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 That last one is why we do not publish a single statewide number.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.

New York pricing starts at $2,886 for a 20ft Wind and Water Tight container delivered in Buffalo, captured from Container One on 6 August 2026. The same 20ft Wind and Water Tight unit is $3,120 delivered in Syracuse and $3,196 delivered in Rochester. The reason those three numbers differ is worth understanding, because it explains most of what a New York quote does. There is no container depot inside New York State, so every container crosses a state line to get here. Buffalo and Rochester are served from Cleveland, Ohio at 194 and 259 road miles, and Syracuse is served from Newark, New Jersey at 238, which is why Syracuse prices below Rochester even though it sits further east. Price also moves with size, grade and what is in stock, so the number that matters is the one quoted to your ZIP code. Delivery is included in every figure above.

New York splits this into two questions answered by two different offices, and the people who run into trouble usually answered one and skipped the other. The building code question has one statewide framework: the State Fire Prevention and Building Code Council adopts the Uniform Code, which applies in every part of the state except the City of New York, which kept its own code. The zoning question, meaning whether a container is an allowed thing on your particular lot, is answered entirely by your city, town or village, and upstate that answer changes at the municipal line. One number does a lot of work here. New York's model building permit exemption for small detached structures stops at 144 square feet, a 20ft container is 160 and a 40ft is 320, so in most of the state a container is a permit conversation from the start and the useful question becomes which permits rather than whether. There is also a step unique to New York: a town or village may adopt a local law declining to enforce the Uniform Code, in which case the job passes to the county and then to the Department of State, so ask who enforces the code at your address before you assume it is town hall.

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. New York's ground is glacial, which means it was sorted and dumped by ice and can change over short distances, and the two conditions that come up most are heavy lake clay and drumlin slope. The lake plain clay through Erie, Monroe, Wayne and Onondaga counties is excellent to set on once it is dry and goes greasy for the better part of a week after real rain, so timing beats traction. Drumlin country north and east of Rochester and Syracuse photographs flat and is not, so pick the landing spot on foot. Blocks, timbers or a compacted gravel pad under each corner keeps the box level and the doors square, and it matters more here than in a mild climate because the frost heaves the ground on the way out in spring.

Typically 1 to 2 weeks for Western New York and the Niagara Frontier, for New York City and Long Island, and for the Hudson Valley and the Catskills, and 2 to 3 weeks for Rochester and the Finger Lakes, for Syracuse, Central New York and the Southern Tier, and for the Capital Region, the Adirondacks and the North Country. The split is real rather than cosmetic. New York has no in-state depot, so the western end runs east out of Ohio and the eastern and downstate end runs north out of New Jersey, and the middle of the state is the longest haul from either. We give you a window when you book rather than a date we cannot hold, and there are two seasons we plan around out loud: a lake effect band or a county driving ban can move a winter date by a day or two, and from late February into April towns post weight limits on their own roads, which can stop a loaded truck on your road while the state highway two miles away is completely fine.

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 and the grade our New York starting price names. 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. One New York note on that list: because the roof carries snow here for months, the roof condition you buy is worth more than it would be further south, which is a real argument for stepping up a grade rather than a sales line.

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 here is condensation on the inside, and in a cold climate it runs the opposite way from the advice written for the South. Through a long heating season the air inside is warmer and wetter than the air outside, so moisture pushes outward toward the coldest surface in the assembly, which is the inside face of your steel. That is why any air gap behind insulation is a condensing surface, and why the water shows up in January rather than August. For an uninsulated storage box, cross ventilation high and low at opposite ends, setting it up off the ground, and keeping it level so the roof sheds water handle most of it. If you are insulating, the plan has to touch the steel everywhere and be airtight, which is why closed cell foam applied directly to the corrugation is the usual answer in this state.

Yes, and across most of upstate that is easier than a city driveway. Fields, orchards, packing yards 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, roughly a hundred feet for a 40ft and about seventy for a 20ft. The New York specifics worth raising when you book are the ones a map will not show: a town road marked seasonal use that the town stops maintaining for the winter, spring weight postings while the roads are posted, a one lane bridge with its own limit, a soft shoulder that will not hold an outrigger, orchard rows and vineyard wire at truck height, and sugarbush tubing strung between the trees that a truck must not touch. Send photos of the approach and the drop spot when you book and we will tell you honestly whether it works and when.

Yes, rent-to-own is available in New York, 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. There is a New York input worth adding to that sum: because every container into this state crosses a state line, the delivery and pickup legs on a rental are longer here than in a state with its own depot, which moves the crossover a little earlier. 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.

