Quick Answer: An As-Is shipping container is sold exactly as it stands, with no repairs and no guarantee it is weathertight. It is the fourth and lowest of the four container grades. As-Is is the right buy for cut-apart builds, welders, and scrap-value projects, and the wrong buy for anyone who needs weather kept out on day one.
In This Guide
- What does As-Is actually mean on a shipping container?
- Where does As-Is sit against the other three grades?
- When is an As-Is container genuinely the right buy?
- When is As-Is the wrong call?
- How do you inspect an As-Is container before you commit?
- What defects show up most often, and which ones are fixable?
- What does an Ontario winter do to an As-Is container?
- Why we talk most buyers out of As-Is
- FAQs
Reading time: 13 minutes
What does As-Is actually mean on a shipping container?
As-Is means the container is sold in its current condition, with no repairs performed and no promise made about what it will do once it lands on your property. There is no weathertight guarantee, no structural warranty, and usually no valid CSC plate. What you walk up to in the yard is precisely what arrives on the truck.
That sounds harsh written down. In practice it is the most honest label in the industry, because it is the only grade that makes no claim at all. One-Trip, Cargo Worthy, and Wind and Watertight each carry a promise the seller has to stand behind. As-Is carries none, which means the entire burden of judgment shifts to the buyer. Whether that is a bargain or a trap depends completely on whether the buyer knows what they are looking at.
The one sentence that matters
Every other grade answers the question “what will this container do for me?” As-Is answers a different question: “what is this specific piece of steel, defects included, worth to me?” If you cannot answer the second question about the exact unit in front of you, you are not ready to buy As-Is.
Where does As-Is sit against the other three grades?
Canadian yards work a four-rung ladder. As-Is is the bottom rung, and the gap between it and the rung above is wider than the gap between any other two grades.
| Grade | Weathertight promise | CSC plate | Who it suits |
|---|---|---|---|
| One-Trip | Yes, essentially new | Valid | Visible placements, conversions, offices |
| Cargo Worthy | Yes, plus certified for ocean use | Valid, re-inspected | Most buyers, most of the time |
| Wind & Watertight | Yes, sealed but not ocean-certified | Often expired | Farm, back-lot, hidden storage |
| As-Is | None | Usually none | Cut-apart builds, welders, scrap value |
Notice what changes between Wind and Watertight and As-Is. It is not appearance, and it is not age. WWT units look rough too. The difference is that a WWT container has been checked and confirmed to seal, and an As-Is container has not been checked at all, or has been checked and failed. The full ladder is laid out in our guide to the four container grades.
When is an As-Is container genuinely the right buy?
There are four situations where As-Is is not a compromise but the correct, deliberate choice.
The cut-apart build
If the plan involves cutting large openings for windows, roll-up doors, or a full open side, much of the panel steel is coming out anyway. Paying for intact panels you are about to remove with a plasma torch is spending money on material headed for the scrap pile. Builders doing container bars, shop fronts, and heavily glazed conversions often start with the roughest shell they can find, provided the frame is sound.
The welder who can fix it themselves
A patch plate welded over a rust hole costs a tradesperson an afternoon and a piece of steel. For a buyer who owns a welder and knows how to prep and prime a repair, an As-Is unit with two or three known holes is simply a container with an afternoon of homework attached. For a buyer without that skill, the same unit is a problem that needs a contractor.
Structural reuse in a multi-container build
In stacked builds where the containers are being clad, insulated, and finished inside a larger structure, the box functions as a steel frame rather than as a weather envelope. The building’s own roof and cladding do the weatherproofing. Corner castings and frame integrity matter enormously here; paint and panel condition matter very little.
Scrap and salvage value
Corten steel has a floor price as material. Buyers who want the steel itself, for fabrication stock or for a project where the container is raw input rather than finished product, are buying tonnage. Grade language stops being relevant at that point.
When is As-Is the wrong call?
The pattern in the call-backs we take is remarkably consistent. As-Is goes wrong when someone buys it as a cheaper version of a storage container rather than as a different product entirely.
If the container needs to keep rain off something on the day it lands, As-Is is the wrong grade. If the contents are tools, seasonal gear, furniture, feed, inventory, or anything that suffers from getting wet, the saving is borrowed against a repair bill that has not arrived yet. A roof pinhole you cannot see from the ground will find a cardboard box within one Ontario winter.
It is also the wrong grade when the buyer cannot inspect it in person or does not know what to look for. The whole economic logic of As-Is rests on the buyer accurately pricing the defects. Buying one from photographs, sight unseen, from a seller you have not met, inverts that logic completely: you are accepting unlimited unknown risk to save a known amount. That is also, not coincidentally, the exact shape of the Facebook container scam we warn about on every page of this site.
