Services
Container Sales Container Rentals Custom Modifications Mobile Offices
Containers
20-ft Containers 40-ft Containers 40-ft High-Cube One-Trip Used / Cargo-Worthy
Uses
Construction Farm & Agriculture Business & Retail Moving & Home Emergency & Disaster Workshops
More
Service Area Buying Guides Answers Glossary FAQ About Contact Call (276) 237-6144 Get a Quote
Wired before it ships

Electrical packages: roughed in, not energized.

The mod hub lists electrical packages among the build-outs our Woodlawn shop cuts and wires. This page is the detail behind that line: what goes in the box, how the layout gets drawn against the rest of the build, and how the package changes with what the container is for.

The boundary comes first, because it shapes everything after it. Our part ends at the rough-in. The sub-panel gets mounted, the conduit gets run, the boxes get set, and the outlets, switches and fixtures go in. A licensed electrician you hire makes the final connection and takes the work through inspection wherever the container lands. Permits are not ours to pull. No one in our shop makes the box live, certifies the work or signs their name to it.

What our shop actually installs

The hub card puts it in one line: panel, outlets, and switches roughed in clean, ready for licensed final hookup and inspection. Unpacked, that is the list.

  • A sub-panel. Every rough-in starts with one and nobody has to ask for it. Size follows the job, and the sub-panel entry covers what moves it.
  • Conduit runs along the walls and ceiling, on a path drawn against the rest of the build rather than wherever there is room at the end.
  • Fixture and outlet boxes, set square to the steel, every run landing back at the panel labelled.
  • Outlets and switches, placed against how the space will be used, which is the section below.
  • LED interior fixtures, low draw, wired through so the far end of a 40 ft box is as usable as the middle.
  • An exterior fixture at the doors, if you want one. Whether you should is a lighting question, and our answer on container lighting takes a side on it.

No amperage, breaker count or wire size appears here, on purpose. Those belong to the electrician sizing the work against your feed and your real loads.

Where our work stops, and where your electrician starts

For the package itself we claim what the mod hub claims and nothing past it. It is built to be wired up by a licensed electrician for final hookup and inspection in your jurisdiction. Whether it clears is your inspector's call, and a website does not get to promise that.

Grounding, bonding and surge protection sit on the electrician's side of that line too. Lightning protection is not something we install and grounding is not a service we sell, which our answer on lightning says plainly. Solar arrays, batteries and charge controllers are not ours either.

Where the outlets go gets settled before anything is cut

This is the part people underestimate, and the part worth your time on the phone. Where a box lands on a wall is barely an electrical decision. It is a decision about furniture, made in steel, and it is expensive to take back once the walls are closed and the container is loaded.

The order the shop works in

Openings come first, wiring second while the shell is still open, then insulation and interior finish go on last, over both. The workshop conversion guide walks the full sequence if you want the whole build rather than the electrical slice.

What gets drawn before a single box is placed

  • The bench. An outlet earns its place where hands and cords already are, which is only knowable once the bench wall is chosen.
  • The shelving and racking. An outlet behind a fixed shelf is one you paid for and cannot reach, so racking gets drawn first and the boxes get placed around it.
  • The door you will actually use. Switches belong by the man door or roll up door you walk through daily, not the cargo end. Swing direction counts too, since a switch behind an open door is a switch you reach around.
  • Every cut opening. Windows and vents and louvers take steel out of a wall a run would otherwise have crossed, so the run is routed to miss them rather than moved afterward.
  • The insulation. Conduit sits behind it rather than being driven through it, because every path punched through an insulated assembly works against what you paid for.

Storage, workshop, office, and the two boxes that are not ours

The components are the same family every time. What gets specced out of them changes completely with the job the container is doing and with who owns it.

