FAQs

About Canva Pty Ltd

Canva Pty Ltd work tirelessly to supply the highest quality containers at the lowest price. When our containers are built in the factory the specification is carefully chosen to create a container that will have the longest possible lifespan for our customers. From the paint thickness, to the ventilation system, to the steel thickness we don’t cheap out to bolster our profit margins. We build containers the right way with a firm focus on building long term business relationships and growth through personal recommendations. We have decades of experience in delivering containers that will be suitable for your needs. We will give you our honest opinion on the containerised solution that we think would work best for you. Our customer focus means we aim to meet and exceed customer expectations, many of whom may be buying a container for the very first time with Canva Pty Ltd. We treat large and small customers equally, we realise the importance looking after buyers’ needs.

Container Facts

Shipping containers are made of a material called corten steel. The reason that they are made from this material is because it means even when there is no paint protection on the container (i.e. when it is scuffed and scraped) it will form a rust-like patina, which will protect it from further corrosion. This is perfect for a potential life at sea, which many containers undertake.

Containers have corrogations on the roof and walls and are designed to allow surface water to dissipate so that the container stays as dry as possible. A real strength of shipping contianers is their high tensile strength and resistence to corrosion. When they are manufactured they are built strictly to ISO (International Standards Organisation) standards so that they can be used modularly at sea, by rail and on road using transport equipment without the fear of incompatibility. Containers are usually 8ft wide and 8ft 6in high.

Common lengths are 10ft, 20ft and 40ft. The incredible flexibility, longevity and security that containers provide means they continue to enjoy incredible popularity worldwide.

A 20ft container weighs up to 2.2ton in weight and a 40ft container weighs up to 3.7ton.

Shipping containers can easily be stacked one on top of another. Customers typically stack just 2 or 3 containers high and will use equipment called twistlocks to anchor them securely together using the ISO corner castings. When containers need to be held tightly together horizontally then bridge clamps may be used which will limit movement and require re-tightening to maintain a good fit.

With stacked containers a staircase is usually needed, these can either be portable, on wheels, or fixed, which are permanent. You may need to pay a delivery uplift to stack your containers for you.

Our containers are manufactured in the Far East to our Canva Pty Ltd specification.
Here is the step-by-step process that is involved from start to finish:

The first stage is to unroll and cut the corten steel sheets. The corten steel is then de-greased and shot blasted before being primed with a zinc rich primer. After this the corten steel sheet is then pressed to form the front panels, side panels and roof sheets. This pressing process creates the corrogation, which helps with strength.

The side panels are then welded together and lashing rings are added to the top side rail. This forms the whole container side wall. Welds are added all round for strength. Next, the front corner posts are folded into shape. Front panels are pressed with ventilation holes punched and seam welded. The front header and bottom sill rail are prepared on a jig with the top and bottom corner castings added.

The rear corner post, header, sill and rear panel are assembled at this point. The door panels are made with corrugations and ventilation holes are added. Door hardware such as cam keepers, hinge blades and lock boxes are welded on using a jig.

The C section cross members are pressed, forklift pockets are fabricated and welded together. The structure is then fully welded together and assumes the familiar appearance of a shipping container. Welds are shot blasted, and the container is painted. The floor is laid by drilling and screwing in to the crossmembers. Vents are then riveted into position, CSC plates are added along with markings.
After watertightness testing the container is complete and will leave our production line!

New Vs Used

A new build container is known by many different names in the industry. You may hear it called new, one-trip, one-way, one-use, once-shipped and single-use amongst other things. They are all the same thing, however, so don’t be confused by the variation of name. A one-trip container is a brand-new container, which has been manufactured in the Far East and then loaded with Cargo. Once it has been loaded with a consignment it will be shipped to Canada on a vessel. The container will be handled approximately 13 times on its journey to Canada and emptied at its destination. From here it will be placed in one of our depots and remain there until it is sold. A new build is the newest type of container that you can buy in Canada as we don’t build containers domestically anymore. You may notice marks on the container from when it has been handled, this could include light scuffs or scrapes on the corner castings, dints from light knocks against other containers and some visible marks to the internal walls of the container and/or wooden floor. The internal marks are caused the use of a forklift which loads and unloads the pallets in the container for its single trip. We include images of our new build containers at our Canada depots on our site so you can see what to expect.