“The As-Is calls I remember are the ones where somebody bought a bin to store their tools in over the winter because it was the cheapest thing on the lot. They come back in April and the toolbox has been sitting in an inch of water since December. The box did exactly what it said on the label. Nobody read the label.”
Paul LeBlanc, owner. Nineteen years in the container industry, forty in Asian trade, operating Van Blanc since 1995.
How do you inspect an As-Is container before you commit?
Because no one is standing behind the unit, the inspection is the purchase decision. Do it in daylight and give it twenty minutes.
The As-Is walk-through, in order
- Get inside and close the doors. Every pinhole in the roof and panels shows as a point of daylight. This single step finds more defects than the rest combined.
- Walk the floor, heel first. Marine plywood that has been wet reads soft underfoot. Soft flooring means water has been sitting inside, which means the leak is above it.
- Work the doors through a full cycle. Both doors, all four locking bars, cams into keepers. Doors that need a shoulder now will need a pry bar in February.
- Check the bottom rail and the corner castings. Surface rust anywhere is normal. Flaking that pits through, especially along the bottom rail, is structural and expensive.
- Look at the roof from above if you can. Standing water pooling in a dented roof panel is the most common source of the pinholes you saw from inside.
- Press suspicious rust with a screwdriver. Sound steel resists. If it goes through, you have found a hole rather than a stain.
Write down what you find, because that list is your negotiating position and your repair plan at the same time. Our broader used container inspection checklist covers the same ground for grades where the seller does carry some responsibility.
What defects show up most often, and which ones are fixable?
Not all As-Is defects are equal. Some are an afternoon of work; others mean the container will never do the job you want.
| Defect | How bad | Realistic fix |
|---|---|---|
| Surface rust, faded paint | Cosmetic | Wire wheel and paint, or leave it |
| Dented roof panel holding water | Becomes a hole | Beat out or patch, then seal |
| Pinholes in roof or panels | Moderate | Weld a patch plate, prime, paint |
| Door seals perished | Moderate | Replace gasket, readily available |
| Doors out of alignment | Moderate to serious | Adjust cams, or straighten a racked frame |
| Soft or rotted floor | Serious | Replace sections of marine ply, labour-heavy |
| Bottom rail rusted through | Structural | Cut and weld new section, specialist work |
| Twisted or racked frame | Usually terminal | Rarely worth repairing, doors never seal right |
The top half of that table is why As-Is works for people who can weld. The bottom half is why it fails for people who cannot. A racked frame in particular is the defect to walk away from: it cannot be corrected in a yard, and it guarantees the doors will never seal properly no matter what else you fix.
What does an Ontario winter do to an As-Is container?
Grade guidance written for a milder climate does not survive contact with an Ontario February, and As-Is is the grade where that gap bites hardest. Three things happen here that make an unverified container behave differently than it would somewhere dry.
Freeze-thaw turns pinholes into holes. Water gets into a rust pit, freezes, expands, and levers the steel open a little further. Repeat that cycle across a southern Ontario winter, where we swing back and forth across zero far more often than a colder-but-steadier climate does, and a defect that was cosmetic in October is structural by April. This is the single biggest reason we push buyers toward a verified grade for anything staying outdoors year-round.
Snow load finds the dented roof panel. A roof that ponds water in summer holds a heavy wet slab in winter. The added weight works the dent deeper, the pond gets bigger next season, and the cycle accelerates. On a sound roof this is a non-issue; on an As-Is roof it is the defect most likely to grow while nobody is looking.
Road salt accelerates everything near a driveway. Units placed close to a salted lane or municipal road pick up spray through the winter. On intact paint that is a slow cosmetic story. On steel already down to bare metal in patches, it is a corrosion accelerant working on the exact spots that were already the weakest.
If you do put an As-Is unit outside for the winter
Get it up off the ground on blocks or railway ties so the underside drains and dries, point the doors away from prevailing weather, and deal with any roof ponding before the first freeze rather than after it. The site preparation basics matter more on this grade than on any other, because you have no factory-fresh coating buying you time.
“People picture rust as the enemy and it really is not. Corten is designed to hold a surface layer and stop there. What kills a container in this province is water that cannot leave: sitting on a flat roof, sitting under a box that was set straight on dirt, sitting inside on a floor after it came through a pinhole. Give the water somewhere to go and even a rough bin lasts.”
Christian LeBlanc, second-generation operator. Four years of direct yard experience plus nineteen years of indirect industry exposure from travelling to Asia with Paul starting at age fifteen.
