10ft10ft Shipping Containers
The side passage is narrow, the council setback leaves you nothing to play with, or all you need is somewhere lockable for a mower, a compressor and a rack of tools.
Used from$4,350
New from$6,400
Brisbane, QLD
Shipping containers Brisbane
Supply is the easy part here. The port is on the doorstep and the depots are strung along the Ipswich Motorway, so you usually get a real choice of grade and size rather than whatever happens to be standing in a yard. The hard part is the last forty metres, because Brisbane is a city of ridges, gullies and old river flats and very few of them give a truck a straight, level run.
- Delivered from
- Port of Brisbane at Fisherman Islands and the Wacol–Richlands industrial corridor
- Typical lead time
- Usually 2–4 business days from order to on the ground
- Usual truck
- Tilt-tray for 10ft and 20ft; crane truck or side loader for 40ft and for anything going over a fence
Every enquiry answered within one business day.You hear back from a person, not an autoresponder. Enquiries that land on a weekend are answered the next business day.
The short version, before the detail.
The work they do around here
Around Brisbane we deliver containers for lock-up storage on the tight infill blocks going in around Everton Park, Coorparoo and Morningside, parts and trade storage on the industrial land at Wacol, Archerfield and Northgate, somewhere to put a household while a renovation runs three months long, workshop and home-gym conversions tucked in under high-set houses, secure tool storage for builders juggling four sites at once, and feed and machinery storage out on the acreage fringe through Samford and Karana Downs.
Access notes for this district
Brisbane is not one delivery job, it is three. The flat industrial belt — Wacol, Richlands, Archerfield, Rocklea, Northgate, Hemmant — is about as good as it gets. Hardstand, wide gates, room to swing a rigid truck and set up, and often a forklift on site already. Those drops get booked and done. The second is the hill country west and north of the river. Paddington, Bardon, Red Hill, Ashgrove, The Gap, Chapel Hill, Kenmore and the streets climbing off Waterworks Road were subdivided long before anybody was thinking about a twelve-metre truck. The driveways are short and pitch away hard at the kerb, so the bed of a tilt-tray touches down before the container has cleared it. The houses are high-set and the only usable ground is underneath or out the back, which makes it a crane job rather than a tilt job. And there is fifty years of fig, poinciana and jacaranda hanging over the road at four metres. Any one of those three is workable on its own. All three at once is why we ask questions before we book a truck. The third problem is ground. From Rocklea through Oxley, Fairfield, Yeronga and along the Breakfast Creek flats the soil is river silt, and silt is a liar. It dries hard, it looks like hardstand, then a wet week goes through it and a corner casting carrying a couple of tonne sinks a hundred millimetres while you stand there watching. The same is true of new fill in the outer estates that has not had a summer on it yet. We would rather lay timber under the castings, or put the container a metre further along on the driveway apron, than leave you with it out of level and a pair of ruts through the lawn. Three photos settle nearly all of this: one from the street looking in, one down the length of the approach, one of the spot itself. Send those and we will tell you which truck is coming before anybody talks about price.
Grade moves the price more than size does, and it is what decides whether a unit is sold watertight — the full rundown is on the grades page.
The range
Containers we deliver to Brisbane
Guide prices in AUD, ex GST. Delivery is quoted with the container.
10ft
20ft20ft Shipping Containers
You have about seven metres of straight, reasonably level ground to put it on and you would rather not find out in six months that you should have gone bigger.
Used from$2,200
New from$3,300
40ft40ft Shipping Containers
You have the room, the access is genuinely open, and you want the most storage per dollar available anywhere.
Used from$2,600
New from$5,500
Brisbane
Where a Brisbane container comes from, and why that matters
Almost every box that ends up in a Brisbane backyard came off a ship at Fisherman Islands and was carted a short distance to a depot at Lytton, Hemmant or out along the Ipswich Motorway through Wacol and Richlands. That short first leg is the whole reason Brisbane buyers get treated well: handling is cheap, turnover is fast, and in any given week there is genuine selection in 20ft rather than a take-it-or-leave-it single unit. If you want a particular grade, a specific door configuration, or a high cube instead of a standard, Brisbane is one of the few places in the country where asking for it is not wishful thinking.
What that does not mean is that every Brisbane address costs the same to get to. A drop at Wynnum or Cleveland is a short run around from the port. A drop at Samford, Dayboro or out past Goodna is a different truck, a different half-day and a different number again, and access at the far end shifts it a third time. We quote the container and the cartage together so there is one figure in front of you and no surprise line waiting on the invoice. Ring with the address and what the container is for, and in most cases that number comes back the same day.