You can expect an almost maintenance-free experience for the first decade of ownership of your new build container. After this point the lifespan will be dictated by how much care and maintenance you give to it. In the very long-term the rubber door seals may perish and need replacing. Further into the future you may have rusting, which can eventually create a physical hole. To extend the life of the container a repair weld would be needed to bring it back to a wind and watertight state. Canva Pty Ltd are built with thicker steel than low-specification containers that you may find elsewhere, which gives you peace of mind for longer.

As a rule of thumb, we would say a used container should be around 15 years old. They may be older than this, the key thing is that they will be wind and watertight when they are sold to you and include a 12 month wind and watertight warranty. We mostly buy these from shipping lines when they want to replace them with newer units.

A used container should last around 10 years with care, attention, and maintenance.  For peace of mind, we supply our used containers with a 12-month wind and watertight warranty. We would advise that you schedule door seal checks along with any rusty areas of concern so that maintenance can be performed along with repairs in a timely manner.

Container Care & Maintenance

New build containers are very low maintenance for the first 10 years of their life. Beyond this it pays off to check whether the door hinges and locking rods are still freely moving and that the door seals haven’t degraded. Door hinges and locking gear can be greased to keep it freely moving. Used shipping containers need careful monitoring to ensure that the door seals haven’t perished, that the rust hasn’t penetrated through and that the locking gear is still functioning correctly. Depending on how much use your used container has you may need to replace sections of the wooden floor over time as it may rot and lose integrity. It is also a good idea to inspect the roof from the inside of the used container to check for any perforations that may develop.

One of the most important things for your shipping container is to ensure that it is placed on level ground so that the container doesn’t have any undue strain on the cargo doors causing racking.

Door hinges and the locking rod cams and keepers need lubrication to ensure continued smooth operation. Rubber seals may need replacing as time goes on and if there are any areas of concern with rust then an early application of a protective layer of paint may help slow rusting. A new build container shouldn’t need any maintenance for quite some time, while a used container will need careful monitoring.

Container Care & Maintenance

New build containers are very low maintenance for the first 10 years of their life. Beyond this it pays off to check whether the door hinges and locking rods are still freely moving and that the door seals haven’t degraded. Door hinges and locking gear can be greased to keep it freely moving. Used shipping containers need careful monitoring to ensure that the door seals haven’t perished, that the rust hasn’t penetrated through and that the locking gear is still functioning correctly. Depending on how much use your used container has you may need to replace sections of the wooden floor over time as it may rot and lose integrity. It is also a good idea to inspect the roof from the inside of the used container to check for any perforations that may develop.

One of the most important things for your shipping container is to ensure that it is placed on level ground so that the container doesn’t have any undue strain on the cargo doors causing racking.

Door hinges and the locking rod cams and keepers need lubrication to ensure continued smooth operation. Rubber seals may need replacing as time goes on and if there are any areas of concern with rust then an early application of a protective layer of paint may help slow rusting. A new build container shouldn’t need any maintenance for quite some time, while a used container will need careful monitoring.

General

Yes! With our new build containers you can choose from RAL5010 (gentian blue), or RAL 6007 (bottle green). Used containers will be sold with no guarantee of their colour, they could be brown or green, blue or grey, it’s not something that we have control over. You can use our repainting service to have your container painted in any RAL colour of your choice, it’s best to choose a dark colour because light colours attract a higher cost due to more coats being needed.

With new build containers we give a full 5 year wind and watertight warranty. With used containers we include a 12 month wind and watertight warranty as standard. Please note that these warranty periods do not apply to conversions or refrigerated containers, please enquire for more details.

We can accommodate discounts for bulk container orders. We do sell for a no-nonsense price though, which is based on the costs of manufacturing so these discounts may be lower than other traders may offer (who may have quoted you hundreds more than Canva Pty Ltd to start with!). In terms of delivery it always saves you money to have 20ft containers delivered in pairs. For example, if you are charged £200 for a single 20ft and £300 for a pair of 20ft containers then it is £100 cheaper to have two delivered in one trip rather than two separate deliveries.

It may seem counter intuitive for a smaller container to cost more than a larger container but there are simple reasons for it. With 20ft containers they are mass produced on a continuous production line in the factory, however it is different with 10ft containers. The factory needs to stop production and change tooling in order to make the 10ft containers which means the overhead costs and lost output cost is spread out across the batch of 10ft containers. The next reason that 10ft containers cost more is that we are unable to get any financial assistance with moving the containers from the factory in the Far East over to Canada, this means that we are absorbing all of the transport costs and as a result the container has a higher price to cover costs. In contrast 20ft containers can be loaded with cargo and moved over to the Canada by the shipping lines, which results in a much reduced price for our end users.

