Lismore is where this business is based and where most of its work is. It is also a town where a container is bought for different reasons than almost anywhere else we deliver — and where the questions we get asked deserve a straight answer rather than a sales one.
Around Lismore it is mostly storage while a rebuild or a repair runs, lockable trade storage for the builders and trades who have been working here continuously since 2022, farm and machinery storage on the blocks out past Tuncester and Monaltrie, workshop and studio conversions on the hill suburbs, business stock storage on the South Lismore industrial flat, and household storage for people between houses in a rental market that has very little slack in it. None of that changes how we quote it — you describe what is going inside and where, and you get one figure with the cartage already in it.
Buy the grade the job needs rather than the cheapest one. Every cargo-worthy unit is checked wind and watertight; as-is units explicitly are not. Pictures of the specific container are yours for the asking, before the truck comes.
| Size | Used from | New from | Hire from |
|---|---|---|---|
| 10ft Containers | $4,350 | $6,400 | POA |
| 20ft Containers | $2,200 | $3,300 | $27/wk |
| 40ft Containers | $2,600 | $5,500 | POA |
Ex GST guide prices. Stock turns over, so ring for the number that applies this week. We quote the truck to Lismore at the same time as the box, so there is no second invoice.
It would be easy to write around this. We are not going to. In late February and early March 2022 the Wilsons River reached about 14.4 metres at Lismore, the highest level ever recorded here, well over the levee and well over the 1974 mark. It went through the CBD, through South and North Lismore, and through thousands of homes and businesses. People were taken off roofs in tinnies by their neighbours. Four years on this town is still working through it, and a great many of the containers we deliver into Lismore are part of that work.
So we get asked, often, whether a shipping container will keep floodwater out. The honest answer is no, and anybody who tells you otherwise is selling. Here is what actually happens. When we say a cargo-worthy container is checked wind and watertight, we mean it is sealed against rain arriving from above — the roof does not leak and the door seals seat well enough to keep weather out. Floodwater does not arrive from above. It rises, and the first thing it reaches is the bottom of the door seals, which is the lowest and least sealed part of the whole box. Water gets in there. And once it is in, a container is extremely good at holding it, which is the opposite of what you wanted.
There is a second thing worth knowing and it is more serious. An empty or lightly loaded container is buoyant. Steel box, air inside, and in enough water it will float. A floating container in moving water is heavy uncontrolled debris that can take out a fence, a wall or a vehicle, and it will end up somewhere it was not. That is not a theoretical risk in this catchment.
What steel genuinely offers is three things, and none of them are a promise. Height, because you can choose where to put it, and a container sited above the known level of the 2022 water is a dry lockable store when a great deal else is not. Mobility, because if there is warning and the truck access is still clear it can be lifted and taken to higher ground, which is not true of a shed. And dry lockable storage while a rebuild runs, which for a lot of Lismore households has been the entire point.
If you want the longer version of this — what watertight actually means, why the buoyancy matters, how to think about siting — it is written out in full in our guide on containers and flood risk. We would rather you read it and buy nothing than buy one on the strength of something we implied.
The industrial land at South Lismore is the easiest ground we deliver onto in this town and it is where a lot of the commercial work is. Wide gates, long straight approaches, hardstand, and businesses that already understand what a truck needs. If you are a business on that flat and you need lockable storage, this is close to the simplest container job there is.
North Lismore is different in character and harder in practice. Older housing, narrower streets, a lot of properties where the useable ground is at the back and the only way in is a driveway built for a 1960s sedan. It is also a part of town where a lot of properties have changed since 2022 — some raised, some rebuilt, some cleared. Ground that was a lawn is now fill, and fill that is two years old behaves differently under a loaded truck than the original ground did.
That is worth stating plainly because it is the single most common surprise on the flat now. Tell us if the ground has been rebuilt, filled or regraded since the flood. It changes what we bring and where we are prepared to put the container, and it is much better discussed on the phone than discovered by a truck.
The hill suburbs are where a lot of container demand has moved, for reasons that do not need explaining. Higher ground, established houses, and a lot of blocks that are perfectly good places to put a container and quite difficult places to deliver one.
The constraints are consistent. Steep cross-falls, so the truck is working on a lean before it even starts. Narrow streets with parking on both sides. Retaining walls and cut-and-fill blocks where the level ground is a terrace three metres above or below the street. And overhead — the canopy through East Lismore and Girards Hill is genuinely continuous in places, and a mature camphor is not something anybody is going to trim so a container can go in.
