How To Install a Door on a Reefer Container - Shipping Container Home, Office, Garage or Workshop
Shipping Container Home, Office, Garage or Workshop
Follow along in this video as we install a man door on a reefer container! We have received many requests from our audience to show the process of installing windows and doors on refrigerated containers.
Luckily this 40’ reefer shipping container is getting our Dual Swinger Door installed on the side of this refrigerated intermodal can, so we can show you the process of cutting out the thick panel and installing the door frame on the cargo container.
Tools We Used: - Marker - Measuring tape - Drill & extended length drill bit (any size) - Metal cutting skill saw with carbide tooth blade - Angle grinder - Sawzall - Top bulb seal - Rivet gun & rivets
VIDEO
Purchase Container Modification World Products Featured in The Video
YouTube Video Transcript
A very frequent viewer request we get is how to install windows or doors on refrigerated containers.
So in this video, we have an opportunity to show you how we install our man door in the
side of this 40' ex-reefer.
Hi, I'm Channing McCorriston, The Container Guy.
Uh, super cold out here today, so we're gonna try to do this very quickly.
So, here we have a 40' ex-reefer.
One thing to note on these is that the refrigerator is inset into the container so that, uh.
This customer actually requested that the door be installed right close to the end,
but we need to take into account the distance that the reefer protrudes into the can, and so,
it's going to be a foot and a half or so back from the end wall of this container.
Other things to note are, uh.
You really want to make sure--
The floors are deeper on these containers than a regular shipping container, so we want
to make sure that we know exactly how low to cut and we don't want to cut the door opening
too low, so one thing we do for that is we actually take a drill.
We drill through the container to find out where we're at in reference to the floor on
the inside of the can, and then measure down, measure up, and we know exactly where we should
be cutting our rough openings.
Okay, so the floor is actually perfectly 12" down from the hole that we've cut.
And then we are 21 and a half over, so we're just gonna write that--try to write that down.
It's cold out right now, pens don't even work, so.
We'll now mark out the rough opening of this man door, and then show you what saws we use
So our door has a four inch wide flange on the outside, and so we wanted to cut right
on the uh the inside edge of this uh recession here, this little mini corrugation, so we're
gonna have a nice flat area to um have that rest against and rivet into.
And then same goes on the other side, it actually worked out almost perfect we're on another
one of these uh these vertical lines, so we're just gonna follow them up with the saw.
So, we just jumped inside this can here to get out of the cold and finish cutting the
inside of this door frame.
So we can see the four holes that we've drilled from the outside to give us reference on where
we should be cutting from the inside, so.
I just want to grab my measuring tape just in case the drill is not perfectly level when
we're coming through to confirm the rough opening, and then uh we'll get her marked out.
Hopefully the marker works on this beautiful stainless steel interior panel and cut it out,
and then um yeah drop the panel.
So, here we just finished marking out.
We went from the holes that we drilled outside, so we've just remarked the rough opening and
then we'll do it all over again on the inside of this can, we're gonna cut this opening out.
And down at the bottom, it looks like there's this plywood floor that somebody put in after
the fact in this reefer container, and so we're gonna have to get at that with the angle
grinder rather than the saw.
We grabbed our sawzall to finish cutting the steel in the corners and any foam that's holding
We usually perform modifications on 53' ex-reefers, so when we finally remove the panel from this
40' refrigerated container, two things surprised me.
One, I had expected there'd be some kind of structure inside the wall cavity, but that
In this container, the wall cavity is similar to SIP panels where foam is sandwiched between
two structural sheets of stainless steel.
Two, I was shocked that the wall had a full three inches of two pound closed cell foam
inside it, which is about an R20, meaning this type of container will perform very well
in all climates and should be cheap to heat or cool no matter where you live.
What was supposed to be an hour's job turned into an all-day procedure just because it's
so cold outside and we didn't quite make 'er, so.
We have the door here, ready to go in and the hole cut out.
It's the end of the day, we're going to try again tomorrow.
It's supposed to be colder yet, so we'll be fast.
And here, yeah, you see we wisely installed the door handle ahead of time in the heated
shop and then came out here, but uh yeah, we will get at this tomorrow.
Uh, it's actually 10 degrees colder, but it's not blistering winds.
So, to show we're true Canadians, we're going to continue attacking this project outside.
And so, we have the man door here, it's ready to get installed in the can.
But we grabbed some top bulb seal that we have that typically will go against the container
corrugation, but we're going to take this bulb seal and install it on the header.
And then this is going to make up the difference of the gap and sit nicely against the uh the
refrigerated container exterior panel there, so.
I'm going to see if I can turn a 90 here with it.
There you have it, that was the easy button.
It would have been a lot better if it was a warmer outside or we're in a shop, just
to get that bulb seal just because you're dealing with rubber in -40, but.
I'll hold this up now and see if that's sitting nicely against the container.
Drilling and riveting the door onto the container is by far the easiest part of this process.
We also love that we're not welding, we're not burning any paint, we don't have to paint afterwards.
So weather permitting, we can usually have a door installed in a container within a couple of hours.
And so that all seals up very nicely, uh.
What we still need to do is grab a can of spray foam and fill in the gap between the
container and the the door frame, uh down the sides, and along the top, and then we
actually are building a interior flashing as well that will flash this so you don't
have any sharp edges and it's a nice clean finish on the edge.
So that right there is how you install our man door in the side of a 40' refrigerated
shipping container in refrigerated temperatures.
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Hope you learned something.