Yes, absolutely. If you have a vehicle of your own, which is equipped with twistlocks then our depots will happily load your containers for you. If you want to use your own haulier then we would give you a container release reference that your driver would quote at the depot and get loaded up by the depot staff. The price for the container itself would be exactly the same regardless of whether you wanted to have the container delivered, or if you would be collecting it yourself.

We have photographs of new build containers so you can see an indicative image of how your container will broadly look. For used containers we don’t guarantee aesthetics or colour, we are essentially selling a dry space which is wind and watertight guaranteed for 12 months. The reason that it is usually not possible for customers to view containers and pick specific units is due to the high turnover of stock. If you purchased a 20ft used container on Monday with delivery scheduled for Thursday the actual box that would be loaded up on your delivery day could’ve been buried under 100 containers and completely inaccessible at the time of order. Unfortunately this is the nature of the container industry and a part of the logistics of operating a container depot. If you desperately needed to see a container and it is already out of the stack to one side then this is the only time it may be possible to view.

If you have containers that you want to sell to Canva Pty Ltd then we will ask for photos clearly showing the outside and interior of your container along with it’s location. Our team will then work on a fair buy price to offer you. Sometimes a container may be in an unsaleable condition, or we may have so much stock of that type already that we aren’t seeking to purchase.

The right door is the one which you will want to open first. If you have one of our easy open handles on our new builds then you simply flick the customs catch out of the way, lift the handle upwards slightly, then pull it towards yourself while pulling the door towards you. If you have a used container the handles will be at knee level and you’ll need to open it in the same way, by pulling the handles towards you slowly to release the cams from the keepers at the top and the bottom of the locking rod. You may need to actually push the handles back on itself so that the door has the leverage needed to pop open. Once the right door is open then you can perform the same function on the left door with the locking rods. To close the container door make sure you close the left door first and keep your eye on the cams and keepers, if the cams aren’t engaged in the keepers reverse the process and adjust until all 4 have been correctly engaged. The right door is then closed the same way that you did the left door. All that is left to do after this is to lock your container (a CISA padlock in a lock box is the most secure way to do this).

Customer Reviews

An excellent all round service.
We were originaly going to buy a new(once used container) but were advised by Canva Pty Ltd that used were a good alternative at a competative price .
The used container that arrived looks nearly as good as a new (once used ) and we will certainly use Canva Pty Ltd again.

Evans

The whole process of buying a container and having it delivered was made easy by the efficiency and professionalism of the team I dealt with. The price was competitive and I would definitely recommend Canva Pty Ltd to anybody looking for a container.

Nigel

Canva Pty Ltd is a truly customer service focused supplier of Shipping Containers. The whole Experience from the Ordering to the Delivery has been swift and faultless.

Patrick

Very good service, I am now currently converting the containers.
James

Container arrived on time today and I couldn’t be more pleased with this company. Offered great advice on the phone as I haven’t ordered a container before and been sceptical with scammers. They talked me through the differences in containers and made me feel at ease. Delivery was booked soon after I paid on a day that suited me and the delivery driver was very precise making sure the container is level. Would highly recommend Canva Pty Ltd and the service was beyond excellent.

Vicky

Both Containers arrived on time clean and tidy. Good communication throughout, delivery driver was brilliant placed exactly where required will be using Canva Pty Ltd again. Thank You!

Ryan

Fantastic service from start to finish with Canva Pty Ltd, having never bought a shipping container before these people guided me through all the processes from purchasing to delivery. Container was delivered on time, on the day allocated by a very professional driver.
Good communication and follow up throughout.  If you are looking for a used container I highly recommend this company.

Steve

Great containers as Always! Can’t wait for my next delivery.

Brendan

Really impressed with the customer service of Canva Pty Ltd. My enquiry was dealt with in a friendly and professional manner. I was nervous about buying a container for an office conversion. They made it simple and provided clear guidance right the way through to delivery.

Bruce

Canva Pty Ltd were very helpful at all stages from order to delivery.  They fitted a side ‘pedestrian’ door and a lock box.  For an 11 year old container it is in extremely good condition.  Delivery by hi-ab into the garden was excellent, the container was lowered inch perfect.
Well recommended.

John

Very good service and delivery ,Thanks

Michael