For ordinary storage, yes, and the thing to plan for is the roof rather than the walls. A container is exceptionally strong in compression at the corner posts, which is why they stack nine high loaded on a ship. The roof panel is a different animal: thin corrugated steel spanning between the side rails, with a slight camber and no real pitch, engineered to keep weather out rather than to carry a season of accumulation. Snow that lands stays until it melts or somebody clears it, and there is an interaction worth knowing before you insulate, because a poorly insulated box quietly melts the base of its own snowpack and a well insulated one does not. If you are building with it rather than storing in it, snow is the governing structural load in New York and it is engineering work rather than a rule of thumb. The 2025 Building Code of New York State now takes ground snow loads from ASCE 7, and the residential code sends anything above a 70 pound per square foot allowable stress design load to accepted engineering practice. Ask your code office for their filled in Table R301.2 and design to their numbers.

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 narrow city lot or a switchbacked lakeside drive often takes two 20ft boxes where one 40ft will never place. 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 later without moving both. There is a third question in New York specifically, and it is worth asking early. Several upstate towns that have written container ordinances of their own cap a container by height or by floor area, and those caps are usually written around one standard box rather than two, so if the plan involves more than one container it is worth knowing your town's numbers before you order. 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: New York is heating led everywhere, and the 2025 energy code made that unusually simple to plan for. The Energy Conservation Construction Code of New York State assigns every county to climate zone 4, 5 or 6 in Table R301.1(1), with the downstate counties in zone 4, Erie, Monroe and Onondaga among the zone 5 counties, and the Adirondack, North Country, Tug Hill and Catskill counties in zone 6. The surprise is that Table R402.1.3 then gives the same insulation minimums in all three zones, including R-49 in the ceiling, so your county changes the glazing and air leakage targets far more than it changes how much insulation the code asks for. What does not change anywhere in New York is the direction of the moisture. Through a long heating season indoor air is warmer and wetter than outdoor air, so it pushes outward toward the coldest surface in the assembly, which is the inside face of your steel. Any air gap behind the insulation is a condensing surface, so the insulation plan is an air sealing 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 New York, Glacial ground that changes over short distances, and lacustrine clay where it does not. New York's soils were sorted, dumped and re-sorted by ice and meltwater, so a state scale soil map cannot tell you what is under one parcel. The New York State Department of Transportation's own geology chapter describes the Erie and Ontario lowlands, the belt that carries Buffalo, Rochester and the north side of Syracuse, as glacial till plains and proglacial lake plains with drumlins through the middle of the Ontario plain, and it notes that the till runs from loose to exceptionally dense and that New York's lake and marine clays have a history of settlement and slope movement. 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 lake clay that has softened after a wet week, or on a fill pocket nobody knew was there, is how a box ends up out of level with doors that no longer close.

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 that surface water and snowmelt run away from the corners rather than under them, and pick the spot on foot rather than from a photograph, because drumlin country reads flat in a picture and is not.

For permanent placement or a conversion: Piers or footings under each corner casting, bearing on undisturbed soil, sized to the ground you actually have rather than to a regional average. Section R403.1.4 of the 2025 Residential Code of New York State requires exterior footings not less than 12 inches below undisturbed ground surface. Section R403.1.4.1 then carries an exception worth knowing before you price anything: frost protection is not required for a free standing accessory structure of other than light frame construction with an area of 400 square feet or less and an eave height of 10 feet or less, and a 20ft container at 160 square feet and a 40ft at 320 both sit inside it. Read what that exception does not cover. It is for free standing accessory structures, so the moment the container becomes a dwelling, an accessory dwelling unit, or two boxes joined into one 640 square foot building, you are below the frost line and the budget is a different budget. On lake clay a soil test is cheap next to fixing a settled corner, and any structural build wants the foundation and the connection designed by a New York licensed engineer.

Frost depth: New York publishes no single statewide frost depth, and that is by design. The Department of State requires each authority having jurisdiction to fill in Table R301.2 with its own minimum footing depth below finish grade, worked out from the air freezing index, the soil, the water table and local field experience. The published municipal sheets show how far apart those figures sit: the City of Glens Falls in Warren County lists 48 inches and the Town of Ephratah in Fulton County lists 50, both against the 2020 edition of the residential code. Neither is New York's number. Yours comes from your own code office as it stands today, and Section R403.1.4 keeps a floor under all of it by requiring exterior footings at least 12 inches below undisturbed ground. Anything meant to be permanent needs its bearing points below that line, or the whole assembly moves with the first hard freeze.

Full depth frost protected foundations are the New York norm for anything permanent, because the frost goes deep and comes out unevenly. Basements and full foundation walls are ordinary here in a way they are not further south, and site work bunches into April through October because of it. For a container used as storage the norm is simpler: a level, well drained spot with solid bearing at the four corners, chosen deliberately before the truck is booked.

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.