On the ground
Council rules, covenants and where the thing can actually sit
The councils across greater Brisbane treat a container on a residential block differently depending on how long it is staying, whether it can be seen from the street, and what you are using it for. Plenty of the newer estates then layer a covenant on top that is stricter than the council position. We are not going to pretend to know the rule for your particular street — it changes, and it is yours to check before you order. The questions worth asking are consistent though: is it temporary or permanent, is it visible from the road, is it storage or a conversion, and does the body corporate or the estate covenant have anything to say about it.
The practical half of that is placement. Behind the building line, screened by a fence or a bit of planting, sitting level and not blocking a drainage path will keep almost everybody comfortable. Parked on the front lawn of a Camp Hill queenslander where the whole street can see it will not. If the plan is to clad it, paint it or build around it, do that thinking before delivery rather than after — shifting a container twenty metres once the truck has left is a second delivery, not an adjustment.
Worth knowing
Buy it or hire it
Hire earns its keep when the need has an end date on it. A renovation with a six-month program, a site store while a build runs, a house being restumped, a deceased estate being worked through. You are not tying up capital in something you will be trying to move on in September, and you are not the one arranging a truck at the far end when you are finished. Buying gets better the moment the timeframe goes vague, because a bought 20ft holds its value here and there is a real second-hand market in Brisbane when you are done with it. The other half of that decision is grade, and it is worth being plain about. Every cargo-worthy unit is checked wind and watertight before it leaves the yard, which is what you want if the container is living outdoors and holding anything you would be upset to lose. As-is units cost less and have a genuine place — a site store for steel and formwork, a lock-up for gear that does not mind weather — but they are not sold as watertight and should not be bought as though they are. Tell us what is going inside and how long for, and we will point you at the right one rather than the dearer one.
What delivery to Brisbane costs
We quote delivery with the container every time. It is the honest way to do it when access varies as much as it does around here.
Give us the address and a rough idea of the entry and we will do the working out at our end.
Other places on this run
We also deliver to Ipswich, Logan, Redcliffe, Cleveland, Caboolture and the surrounding district. If your town is not on the list, ring — it almost certainly still works.
Common questions
Buying a container in Brisbane
Can you get a container up a steep driveway in Bardon or The Gap?
Often, but not always with a tilt-tray. Where the driveway pitches down hard off the kerb, the truck bed grounds out before the container is clear, and a short crest halfway up does the same thing. On those blocks we look at a crane truck lifting over the fence or the carport instead, or at a 10ft or 20ft where a 40ft was the original plan. Send a photo taken from the middle of the road looking straight up the drive and we can usually call it on the spot.
How quickly can a container be delivered in Brisbane?
Two to four business days is the normal window from order to on the ground, and it is often quicker for a standard 20ft going to an address with clear access. What stretches it is a crane booking, a unit that has to be moved between depots first, or wet weather on soft ground where waiting two days beats bogging a truck in your yard. If you have a fixed date — a settlement, a site start, a move-out — tell us at the enquiry and we will build the run around it.
Can I see the container before it is delivered to my Brisbane address?
Yes. Our yard is at Forest Hill in the Lockyer Valley, about an hour west of Brisbane on the Warrego, and the containers sit on hardstand where you can walk around them, open the doors and look down the floor rather than taking anybody's word for the condition. Ring first so somebody is there and the unit you are interested in is accessible. If the drive west is not practical, ask for photos of the actual unit on request and we will send them before delivery — corners, door end, roof and internal floor.
What size actually fits on a standard Brisbane suburban block?
On a typical 405 to 600 square metre inner or middle-ring block, a 20ft is the sensible ceiling. It is six metres long and needs roughly nine to ten metres of straight run to place, which most side yards and driveway aprons can find. A 40ft on a small block usually means losing the side access entirely and it needs close to twenty metres of clear approach. Where storage volume matters more than footprint, a 20ft high cube gives you an extra 300mm of internal height for the same ground area.
Get a price
Ask us what fits your site
We deliver to Brisbane and the surrounding district. Tell us what is going in it and what the access is like, and you will get a price with the cartage worked out. Every enquiry answered within one business day.
Or skip the form and ring us — 0477 410 500, Mon–Fri 7:30am–5pm, Sat 8am–12pm