Quick Answer: Most used shipping container warranty options in Ontario fall into three buckets: as-is (no guarantee), Wind & Water Tight at delivery (the usual standard), and limited 30 to 90 day structural cover from dealers. Van Blanc sells used bins WWT and lets you inspect every unit at our Brantford yard before you pay. Van Blanc has shipped containers across Ontario since 1995. Honest 4.9-star service, 1-3 day delivery from 4 Brantford yards.
In This Guide
- What are the three warranty realities of a used container?
- What does Wind & Water Tight at delivery actually mean?
- Does Cargo Worthy grade come with a longer warranty?
- Is an as-is container a real grade or a red flag?
- What do 30, 60, and 90 day warranties actually cover?
- How long is the warranty on a one-trip container?
- Does the Ontario Consumer Protection Act cover used containers?
- Why does a cheap Facebook container have no warranty?
- How does Van Blanc handle used container warranty?
- When does a used container warranty actually matter?
- FAQs
Reading time: about 13 minutes.
What Are the Three Warranty Realities of a Used Shipping Container?
A used shipping container in Ontario carries one of three warranty realities: it is sold as-is with no guarantee, it is Wind and Water Tight at the moment of delivery (the usual standard), or it carries a limited 30 to 90 day structural cover from the dealer. Each is honest at the right price.
Walk into ten Ontario container dealers and you will find ten different warranty pages. Some advertise five years on the higher inspected grades we break down here. Some quote one year structural. Some quote 30 days money back. Some quote nothing because they sell containers the way a scrap yard sells steel: take it as you find it.
That spread maps to how grade choice drives the deal in our parent comparison: the warranty a seller offers is usually a function of the grade they sell, the margin they work at, and the inspection process they actually run before the unit leaves the yard. A five-year warranty on a WWT can sound like a strong promise. Read the exclusions and it often shrinks to “we will repair defects we agree existed at the time of sale, minus your shipping cost both ways.”
The three realities most Ontario buyers face look like this. First, the bin is genuinely Wind & Water Tight at the moment the driver unhooks it: doors close and seal, floor has no soft spots, walls and roof do not let light through. Second, the bin has a limited 30 to 90 day structural cover that protects against defects you missed on inspection day. Third, the bin is sold as-is with no formal cover, because it is older inventory priced for buyers who know what they want.
None of those three is fraudulent. Each is honest at the right price. The danger is when a seller markets a five-year warranty on a unit really sold as-is: the warranty exists on the website but evaporates the first claim.
Paul LeBlanc, owner: “A warranty page only matters if the people behind it are still answering the phone when you call. In my 19 years in containers I have watched buyers chase a long printed promise and skip the part that actually protects them, which is standing in front of the bin before they pay. Walk the box first, then read the warranty.”
What Does Wind & Water Tight at Delivery Actually Mean?
Wind & Water Tight is not a warranty so much as a description of what the bin must be at the moment it lands on your site. Per the industry definition used by CARU Containers and the Institute of International Container Lessors inspection guidance, a WWT-graded container at delivery has:
- No daylight visible through walls, roof, or panel seams when the doors are closed
- Doors that swing, latch, and seal against their gaskets without forcing
- A wooden floor with no through-holes and no soft rot deep enough to fail under a forklift
- No standing water pooling inside after a heavy rain
- Surface rust acceptable but no pinhole penetration of the steel skin
That is what you are buying when you order a WWT 20ft or 40ft for storage. It is not a guarantee against future rust or the door gasket aging out in seven winters. It is a delivered-condition standard.
The “guarantee at delivery” language matters
The strongest WWT promise usually reads: “Guaranteed Wind & Water Tight at the time of delivery, with doors that seal and floors free of through-holes.” The honest version stops there. The version that promises “Wind & Water Tight for one year” often carries per-incident inspection fees, shipping clauses, and proof-of-defect requirements that cancel the practical value.
