Most container buying happens on a screen now. You scroll stock photos, read a grade name you have never heard before, hand somebody a card number, and a box you have never touched shows up on a truck. It works out fine plenty of the time. It goes sideways often enough that we would rather you did it the other way around.
You can drive to our yard. It sits at 5567 Elk Horn Rd in Woodlawn, and we keep a sales lot in Wytheville at 2220 E Lee Highway. Hours are Monday to Friday, 8 to 5. Call (276) 237-6144 before you head out, for reasons worth explaining below. There is nothing to sign, no pitch waiting on you, and no obligation to buy anything the day you show up.
Why seeing it in person changes the decision
A photograph is one lit, chosen angle of one side of a box. It is not lying to you exactly, but it flattens everything you actually care about. Dents vanish when the light sits behind them. Surface rust and rust that has eaten all the way through read as the same dark patch on a phone screen. A floor photographs as a uniform brown plank whether it is solid or whether a section has gone soft under an old leak. Shadow and grain will not tell you what your own boot tells you in two seconds.
The words are slippery too. Cargo worthy, wind and water tight, A grade, B grade, refurbished, one trip. Some of those terms carry real meaning. Others mean whatever the person selling the box has decided they mean. Our guide to container grades works through what the common ones are supposed to describe, but even an honest grade is a range, not a promise about one specific unit.
Used containers are not products off a shelf. Each one is an individual with its own history of weather, salt and handling behind it. Two used cargo worthy units sitting side by side, both described accurately, can still be very different buys. Standing between them you see it immediately. In a listing you never do.
Size is the other thing a screen cannot settle. Everybody nods along at 20 ft and 40 ft until they are standing next to one. Ten minutes in the row settles that for good, and it beats working it out on delivery day with a truck idling in your driveway.
What you can check with your own hands
You do not need to be a container guy to judge one. Most of what matters is visible to anybody willing to walk around it, get a little dirty and take their time.
- The doors. Swing both wide open, then shut them and throw the bars. Sound doors move under their own weight and line up without a fight. Doors that bind or drag are talking about the frame, not the hinges.
- The floor. Walk the whole length and put real weight down. You are feeling for bounce and soft spots, especially near the door sill where water gets in first.
- The light. Step inside, pull the doors closed and stand still until your eyes adjust. Any daylight you can see is a hole.
- The roof. Water sits up there, and that is where trouble starts. Get where you can see it, or ask us to show you.
- The gaskets. Run a hand along the rubber around both doors. Cracked, crumbling or squashed flat rubber is what lets wind driven rain past a shut door.
- The lines. Step back twenty feet and sight down the long side, then along the top rail. A box that has been dropped or badly stacked gives itself away in its own straight lines.
- Your nose. Open it up and breathe. Most used boxes smell like steel and dust. Chemical or heavy musty smells are worth asking about.
None of that takes long. If you want the longer version, our used container inspection checklist covers the same ground in order, including underneath the floor. Bring your phone: a photo of anything you are unsure about is a fair thing to hand back and ask us about.
Call before you drive out, and why that is not red tape
We ask people to call ahead, and it is not about controlling the visit. There are three practical reasons, and all three are yours more than ours.
First, this is a working yard, not a parking lot with a shop attached. Equipment moves steel around most of the day. If we know you are coming, somebody can walk out and meet you instead of you standing on the gravel working out who to wave at.
Second, stock moves. Containers get sold and shipped out, and a box that was here Tuesday can be on somebody else's trailer by Thursday. That is why we do not post a running inventory list on this site. It would be wrong inside a week, and we would rather tell you the truth on the phone.
Third, and this is the one that changes your visit: tell us what you are after and we can have relevant units where you can walk around them. Containers get set in rows and stacked, and a box buried three deep is one you cannot open, cannot step inside and cannot really judge. Five minutes on the phone is the difference between looking at containers and looking at the ends of containers.
What to wear, and what the yard is actually like
Being straight with you: it is gravel, red clay, mud after a rain and a lot of steel. No showroom, no glass door, no display lighting making the paint look better than it is. That is the trade, and it is a good one. You see the boxes exactly as they sit, in daylight, instead of in somebody's product photo.
So dress for it, and bring a couple of things.
- Boots or shoes you do not mind ruining. The ground is uneven and it holds water.
- A flashlight, or the light on your phone. The middle of a container is dark at noon with both doors open.
- A tape measure, if you are fitting the box into a tight spot at home.
- Gloves, if you want to work the door bars yourself. Those handles are cold, greasy steel.
- A second person, if you want another set of eyes on it.
Leave the kids and the dog at home if you can. Heavy equipment moves in a container yard and neither of them belongs near it.
While you are here, talk to us about where the container is going. Ground and clearance decide as much about delivery as the box does. A tilt bed truck needs roughly 65 ft of straight clearance for a 20 ft container and around 95 ft for a 40 ft, plus room to back in, and the ground wants to be firm and reasonably level. Gravel is ideal, soft wet ground is the usual problem. Sorting that out while you are standing in the yard heads off most delivery day surprises.
Where to find us, when we are open, what it costs
The yard is at 5567 Elk Horn Rd, Woodlawn VA 24381. That is where the steel sits. We also keep a sales lot at 2220 E Lee Highway in Wytheville VA, an easier run for some people depending on the direction they are coming from. Call ahead and we will tell you which one makes sense for what you are after.
Hours are Monday to Friday, 8 to 5. The phone is (276) 237-6144, and sales@containersdelivered.com if you would rather write it down than say it.
Standing in front of a unit is the easiest place to get a real number, because we can price the exact box instead of a category. For reference before you come: used cargo worthy 20 ft containers start at $3,200 delivered, used 40 ft containers start around $4,900 delivered, and rentals start at $165 a month, month to month, with no contract. Delivery is free within 75 road miles of Woodlawn, and past that we quote it. The full run of sizes and conditions sits on the container sales page.
Nothing about a visit obligates you. Look, get a price, and go. If you decide on the spot, good, we will sort a delivery date out with you there and then. If you want a week to think about it, we will still be here.
If you cannot make the drive
Plenty of people buy a container without ever setting foot in the yard, and there is nothing wrong with that. You are working, the drive is long, and a box is a box. It is a completely normal way to buy one.
If that is you, two things take most of the risk out of it. Ask for photographs of the specific unit you are buying rather than the catalog picture: both long sides, doors open, doors closed, the roof, the floor, and one from inside with the doors pulled shut. Then get the condition described to you in writing, in an email you can keep, naming that unit. Anybody selling a real container off a real yard will do both without blinking.
What goes wrong with a sight unseen purchase is rarely dramatic. It is usually a gap between the box somebody pictured and the box that came off the truck, and that gap traces back to a vague description nobody wrote down. Our guide to buying a container sight unseen covers the rest, including the warning signs that mean you are not dealing with a yard at all.
But if you can come, come. An hour on the gravel is the cheapest due diligence in this business, and it is the one thing a broker with a website and a stock photo cannot offer you.