Two answers work here more often than not. A crane truck reaching in from a position where it can legally and safely stand, which costs more per job and gets a container onto terraces nothing else will reach. Or a shorter unit — a 10ft where you wanted a 20ft — which is the reason we sell more 10fts into Lismore than the size normally justifies anywhere else.
Southern Cross University sits up here too, and the streets around it carry a steady student rental population, which quietly generates a lot of short-term household storage enquiries around semester changes.
The single largest group of Lismore container buyers is people in the middle of a job. That covers a lot of ground. Builders and trades who have had continuous work in this town for four years and need somewhere on site that tools and fixings will not walk out of overnight. Homeowners emptying a house so a floor can come up or a wall can be replaced, who need the contents to stay somewhere dry and lockable and on their own property rather than in a storage unit across town.
Then there is the group that has decided the answer to their storage problem is permanent. A container on a raised pad, above the 2022 level, holding the things they are not prepared to lose again. That is a considered purchase rather than an impulse one, and those conversations tend to be about siting and grade rather than price.
Conversions are a real category here too. Studio, workshop, office, pottery shed, storage for a business run out of a house. If a container is going to be lined at any point, buy a high cube — a lined standard unit finishes at about 2.2 metres of headroom and feels like a corridor.
And there is the ordinary work that would happen in any town of this size: farm storage on the blocks out towards Tuncester, Monaltrie and Bexhill, machinery and feed storage, business stock, and households between rentals.
A 20ft container is heavy empty and considerably heavier full, and all of that weight lands on four corner castings. On original ground that has been in place for a century, a set of hardwood sleepers or concrete pads under the corners is plenty. On ground that has been filled, regraded or rebuilt since 2022 — and there is a lot of it in this town — it is not automatic.
The failure mode is not dramatic. It is a corner that settles fifty millimetres over a wet season, which twists the box, which means the doors will not shut properly, which means the seal you paid for no longer seals. That is an annoying and expensive way to find out the pad was not right.
So: pads or sleepers under the corner castings, on ground you are confident about, ideally with a fall away from the doors so water runs off rather than sits at the threshold. If the ground is new fill, let it settle or compact it properly first. Tell us what the surface is when you ring and we will tell you honestly whether it needs preparing before the truck is booked rather than after.
One phone call does it. 02 6622 1322 reaches someone who knows these streets, and the conversation covers four things: what is going inside, what size that makes it, what grade the job actually needs, and how a truck reaches the spot.
The grade question is the one worth spending time on. Cargo-worthy is what we check wind and watertight before it goes on a truck, and it is what to buy if the contents have to stay dry. As-is is cheaper and is not sold watertight — it might have a patched repair, a soft floor section or a door seal that no longer seats, and we will tell you exactly what is wrong with a particular unit before you buy it. New single-trip is sealed and unmarked and costs accordingly.
The cartage is quoted with the container, so the figure you are given is the figure you pay. There is no separate freight invoice arriving a fortnight later. And if you want to see the actual unit before it goes on a truck, ask — we will send photographs of the container allocated to your job, before delivery, marks and all.
Lismore is not one delivery problem, it is three. The industrial flat at South Lismore is the straightforward one — wide entries, long approaches, level pads and room to line a truck up properly. The older residential streets are the opposite. Girards Hill, East Lismore, the streets running back off Ballina Street and Dawson Street, and much of North Lismore have narrow frontages, cars parked both sides, deep verges and mature figs and camphors arching right over the road. A tilt-tray that fits down the street still has to get its bed up on the angle, and that is where the tree canopy stops the job rather than the width does. The third case is the hill. Lismore Heights, the climb up towards Goonellabah and the streets off the ridge are steep and cross-fallen, and a truck that can get up cannot always turn around at the top. On any of it, send us a photo of the street frontage, one looking down the approach and one of the spot itself and we will tell you which vehicle it is before anybody quotes a price.
The baseline never changes: solid footing, a clear run in, and open sky above the drop. Anything outside that usually means a crane truck rather than a refusal. Details in the delivery access guide.
Goonellabah · Ballina · Byron Bay · Casino · Kyogle · Alstonville
No separate delivery bill arriving afterwards. Ask what a container to Lismore actually costs.