price. A 20-foot shipping container usually costs a couple thousand dollars. You’re probably wondering what Wayne wanted to do with a used shipping container anyways. You’ll probably never guess.

Making Some Changes

Before we find out what Wayne did with the container, let’s talk about what he did to it. Shipping containers typically have huge, heavy doors on the end, that needs quite a bit of room to open. The project that Wayne wanted to complete would require him to figure out another option for the doors. So he sealed off the heavy doors and added a regular-sized door to the opposite end of the container. Wayne’s next step would be the biggest part of the project.

Lift Off!

Wayne needed to dig himself a massive hole in his backyard. He recommends that the hole should be about two feet deeper than the container itself. Then six inches of peat gravel is added to the bottom of the hole. The gravel makes it so water can easily drain out of the hole and it also makes it harder for plants to grow up through the hole, as well. Once Wayne had finished digging the hole, and freaked out his neighbors, Wayne needed the container lifted into the hole, so he hired a local septic company to use their crane for the job.

Ask For Assistance

Not only is it cheaper to pay someone to do the job, it’s also a lot safer than renting a crane to do the work yourself. The most important part when doing this, according to Wayne, is making sure that the shipping container has approximately a foot of air all around the container and at least four feet of air where there door is in the front. We’ll show you why in one moment!

Let’s Pump It Up

Once the container is nice and stable inside the ditch, it’s time to take the next step. Because there is a pretty big chance for flooding, it’s important to take whatever precautions you can. A lot of times when a hole is this big it will sit below the waterline a little bit, especially if it rains, which means it could get into the container. This is something you definitely don’t want to happen, but Wayne solved that problem. The plastic circle is from the top of a perforated 30-gallon bucket, which is where Wayne put a “sump pump,” a machine that’s used to pump out water. Now that Wayne had completed that part, it was time to add some important additions!

Adding The Staircase

Remember how we said Wayne left four feet on the door side of the hole? Here’s what that was for: Wayne added a concrete staircase that goes from the ground-level to the door of the shipping container. Wayne did most of the concrete work himself, but if you’re thinking about doing this and your skills aren’t up to par, you can hire someone to do the work! Because the next part depends heavily on the concrete work, it’s very important that the work is done correctly

Waiting For The World To End?

The next part consists of putting up some I-beams in the hole. They must be level with the top of the container and the top of the stairs. The structure is finally coming together, but what could he be using it for? Is Wayne making a fall-out shelter? Or maybe he’s making a man cave? Or maybe he’s a mad scientist in need of a laboratory. We know the suspense is killing you, but you’ll just have to keep on reading to find out!

Time To Add Some Support

Since he had the I-beams and stairs in place, Wayne needed to put in supports to make sure that the structure was stable. This part is extremely important because without proper support the whole thing could be shifted and warped over time. This part also requires a bit of skill with the power tools. Things are starting to look really good! Check out the next slide to see it continue to take shape!