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
Mackay, QLD
Shipping containers Mackay
Mackay sits a long way north of us and the honest answer is that we source close to the job wherever the stock allows. What Mackay has in its favour is space. Cane country, mining service yards and Pioneer Valley farms all have room to land a container properly. What it does not have in its favour is the wet, and that is worth planning around.
- Delivered from
- North Queensland depot stock where we can match it, otherwise a long run north from the Lockyer Valley
- Typical lead time
- Around one to two weeks, and longer through the middle of the wet
- Usual truck
- Tilt-tray for 10ft and 20ft; side loader for 40ft where there is length to work with, which cane country generally has
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.
Here is the honest version of buying a container here.
The work they do around here
Around Mackay we deliver containers for spares, tooling and consumables for the mining services businesses that supply the Bowen Basin, workshop overflow at the engineering and fabrication yards, chemical drums, irrigation fittings and spare parts on cane farms through the Pioneer Valley, harvester and haul-out components between seasons, fodder and gear on the cattle blocks inland, secure trade storage in town, and dry storage on blocks where the shed is already full.
Getting a truck in
Cane country is generally kind to a delivery truck and occasionally treacherous, and the difference is entirely down to the last two hundred metres. Farm tracks and headlands are built for tractors and haul-outs, not for a loaded rigid, and they are often narrow, crowned, soft at the edges and bordered by a drain you cannot see under the grass. A headland that a tractor crosses without thinking will carry a truck in September and will not in February. Where the container is going onto a farm, the useful question is not whether the track exists but what it is made of and when it last had water on it. The Pioneer Valley adds gradient. Once you head up toward Marian, Mirani and further in, the road narrows, the shoulders drop away and the driveways get steeper and shorter. Cane rail crossings appear where you do not expect them. Overhanging trees along the older valley roads clip anything with height on the deck, which matters for a high cube on a tilt-tray more than people realise. We would rather know about a low branch before the truck is committed than deal with it on the day. In town, Mackay is straightforward by city standards. The industrial estates around Paget are built for exactly this kind of work, with hardstand, wide access and yards used to trucks. Residential areas are a mixed bag, with the older suburbs offering reasonable frontage and the newer northern estates presenting the usual narrow-street, soft-verge problem. The wet season governs everything. From about December through March, and sometimes later, the district gets rainfall in quantities that make southern rain look like a rumour. Ground that carried a truck last week will not this week. Creeks come up fast and go down fast. We do not fight that. We move the date, and locals do not find that surprising.
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 Mackay
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
Mackay
Headlands, drains and a truck that has to turn around
The single most common thing that turns a straightforward cane farm delivery into an awkward one is not getting in, it is getting out. A rigid with a side loader needs somewhere to turn or somewhere to reverse a long way, and a headland with a drain on one side and a block of standing cane on the other offers neither. It is worth walking the route before delivery day with the truck in mind rather than the tractor, checking the width at the tightest point, what the surface does when it is wet, and where the vehicle can turn around once the container is off.
The other thing worth thinking through is where the doors end up facing. On a farm the container usually gets loaded from a ute or a tractor with a forklift on the back, and the approach to it is set by the shape of the headland. Doors facing the wrong way means every load-in becomes a three-point turn. It costs nothing to decide this before the unit is placed and it is a genuine nuisance to change afterwards.
On the ground
Three months of rain, and what it does to a delivery calendar
Mackay's wet season is not a southern wet season with the volume turned up. It is a different category of weather, and it reshapes what is possible for months at a time. Unsealed tracks stop carrying weight. Low crossings go under. Ground that looked solid on inspection turns to a surface that a loaded truck will cut half a metre of rut into. There is no clever equipment answer to that.
So the way we handle Mackay through the wet is to build slack into the date rather than promise a morning. If the country is right, the delivery happens. If forty millimetres landed on your place overnight, it moves, and it moves by a few days rather than a few weeks. Planning a delivery for the drier months when the timing is flexible is simply the easier path, and anyone who has farmed here for a season already knows that.
Worth knowing
Supplying the Basin from a Mackay yard
A large share of Mackay's container demand comes from businesses that service coal operations inland rather than from the mines themselves. Fabrication shops, hydraulic specialists, labour hire outfits, tyre and undercarriage businesses, and maintenance contractors all carry inventory that has to be secure, findable and out of the weather, and they all run out of shed space before they run out of work. A container in the yard is the cheap answer to that, and often several of them lined up become the de facto store. Where that is the use, buy for the frame rather than the finish. These units get shifted between yards, loaded with heavy awkward things, opened in the rain and closed by someone in a hurry. Straight rails, sound corner castings, doors that swing true and seals in good order are what makes a unit still useful in a decade. Paint is cosmetic. Ask for photos of the actual unit on request before delivery if you want to see exactly what is coming.
What delivery to Mackay costs
The cartage component depends on which depot the unit comes out of and what the site needs. We work it out with the quote.
Describe the spot it has to land on and we will work backwards from there to the container and the truck.
Also delivered nearby
We also deliver to Sarina, Walkerston, Marian, Mirani, Proserpine and the surrounding district. If your town is not on the list, ring — it almost certainly still works.
Common questions
Buying a container in Mackay
Can you deliver a container onto a cane farm headland?
Often yes, and the deciding factor is the surface rather than the width. Headlands are built for tractors and haul-outs, and a loaded truck is a different proposition, particularly near a drain edge or on ground that has had rain on it. What we need to know beforehand is the narrowest point on the track, what the surface is made of, whether there is anywhere to turn around once the unit is off, and what the weather has done on your place recently. Where the headland will not carry a truck, the usual answer is to place the unit on firmer ground nearby.
What happens to a Mackay delivery during the wet season?
It gets scheduled with room in it. From around December through March the district gets rainfall that will stop a loaded truck getting into places it managed easily a fortnight earlier, and low crossings can be out for a day or two at a time. We do not try to force a delivery through that, because the result is a bogged truck and ruts in your track that last a year. We move the date, usually by a few days. If the timing is genuinely fixed, the alternative is placing the unit on hardstand and shifting it once things dry out.
Does Mackay humidity cause sweating inside a container?
It can, and it is worth designing around rather than discovering. Warm humid air gets into a container during the day, then the steel roof cools overnight and the moisture in that air condenses on the underside and drips. The contents get wet without a drop of rain coming through anything. Extra vents make a real difference, keeping the unit up off the ground helps air move under it, and putting things in dry is the biggest single factor. Do not load damp canvas, green timber or wet gear into a closed box up here.
Where does stock for a Mackay order actually come from?
Wherever it makes sense for your job. Our own yard is at Forest Hill in the Lockyer Valley, which is a long way south of Mackay, so for northern orders we look first at depot stock closer to you. That is faster and it keeps freight sensible. Units at those depots can be inspected by arrangement. If the grade, size or spec you want is not in the north, it comes up from the south, and grouping it with other freight heading the same way is often what makes the timing and the cost work. We will tell you which it is.
Get a price
Get a price for your address
We deliver to Mackay 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