The same electrical package, specced five different ways.
The buildWhat the package usually looks likeWhat we need from you
Plain storageThe light end. A fixture and an outlet or two, on the small end of the panel range, so you can see what you are pulling off a shelf.Whether you want an exterior fixture at the doors, which on a sealed storage box is usually the better of the two.
WorkshopOutlets along the bench wall, a switched interior run, an exterior fixture, and more breaker slots, since tools, dust collection and lighting can all be going at once.What will genuinely be running at the same time, and which wall the bench lands on.
Mobile officeThe finished end. Dedicated circuits for equipment, groundwork positioned for a mini split, and conduit and pass throughs for network and phone.Whether a mini split is coming, since insulation and cooling get specced alongside the wiring.
A container you already ownThe same package, provided the box is structurally sound and wind and water tight. We look at it first and say honestly what it will take.The container at our Woodlawn yard if that can be arranged, because we need it stripped out and the doors open.
A month to month rentalBuilt for removal from the day it is drawn, since every piece of it comes off the box again when the rental ends.That it is a rental, said while we spec it rather than after.

What sets the panel is the list of things you intend to run together. The sub-panel entry covers it. Also air conditioning a container, mobile offices and the container office guide.

Bring your electrician in during the spec, not after delivery

Our answer on getting electricity to a container tells you in one sentence to hire your licensed electrician early. Here is what that sentence is worth. Give us their name at spec time and the panel and the conduit go where they ask, checked before we open a wall. Their day on your site is short after that, because nobody is moving anything once the container lands.

What they will want settled is what we will ask you about:

  • Where the panel should live inside the container, which usually follows the wall nearest your power source.
  • Where the feed enters the shell. That hole gets a purpose made fitting and a proper seal, and we keep it low on a wall when the layout allows.
  • What will be running at the same time, in plain language. A list of tools beats a guess at a number.
  • Whether the container will be occupied use or storage use, since that drives the permit question more than anything else.

How power reaches the container is about your property, not about the box, and it is not this page. Distance, buried against overhead, the trench, solar and generators all sit at running power to a field container. Permits go the same way, since we do not pull them: start at the permits hub, the permit guide or permits for a modified container.

What happens after you call

A single modification usually turns around in a few days. A full build-out with insulation, electrical, lighting and finished walls runs one to a few weeks depending on scope and parts, with a real timeline on the written quote before work starts. The modification timeline answer has the detail.

No modification price is published here or anywhere else on this site, deliberately: a build-out is a specification, not a menu item. Every mod is itemized on a written quote before anything gets cut, and modification cost factors lists what the shop weighs on an electrical rough-in.

Every other mod our shop builds is on the custom modifications hub.

A sub-panel, conduit runs, fixture and outlet boxes, outlets, switches and LED interior fixtures, with an exterior fixture at the doors if you want one. Our Woodlawn shop roughs it in before the container ships, every run landing back at the panel labelled.
No. Our part ends at the rough-in. A licensed electrician you hire makes the final connection and takes it through inspection in your jurisdiction. We do not pull permits, we do not make the container live, and we do not certify or sign off on the work. If you want that licensed half coordinated as part of the job, tell us at the start and we will factor it into the build plan.
Usually, as long as the box is structurally sound and wind and water tight. We go through it first and tell you straight what it will take. The rough-in needs the container stripped out and the doors open, so it goes better at our Woodlawn yard than wherever the box is parked now.
Yes. Our shop builds mods on purchased containers and on rentals alike. Say up front that the box is a rental, because work that has to be removed again when the rental ends is built a different way from the beginning.
No. It arrives with the rough-in in place and not energized. Making it live is the licensed step and it happens after delivery, on your site, by the electrician you hired.
No. We rough in the electrical inside the container and stop there. Solar arrays, batteries, charge controllers, grounding systems and lightning protection all sit outside what our shop does.
More build-outs

Other modifications our shop does.

Tell us what has to run

Get an electrical package quoted.

Give us the container size, what will be running inside it, and roughly where power will enter, and we price it out line by line in writing with the schedule on the same sheet. Have your electrician's name handy if you already have one. If you would rather talk it through first, call (276) 237-6144.

or (276) 237-6144