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: 110 feet of straight clearance from the drop point
• 40ft container: 130 feet of straight clearance from the drop point

The truck needs at least 15 ft of height to drive, at least 22 ft of height along the entire unloading path, and at least 10 ft of width. Low utility lines, tree limbs and roof overhangs can stop a delivery. If you are unsure, describe the approach when you ask for a quote so it can be reviewed before anything is scheduled.

Watch a delivery: container delivery video.

Price depends on the size, grade and condition you choose, on what is in stock, and on the distance and access to your address, so there is no single statewide number. The starting prices on this site name the grade and the city they apply to. For your address, the quote form or a phone call gets you a written quote with delivery details.

Warranty runs by grade: one-trip units carry a 10 year structural and 10 year no-leak warranty, cargo worthy and wind and water tight units carry a 5 year structural and 5 year no-leak warranty, and economy units carry a 1 year 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.

We sell containers. We do not rent them. Rent-to-own runs through a third-party partner, My Container Rental, and spreads the payments until you own the container. Our rent vs buy guide walks through when each path makes sense.

Pennsylvania pricing starts at $2,157 for a 20ft Wind and Water Tight container delivered in Philadelphia. The same 20ft Wind and Water Tight unit is $2,279 delivered in Allentown and $2,591 delivered in Pittsburgh. Price moves with size, grade, what is in stock and how far the truck runs, so the number that matters is the one quoted to your ZIP code. The quote includes delivery details for the address.

Because the two cities are supplied from opposite ends of the state and from two different yards. There is no Container One depot inside Pennsylvania. Philadelphia and Allentown are served from Newark, New Jersey, and Pittsburgh is served from Cleveland, Ohio, about 132 miles out. A 20ft Wind and Water Tight container is $2,157 delivered in Philadelphia against $2,591 in Pittsburgh. Distance alone does not explain it, because Allentown is about four miles closer to the same depot and still prices higher on the two 20ft lines. And Pittsburgh is not dearer on everything: on a 20ft one-trip it is $3,333 delivered against $3,366 in the east.

Pennsylvania splits this into two questions answered by two different levels of government, and a container can clear one and still fail the other. The construction code question is settled statewide. The Pennsylvania Construction Code Act, Act 45 of 1999, created the Uniform Construction Code, and 34 Pa. Code Section 403.1(b)(3) excludes sheds, detached private garages, carports and greenhouses under 1,000 square feet accessory to a detached one-family dwelling, except where a municipality requires more. A 20ft container is 160 square feet and a 40ft is 320, so both sit far under that line. The zoning question is not answered at the state level at all. Your borough, township or city decides, and with roughly 2,560 municipalities writing their own ordinances the answers genuinely differ across a township line. Start with one call to whoever has your address, with your parcel in front of you.

A mailing address in Pennsylvania can fall outside the city it names. Allentown mail reaches well into Whitehall, South Whitehall, Upper Macungie, Lower Macungie and Salisbury townships, each with its own zoning ordinance and none of them obliged to match the city. Allegheny County holds 130 separate municipalities, and the county does not zone on their behalf, so Mt. Lebanon, Ross Township, Penn Hills and Monroeville each answer for themselves. Philadelphia is the one clean case, because the city and the county have been one government since 1854. Your property tax bill names the jurisdiction that actually has your parcel, and that is the office to call first.

Firm, level bearing at the four corner castings, because that is where the entire weight goes. A container is not a shed on a slab. It is four point loads, and Pennsylvania offers several different grounds to put them on. Limestone ground through Lancaster and the Cumberland Valley drains well and carries weight. Piedmont red shale and clay hold water and soften. The northern counties are glacial till with boulders and perched water. Pittsburgh hillsides are slope first and everything else second, and slag and red dog drives out there can carry weight better than they look. Over all of it runs freeze and thaw, which can lift a gravel lane in March. Pressure treated timbers, concrete blocks or a compacted gravel pad under each corner handles those cases, and grading so water runs away from the corners rather than under them does the rest. In karst country, keep roof runoff away from a corner as well.

Delivery timing depends on location, payment, weather, container availability and site access. Container One's Delivery/Dispatch department schedules the date after payment is received and the site is reviewed.

The grade decides both what the box looks like and what it is warranted for. One-trip containers are near new, having made a single loaded voyage, and carry a 10 year structural and no-leak warranty. Cargo worthy containers are certified fit for ocean shipping and carry a 5 year warranty. Wind and water tight containers are retired from shipping but still dry inside, and carry a 5 year warranty. Economy containers are the working grade with cosmetic age on them, and carry a 1 year warranty covering roof leaks only. For dry storage on a Pennsylvania site, wind and water tight is the practical grade. One-trip is what you choose when the box will be visible, painted or converted.

Corten steel forms a stable surface layer that slows corrosion, and these boxes spend their working lives crossing oceans in salt spray on an open deck. In Pennsylvania, condensation on the inside is the issue to plan for, more than rust on the outside, and here it works in both directions across the year. In summer, warm wet outdoor air meets steel that has cooled overnight. In winter, whatever moisture a heater or a person puts into the air meets steel sitting near the outdoor temperature, and Pittsburgh's published winter design temperature is 5 degrees Fahrenheit. Ventilation, a level set on blocks and separation from the ground handle most of it for a storage box. If you are going to insulate, the rule that matters more than R-value is leaving no air gap behind the insulation where warm moist air can reach cold steel.