The honest framing for most used Ontario bins is what containertech.com calls the delivery-standard model: you inspect at drop-off, you sign off, and the seller’s obligation ends when the truck pulls away. That places the responsibility for ongoing condition on you. It is not a weakness of the deal. It is what allows the price point to exist.
Does Cargo Worthy Grade Come With a Longer Warranty?
Cargo Worthy is a step above WWT. To grade CW under the International Convention for Safe Containers (CSC), a marine surveyor has examined the box for structural integrity, stacking strength, and corner-casting condition, and stamped the CSC plate. That stamp is what makes the container legal for international ocean shipment.
For Ontario buyers not putting cargo on a ship, CW mostly buys two things: tighter structural confidence because a third party agreed the frame is sound, and slightly higher resale value. CW does not buy a longer warranty by default. Some sellers add extended warranty to CW because they price the certification process in. Others sell CW at WWT warranty terms and charge a higher upfront price for the inspection paper.
The CSC plate trap on used bins
A CSC plate is valid for five years from issue, then needs re-inspection. A used cargo worthy container can have an expired CSC plate and still be Wind & Water Tight. The unit is fine for land-based storage in that condition. It is not legal to load with cargo for ocean export. If a seller advertises “Cargo Worthy” but the plate is expired, the bin is functionally WWT. Ask the question.
Per Conexwest’s Toronto terms, the company offers a five-year warranty on its used CW ISO containers, the longest used-container warranty we have seen in the Canadian market. It covers structural defects, requires the unit to remain in delivered configuration, and excludes cosmetic wear. The five-year stamp is priced accordingly. Buyers who want the long warranty paper pay for it; buyers who want a WWT 20ft from a Brantford yard get a different deal.
Is an As-Is Shipping Container a Real Grade or a Red Flag?
An as-is shipping container is the lowest of the four grades, and most Ontario yards keep a row of them behind the marketing pages. As-is units are containers with structural questions: a soft spot in the floor, a door that needs a hinge repair, paint variance from a panel patch in their seventh decade of service. Because the grade carries structural questions, as-is units sit well below WWT and Cargo Worthy pricing, with the exact discount driven by how much repair the bin needs.
As-is bins are sold with no condition guarantee. The buyer agrees the unit is being purchased on inspection-day visual sign-off and the seller’s obligation ends at that moment. That is what makes them cheap, and useful for buyers who know what they need them for: cladding stock, donor units for custom modification, scrap-metal value, or a low-stakes shelter where cosmetic wear is irrelevant. If you are weighing the grades before you visit a yard, our step-by-step guide to buying a used container walks through what to check on each one.
National franchise sites tend to omit the As-is grade because it does not fit their corporate warranty narrative. Conexwest’s published policy says the company does not sell As-is or WWT-only units. That is defensible for a national operator with one liability profile across multiple provinces, but it is not the only honest position. A regional Ontario yard can sell As-is at full disclosure to a buyer who walked the bin in person. We carry As-is units at the Brantford yard and tell buyers exactly what each one is good for.
What Do 30, 60, and 90 Day Container Warranties Actually Cover?
A 30, 60, or 90 day container warranty is a limited structural term some Ontario dealers add on top of the Wind and Water Tight delivery standard. Beyond WWT-at-delivery, a handful of Ontario dealers add limited structural warranty for 30, 60, or 90 days. The terms vary more than the headline numbers suggest.
