Open side containers: the whole wall opens.

A standard container opens at one end. Everything you put in it goes in through that end, and everything you take out comes back through it, which means the box is effectively a very deep cupboard that you load from the front.

An open side container replaces one long wall with doors, so the container opens along its full length. It is a genuinely different tool, and it solves a specific problem well. It is also a specialty unit we source to order rather than something sitting on our lot, and for a good many of the jobs people want one for, there is a cheaper answer.

Doors down the length, not across the end

The build is what the name says. Instead of a solid corrugated side wall, one long side is a run of doors, usually several leaves that fold or swing back so the entire opening is clear.

Open side units come in the usual footprints, most commonly 20 ft. The exterior dimensions, the corner castings and the way it travels on a truck are all the same as any other container of that size, so delivery and placement work exactly as they normally do.

What changes is access. With the side open you can reach any point along the container's length directly from outside it. Nothing is behind anything else, and nothing has to come out to get at what is behind it.

The jobs where it genuinely earns the money

Full length access matters most when you need to reach things individually and often, or when what you are putting in cannot be loaded from the end.

• Loading anywhere along the length. A forklift can set a pallet directly into any position instead of running it down the inside of the box.
• Items you need to reach individually. Parts, stock, equipment that gets used and returned, anything where daily retrieval matters more than density.
• Awkward loads. Things that are wide or unwieldy rather than long, which will not turn once they are inside a standard container.
• Retail, display and events. The whole side opening up is the point, and the container becomes the structure and the frontage at once.

The common thread is that the value is in access rather than storage. If a container is going to be filled once, closed, and opened again in six months, an open side does nothing for you that a standard box does not.

What a full length opening takes away

Cutting the long wall out of a steel box is not free, and the trade offs are worth knowing before you decide you want one.

Structure

That side wall was doing real work. On a standard container the corrugated sides are a large part of what stops the box racking out of square when it is lifted or set on uneven ground. An open side unit is engineered to compensate, but it is fundamentally a container with less wall, and level ground under it matters more rather than less.

Sealing

Cargo doors seal well because there are two of them in a small, heavily framed opening clamped by four locking bars. An open side is a much longer opening with more leaves and far more running seal. It is built to be weather tight, and it is still more sealing perimeter to keep in good condition over the years than a standard box has.

Security

More opening means more to secure, and a long run of doors is not the same proposition as one hardened end. For an unwatched site holding anything worth taking, that is worth weighing carefully.

Wall space

The obvious one, and the one people forget. You cannot shelve a wall that opens. An open side container gives up an entire side for racking, which on a 20 ft box is a large fraction of the storage you would otherwise have.

Most people want a roll up door

We would rather tell you this than sell you a specialty unit you did not need. A large share of the people who ask about open side containers describe a problem that a modification to a standard box solves for less.

• A roll up door in the side wall. Drive in access partway down the container, keeping the cargo doors on the end and keeping most of the wall for shelving. This covers the majority of open side enquiries.
• A double door container. If the issue is drive through access rather than side access, a container with cargo doors at both ends is a different specialty unit that may suit better.
• Two smaller containers. If the real problem is that things are behind other things, two 20 ft boxes give you two front rows for less than one specialty unit.
• A personnel door plus good racking. Where the need is reaching individual items rather than loading pallets, shelving and a walk in door often solve it completely.

Our modifications shop cuts all of those in house in Woodlawn, on containers you buy from us or rent month to month.

A specialty unit, sourced to order

We stock 20 ft and 40 ft containers in the usual grades. Open side units are not part of that stock and we have never claimed otherwise. They are a specialty piece we source to order, which means availability and timing depend on what is in the market when you ask.

So this page carries no price, deliberately. Quoting a number for a unit whose availability we confirm case by case would not be honest, and a figure that turns out to be wrong when we go looking helps nobody.

What we can tell you is that everything else works normally. Delivery and leveling are free within 75 road miles of the yard, quotes come back the same day, and the access requirements are the same as any container that size: roughly 65 feet of straight pull in for a 20 ft, firm ground, and overhead clearance.

Call us with the size, what is going in it and how it needs to be loaded. If an open side is genuinely the right unit we will go and find out what we can get and what it will cost. If a roll up door in a standard box does the same job for less, we will tell you that instead.