Side Opening Shipping Containers

In short

What you are getting

• Full-length doors down one side, plus the standard cargo doors at the end
• Available new in 20ft and 40ft; used side openers turn up rarely and go quickly
• Turns a container from a tunnel into a shelf — every position reachable from outside
• Needs clear standing room down the door side, which changes where it can be sited
• Substantially dearer than a general purpose unit, and worth it for the right job

The reason to buy one is access. In a standard container, anything you want is behind everything you put in first, and the practical answer is usually to unload half of it onto the ground. A side opener removes that entirely. For a workshop, a parts store, a hire depot or anywhere stock turns over, it changes how the container is used day to day.

The siting rules are different and people get caught by this. The doors swing outward along the full length, so you need roughly three metres of clear, level standing room down that side, and you need to decide which way the container faces before it lands. Turning one around afterwards means another truck. Work out the door side first, tell us, and the driver will set it down the right way.

Side openers are heavier and structurally more complex than a general purpose container, so they cost more and there are fewer of them about. Used ones exist but they are uncommon — if you want one, it is worth telling us early so we can watch for it rather than waiting for one to appear.