| Coverage period | What it typically covers | What it excludes |
|---|---|---|
| 30 day money-back | Return for refund less shipping if you discover a structural defect within 30 days of delivery | Cosmetic wear, damage from your equipment, modifications you made, weather exposure |
| 60 day limited structural | Repair of through-holes in walls or roof, door seal failure, floor structural failure not caused by user load | Surface rust, paint condition, dents from delivery placement, modifications |
| 90 day limited structural | Same as 60 day, plus some yards extend door hardware and gasket coverage | Same exclusions plus any defect not documented at delivery sign-off |
| 1 year limited (rare on used) | Door seal, floor integrity, no-leak guarantee on roof and walls under reasonable use | Cosmetic, user-caused, modifications, often requires marine surveyor inspection at buyer’s expense |
| 5 year (Conexwest CW only) | Structural defects in cargo worthy ISO units; repair or replacement at seller’s discretion | Cosmetic, user-caused, modifications, requires unit in original configuration |
Short money-back terms protect against the rare case where a unit passed inspection but turned out to have a hidden defect. Longer structural terms reflect the seller’s confidence in the inspection process and the margin built into the price.
Northern Container Sales, an Ontario operator, publishes a one-year structural warranty plus 30-day money-back on every container. Terms: structural integrity including doors that seal, floors without holes, and a roof with no leaks. Cosmetic wear and surface rust are excluded, industry-standard.
How Long Is the Warranty on a One-Trip Container?
One-trip and new-build containers occupy a different warranty universe. These are containers manufactured in Asia, loaded with cargo for a single ocean voyage to North America, and sold as essentially new. They carry a different warranty structure than used bins because they have a different defect profile.
Most one-trip suppliers in Canada offer 1 to 3 years of structural cover. Secure Container’s published policy is three years on new one-trip and one year on all used. Northern Container Sales offers one year on used. The mechanism is a goodwill-and-repair model: if a structural defect surfaces in the warranty window that was not caused by user damage, the seller arranges repair or replacement after photographic documentation.
For Ontario buyers planning to convert a container into occupied space, the one-trip warranty matters more than for plain storage. The structural standard is higher when people are inside, and an ESA-certified electrical contractor will not work on a unit with structural questions. A one-trip with a written warranty paper trail is worth the price premium for occupied conversions. If a factory-fresh box is where you are leaning, our single-voyage stock and what their coverage looks like is laid out on a dedicated page. Buyers turning a box into an office or cabin will also find the structural notes in our walkthrough of converting a container into a building useful before they commit.
Does the Ontario Consumer Protection Act Cover Used Containers?
One thing every Ontario container buyer should know: a seller cannot simply contract out of the Ontario Consumer Protection Act when selling to a consumer. The 2002 Act (being replaced by CPA 2023, Royal Assent December 6, 2023) establishes implied warranties of merchantable quality and fitness for purpose on consumer goods.
What this means in plain language
If a seller markets a container as “wind and watertight for storage” and the unit arrives with a hole through the roof that was hidden at the inspection point, the buyer has implied-warranty recourse under the Ontario CPA even if the seller’s printed warranty page says otherwise. The statute floor cannot be waived by an as-is clause on a consumer sale. Business-to-business sales fall under the Sale of Goods Act, which has weaker implied terms.
This is not a license to walk away from every used-container sale. It is a floor underneath the contract. The as-is clause is enforceable for cosmetic wear and conditions the buyer saw at delivery, but not enforceable against a hidden material defect the seller knew. The implied warranty does not change the inspection-day responsibility: if you signed off at delivery on a defect you could have seen, you cannot later claim against it.
Why Does a Cheap Facebook Container Have No Warranty?
Most calls we get about warranty failures are not from buyers who chose between two legitimate yards and picked the wrong one. They are from buyers who saw a Facebook Marketplace listing below regional pricing, paid an etransfer to a number that stopped responding, and called us a week later asking if we could rescue the situation.
There is no warranty on a container that never arrives. There is no consumer-protection recourse against an offshore phone number that vanishes after the transfer clears. Per Paul’s running observation: “Many people call us saying they can get a bin far cheaper on Facebook. Two weeks later they call back saying they got scammed. Don’t fall for it.”
The warranty question is downstream of the legitimate-seller question. Before you compare 30-day terms against 90-day terms against 1-year terms, confirm the seller exists at a verifiable address, has Google reviews from real customers, and will let you visit the yard before money changes hands. Until those three are verified, the warranty page is a marketing document and nothing more.