Delivery to a rural Pennsylvania site depends on the last half mile. Fields, produce auction lots, equipment yards, mill fence lines and gas pad access roads can have room to work. Is it tar and chip, dirt and gravel, or a seasonal road not maintained for winter travel? Is there a weight-posted township bridge or a covered bridge on the way in? In the ridge counties the question changes to grade and width, because a tilt bed truck cannot back a 40ft container up a switchback it cannot see over. Two 20ft containers can fit a site that cannot take a 40ft.

Yes. There are three ways to hold a container and they suit different lengths of need. Renting is the right answer for a short, defined project, because you hand it back when you are done. Buying is the right answer when the need runs long, because a container is a durable steel asset rather than a consumable and you can sell it later. Rent-to-own sits between the two: the monthly payment builds toward ownership instead of ending when the box goes back. Divide the delivered purchase price by a rental company's monthly figure, and the month count that falls out is the crossover point.

• 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, 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 10 year no-leak warranty is the longest available. 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. Insulation and HVAC choices depend on the climate the box will sit in: Pennsylvania is a heating state with a humid summer, and on 1 January 2026 the county map underneath the energy code changed. The Commonwealth adopted the 2021 International Energy Conservation Code into the Uniform Construction Code by final-omitted rulemaking published in the Pennsylvania Bulletin on 8 November 2025, and the 2021 edition reassigned counties nationwide. Some Pennsylvania counties changed climate zones in that update. Fourteen counties across the southeast and the south-central belt are now climate zone 4A, everything else is 5A, and the eight counties that used to be 6A no longer exist as a separate zone. The prescriptive wall and ceiling numbers are identical in both Pennsylvania zones, so the wall assembly does not change as you drive west. What changes is underfoot, at the floor, the crawl space and the basement wall, which shows that the Pennsylvania problem is cold coming up and moisture going out rather than heat coming in. The energy code applies to space you heat or cool. A container used for dry storage is not a conditioned building, so those numbers are a useful benchmark rather than a requirement. The moment a heater, a mini-split and a desk go in and it becomes an office, the code is in play and your code official will say so.

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.

A container rests its entire load on four corner castings, so the ground under each corner matters. Karst is the first Pennsylvania problem. Large parts of the southeast and the south-central valleys sit on carbonate bedrock, and the Bureau of Geological Survey describes a sinkhole as a subsidence feature caused by surficial material moving down into a pre-existing void. The Lehigh Valley, Lancaster County and the Cumberland and Lebanon valleys are the classic karst country, and concentrating four point loads and then routing roof runoff to one spot is exactly the combination karst does not forgive. Mine subsidence is the second. The Department of Environmental Protection reports that Pennsylvania structures sit over old abandoned underground coal and clay mines, and it runs a state mine subsidence insurance program because standard homeowner policies usually do not cover that damage. The rest of the state reads more normally: glacial till, boulders and perched water in the north, steep slopes and shallow rock through the ridges, red shale and clay soils in the Piedmont that hold water and soften, and Pittsburgh hillsides where the city maintains landslide-prone and steep-slope overlays. Over all of it runs freeze and thaw, which can lift a gravel lane in March and set it back down somewhere slightly different.

For temporary placement: Set the container on solid bearing at the four corner castings rather than straight onto turf. Pressure treated timbers, concrete blocks or a compacted gravel pad under each corner keeps the box level, keeps the door frame square so the doors still swing true in year five, and keeps the wood floor out of standing water. Grade so surface water runs away from the corners rather than under them, and keep roof runoff from discharging beside a corner. In Pennsylvania that last point does double duty, because the same step that stops a corner settling through a freeze and thaw winter is the step that keeps concentrated water off carbonate ground.

For permanent placement or a conversion: Use poured piers or footings under each corner casting, bearing on undisturbed soil and sized for the load rather than dropped on as a block. Section R403.1.4 of the Residential Code requires exterior footings at least 12 inches below the undisturbed ground surface and below the frost line where one applies, and in Pennsylvania a frost line always applies. Two site checks are worth doing before the design rather than after the settlement. In karst country, a geotechnical investigation stops being optional. Anywhere over the coalfields, the Department of Environmental Protection publishes an interactive mapping application that shows mining conditions under a given site, searchable by address, coordinates or municipality, plus a site-specific request form for a written answer. Any structural build, meaning anything a plan reviewer will look at, needs the foundation, the anchoring and the connection between container and foundation designed by a Pennsylvania licensed engineer.

Frost depth: There is no single Pennsylvania figure to look up. Section R403.1.4 sets a 12 inch minimum below undisturbed grade and requires footings below the frost line where one applies, and Table R301.2 is left for each jurisdiction to fill in. Two published examples show the spread: Philadelphia's code states the frost line for the city is 30 inches, and Pittsburgh's code adoption chapter sets its frost line depth at 36 inches. Ask your code official for their number rather than working from a state average, and confirm the currently enforced value rather than an older published one.

Pennsylvania foundations are set below the frost line, which is the difference from building in the South. A container is different: a box on blocks is not a foundation. It bears on four castings and can be moved, so it is a different proposition from pouring footings. The ground under those four corners still moves seasonally, and blocking keeps the box level as it does.

At a minimum, make the placement area level and firm, and clear debris, rocks and brush out of the way. Confirm the straight run the truck needs, and look up for lines and limbs. Soft ground can delay a delivery: a loaded truck can sink, so the driver may wait for the ground to dry. Describe the site in your quote request so it can be reviewed before delivery is scheduled.

The box itself is corrugated Corten steel. The lock is the weak point, so use a hidden shackle lock, sometimes called a puck lock, inside a lockbox welded over the handle. Ask whether the selected unit has 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 verifiable business identity or contact route, and pressure to decide today. A real dealer will give you a phone number, answer questions before payment, and put the quote in writing.