20ft Expandable Container House with Light Grey Panels, Black Frame and Glazed Double Doors

A 20ft expandable container house in light grey wall panels with a black structural frame and glazed double doors at the front. It travels folded to 2200 mm wide, opens to a 38.2 m² floor, and arrives with the kitchen run, two internal doors and a complete bathroom pod already fitted.

This is the neutral-finish version of the 20ft expandable range: where the walnut option reads as a garden building, this one reads as an extension — pale walls, black trim, plain glazing. That matters more than it sounds. Where a buyer needs planning consent for a habitable room, a restrained elevation is one less argument to have.

• What is a 20ft expandable container house? A steel-framed modular room that ships folded and opens on site into a 38.2 m² space. This listing is the 20ft model in light grey with glazed double doors.
• How large is it opened? 5900 x 6480 x 2480 mm.
• How large is it folded? 5900 x 2200 x 2480 mm — that is the shipping envelope.
• How many per container? Two 20ft units per 40HQ.
• What does it weigh? About 3.4 tons in the standard configuration.
• Is there a crane requirement? No crane. A forklift or telehandler lands it; two people open the roof and push the walls out.
• What comes fitted? Kitchen carcasses and counter, two internal doors, bathroom pod with shower, WC, vanity and water heater, wiring and lights.
• What is not included? Furniture, taps, hobs and appliances, the deck, and the foundation.
• Who manufactures it? Global Container (Suzhou) Co., Ltd. in Suzhou, Jiangsu, China — our own plant, no subcontracting, factory inspection welcome.

Four lengths are built on the same principle. The 20ft is the volume seller: two fit in a 40HQ, which is the freight break most buyers plan around.

Standard configuration, no furniture. Layout, wet room position and cladding choice change the weight; the packing list is confirmed on the drawing for each order.

The centre bay is a pair of aluminium-framed glass doors, full height, with a fixed transom over. Each side wall takes one window in the same black section. The frame is not a trim piece bolted on afterwards — it is the structural ring, so the corner posts, the head and the sill all read as one continuous black line around the module.

The wall panels are light grey steel-faced composite. Nothing is printed, nothing is grained: a flat, matte, low-contrast surface that reflects less than a gloss finish and does not draw the eye away from whatever is around it. If your planning officer is looking at how the building sits in a street, this is the version to send them.

Front elevation: glazed double doors, black frame, light grey panels.

The unit arrives with a kitchen run along one wall — base units, drawers and a counter top with the sink cut-out already made — plus a tall cabinet. The carcasses ship wrapped, because they are handled between the plant and the final position; unwrapping is part of commissioning, not part of the build.

Two internal doors lead off the main room: one to the bathroom pod, one to the bedroom or store. Walls are light grey panel throughout with a black shadow line at floor and ceiling, which is what gives the interior its clean edge without skirting.

Interior as delivered: kitchen run wrapped, internal doors fitted, floor laid.

A complete wet room built and tested in the plant: shower tray and glass screen, thermostatic mixer with rain head and hand shower, close-coupled WC, vanity basin with mirror cabinet, an instantaneous water heater and an extractor. Walls and floor are marble-look panels with a black frame, so the joins are the detail, not something to hide.

This is the part that most often wrecks a site programme on a conventional build, because waterproofing and tiling have to happen in sequence and cure before anything else can proceed. Here it is done, tested and sealed before the unit leaves Suzhou.

Bathroom pod: shower screen, mixer and rain head, WC, vanity, water heater.

Buyers arrive at this product from two directions: they searched for an expandable container house, or they searched for a garden room, backyard office or ADU and found a modular building instead. The distinction is worth stating plainly, because it decides the paperwork.

• Garden room / studio — usually a single room without a bathroom, often exempt from consent below a size threshold, and often unheated or heated only for occasional use.
• ADU / annexe — a second dwelling or a habitable unit with sleeping and washing, which normally triggers planning and building control regardless of how it is built.
• An expandable container house — the construction method. It can serve as either of the above, but the method does not decide the permission; the use does.

That is why we ask what the room is for before quoting. A 38.2 m² unit with a bathroom is a dwelling in most jurisdictions; the same shell without the wet room and with a smaller footprint might not be. The building is the easy part — the use class is what costs money if it is got wrong.

We build all three. If the site has no crane and no skilled crew, expandable is the shortest path. If the freight budget is the binding constraint and the site has labour, flat pack wins on cost per unit. If a crane is on site anyway and the building will not move again, detachable is the least fuss.

• Annexe or guest suite at the end of a garden, with its own bathroom
• Backyard office or studio that needs to be usable in winter
• Holiday cabin or glamping unit on a serviced pitch
• Site office, welfare unit or sales suite with a WC
• Staff accommodation on a remote or temporary project

Frame: Q235 hot-dip galvanised steel, 2.5-3.0 mm, with 6 mm liner plates at the corner castings. Walls: 75 mm EPS sandwich panels, rock wool available. Roof: 0.35 mm corrugated colour steel over 50 mm EPS with a 200-type ceiling panel. Floor: 18 mm fireproof magnesite board with 2.0 mm PVC, upgradeable to 4.0 mm SPC. Windows: PVC sliding as standard, aluminium optional.

Production runs in our own plant in Suzhou — frames, panels and fit-out on the same lines for the first unit and the four-hundredth. We do not subcontract, which is the only reason a specification sheet stays true across a large order. Buyers are welcome to inspect during production or to appoint a third-party inspector before shipment.