How Does Van Blanc Handle Used Container Warranty?
Here is how Van Blanc handles used-container warranty plainly. We sell used 20ft and 40ft containers in Wind & Water Tight condition at delivery. We do not advertise a long printed warranty because the model we built over 30 years runs differently: you come to the Brantford yard, walk the rows, pick the specific bin you want, and take possession of the unit you saw with your own eyes.
That model removes most of what warranties are designed to cover. Hidden defect disputes happen when the buyer never inspected the unit. When you walked the bin yourself, that whole category disappears. The unit you take home is the unit you approved.
For buyers who cannot come to the yard, our standard is WWT-at-delivery: the bin arrives WWT, the driver waits while you inspect before signing, and you can refuse delivery on the spot if the unit does not match. That is a delivery-day standard enforceable because the driver is standing there with you.
Christian LeBlanc, second-generation operator: “My dad built this business on the idea that you should not need a warranty page to feel safe buying a used container. If you can walk the yard and pick your own bin, the question of warranty mostly goes away. We will absolutely back up a unit if something we missed at the yard turns out wrong, and we have done that. But the model is: see the bin first.”
The 4 Brantford yards hold over 200 containers across grades. The arrangement is deliberate: one-trip stock together, cargo worthy together, WWT together, and As-is in its own row clearly marked. A buyer who walks the yard with us sees the full spectrum and chooses with full information. That is the pick-your-box standard, and it is the strongest form of warranty we know how to offer, because it is built on what you saw rather than what was promised.
When Does a Used Container Warranty Actually Matter?
Not every used-container buyer needs the same warranty terms. The right answer depends on what you are buying the bin for, how far you are from a real yard, and how much risk you can carry. This connects back to the way we weigh factory-fresh against second-hand stock: warranty terms are downstream of grade choice, and grade choice is downstream of use case.
When a strong printed warranty matters most
- Occupied conversion: Site office, retail kiosk, ADU. Buy one-trip with manufacturer paper trail.
- Remote sight-unseen buyer: Buy from a dealer with a verified 30 to 90 day structural term.
- Resale planning: A Cargo Worthy unit with CSC stamp holds resale better than WWT.
- Cargo loading planned: If the bin goes back on a ship, Cargo Worthy with valid CSC is non-negotiable.
When warranty matters less
- You inspected the bin in person: The yard visit replaces most of what a printed warranty does.
- Storage on a back lot: A WWT 20ft beats a CW with a 5-year page.
- Modification donor unit: Cutting panels anyway. An as-is bin may be the right call.
- Short-term need under 24 months: Buy WWT, accept cosmetic wear, and resell to recover most of what you paid.
The warranty page is a useful filter, not the whole picture. The strongest protection sits upstream of the printed terms: the seller’s existence, the yard’s inventory, and the buyer’s ability to walk a unit. A yard that hands you the keys to walk the rows yourself offers a kind of trust that a 30-day refund clause cannot match. When the time comes to stand in front of real stock, our current lineup of used and new bins for sale is the page that lists what is on the lot.
Frequently Asked Questions
Does Van Blanc offer a written warranty on used containers?
Van Blanc sells used containers in Wind & Water Tight condition at delivery. We do not advertise a long printed warranty because our model runs on yard inspection: you visit our Brantford yard, pick the specific bin you want, and take home the unit you approved. We back up units we missed something on, but the pick-your-box visit is the strongest warranty we know how to offer.
What does Wind & Water Tight (WWT) actually guarantee?
WWT guarantees the container is sealed against wind and water at delivery: doors close and latch with intact gaskets, the floor has no through-holes, walls and roof have no daylight gaps. Surface rust and cosmetic wear are not covered. It reflects delivery-day condition, not a long-term promise.
Is a 1-year warranty on a used container better than no warranty?
Sometimes. A real 1-year structural warranty from a regional Ontario dealer with verifiable reviews is meaningful protection. A 1-year warranty from an offshore Facebook listing is meaningless because the seller will not be reachable to honour it. Read the exclusions and verify the seller exists.
Why do some dealers offer 5-year warranties on used containers?
The 5-year warranty exists at a few large operators (Conexwest is the published example) and applies to certified Cargo Worthy units that passed a marine surveyor inspection. The inspection process and higher upfront price fund the longer warranty. It is real, with exclusions for cosmetic wear, user damage, and modifications.
Can I take a seller to court in Ontario if the warranty fails?
For consumer purchases under the Ontario CPA, you have implied-warranty recourse even if the printed warranty page says as-is. Small claims court in Ontario handles most container disputes and is the typical venue. Business-to-business purchases fall under the Sale of Goods Act with weaker implied terms.
What happens if I find a problem after delivery?
Document the defect with photographs, contact the seller immediately, and refer to their written warranty terms. A reputable Ontario dealer will inspect or process a money-back claim if the defect falls within covered terms. If they refuse, complaints can be filed with the Ministry of Public and Business Service Delivery.
Are as-is shipping containers always a bad deal?
No. As-is is the 4th container grade and is honest at the right price. Buyers who use containers for cladding stock, donor units for modification, or low-stakes storage can get strong value from a 20ft as-is bin priced well below WWT stock. The trap is when a seller markets an as-is unit at WWT pricing without saying so.
How does the CSC plate affect warranty?
A valid CSC plate is required for international ocean shipment and signals the container passed a structural inspection within 5 years. It does not directly add warranty terms, but most dealers price CW units with the certificate higher. If you do not need to load the bin for export, an expired CSC plate is just a price-tier difference, not a defect.
Should I get a marine surveyor inspection before buying?
For Cargo Worthy buyers loading for export, the CSC inspection is non-optional. For WWT storage buyers, a marine surveyor inspection adds a separate fee on top of the bin and is rarely worth it unless you are buying sight-unseen. A personal yard visit accomplishes more than a paper inspection at a fraction of the cost.
How does the Ontario CPA 2023 affect container warranties?
CPA 2023 received Royal Assent December 6, 2023, and will replace the 2002 Act once proclaimed in force. The implied-warranty framework remains: consumer goods must be reasonably fit for purpose, and as-is clauses cannot waive provincial implied warranties on consumer sales. Container buyers should see no major change to outcomes.
Sources
- CARU Containers. (2025). What is the difference between Cargo Worthy (CW), Wind & Water Tight (WWT) and As-is containers? carucontainers.com
- ContainerTech. (2024). The Difference Between Wind & Watertight Containers vs Cargo Worthy Containers. containertech.com
- Northern Container Sales. (2025). Shipping Container Warranty. northerncontainersales.ca
- Government of Ontario. (2002, current). Consumer Protection Act, 2002, S.O. 2002, c. 30, Sched. A. ontario.ca/laws/statute/02c30
- International Maritime Organization. (1972, amended). International Convention for Safe Containers (CSC). imo.org
Reach Van Blanc in Brantford
We have been supplying shipping containers across Ontario since 1995. Our warehouse is at 90 Morton Avenue E in Brantford, and we deliver right across the province on a cash-on-delivery basis. No surprise fees, no chase-the-paperwork.
Van Blanc Ent. Inc., 90 Morton Ave E Unit 1B, Brantford, ON N3R 7J7. Call +1 888-509-6658.
Before you compare warranty pages between dealers, come walk our 4 Brantford yards and pick the specific used bin you want to take home. The yard visit is the strongest warranty we know how to offer, and it has worked for our buyers since 1995. Fast 1-3 day delivery to every region across Ontario from our 4 Brantford yards. Every quote comes with a real lead time, not a hopeful one.
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