Why we talk most buyers out of As-Is
We stock As-Is units and we sell them, with photographs documenting the specific defects on each one. We also talk more buyers out of them than into them, and that is deliberate rather than a sales tactic pointing at a pricier box.
The arithmetic is usually the reason. The gap between As-Is and Wind and Watertight is the smallest gap on the grade ladder, and the repair work needed to bring an As-Is unit up to weathertight almost always costs more than that gap once you count materials, labour, and the weekend you spend on it. For a buyer with a welder and time, the maths tips the other way. For everyone else, WWT gets you a container that works on the day it lands.
The other reason is that a container bought for the wrong reason tends to stay wrong. A bin that does not seal will not become a bin that seals through optimism. Thirty years of taking the April phone call has made us blunt about that upfront, because the conversation before the sale is much shorter than the conversation after it.
Not sure which grade you actually need?
Describe what is going in the box and where it will sit, and we will tell you honestly whether As-Is makes sense or whether you want the grade above it. Walk our Brantford rows and compare them side by side before you decide.
Family-run in Brantford since 1995 · 200+ containers in stock · 4.9★ across 137+ Google reviews · every box graded by a person, walk it before it lands.
Frequently Asked Questions
What does As-Is mean on a shipping container?
As-Is means the container is sold in its current condition with no repairs and no guarantee of weathertightness or structural integrity. It is the fourth and lowest of the four container grades. The buyer accepts the unit exactly as it stands, defects included, which is why inspecting the specific unit matters more on this grade than on any other.
Is an As-Is container watertight?
There is no promise that it is. Some As-Is units happen to be dry; others have roof pinholes, panel rust-through, or perished door seals. Nobody has verified it either way, which is the definition of the grade. If you need a container that keeps weather out on day one, buy Wind and Watertight or better.
Can you still use an As-Is container for storage?
Sometimes, but only after inspecting it and accepting what you find. If the walk-through shows no daylight, a dry floor, and doors that seal, the unit may store perfectly well. If it shows pinholes or soft flooring, it will store things that do not mind getting wet, and nothing else, until it is repaired.
What is the difference between As-Is and Wind and Watertight?
A Wind and Watertight container has been checked and confirmed to seal against weather and rodents. An As-Is container has not been checked, or was checked and did not pass. Both grades can look equally rough from the outside; the difference is verification, not appearance.
Does an As-Is container have a CSC plate?
Usually not a valid one. The CSC plate certifies a container for international ocean shipping under the 1972 Convention for Safe Containers, and As-Is units typically have an expired plate or none at all. That rules them out for export use, though it has no bearing on stationary storage on land.
Who should buy an As-Is shipping container?
Buyers planning to cut the container apart for a conversion, tradespeople who can weld their own repairs, builders using containers as structural frames inside a clad building, and anyone buying for scrap or fabrication steel. In each case the defects either get removed or stop mattering.
Can an As-Is container be repaired to weathertight?
Often yes, depending on the defect. Pinholes and panel rust take a welded patch plate, prime, and paint. Perished door gaskets are a straightforward replacement. Rotted flooring and a rusted-through bottom rail are labour-heavy but possible. A twisted or racked frame is the exception worth walking away from.
How long does an As-Is container last?
It depends entirely on the starting defects and whether they get addressed. A sound As-Is unit on a drained gravel pad can run for decades like any other container. One with an unrepaired roof pinhole degrades quickly, because water sitting inside attacks the floor and then the bottom rail.
Why do you recommend against As-Is for most buyers?
Because the price gap to Wind and Watertight is the narrowest step on the grade ladder, and the repair work to make an As-Is unit weathertight usually costs more than that gap once materials and labour are counted. For a buyer who can weld, the maths reverses. For everyone else, the grade above simply works on arrival.
Does Van Blanc sell As-Is containers in Ontario?
Yes, when we have them, with photographs documenting the specific defects on each unit so nothing is a surprise. We deliver across Ontario in 1 to 3 days from our Brantford yards, and we will tell you plainly if we think the grade above is the better buy for what you described.
Sources
- International Maritime Organization. (1972, amended). International Convention for Safe Containers (CSC). imo.org
- Institute of International Container Lessors. IICL Guide for Container Inspection. iicl.org
- International Organization for Standardization. (2022). ISO 6346:2022, Freight containers, Coding, identification and marking. iso.org
- Four Sons Logistics. (2025). Shipping Container Grades: As-Is, Cargo-Worthy and IICL. foursonslogistics.com
- Boxhub. (2025). Understanding Shipping Container Conditions and Grades. boxhub.com
Reach Van Blanc in Brantford
We have been supplying shipping containers across Ontario since 1995, in every grade from As-Is to factory-fresh one-trip. Our yard is at 90 Morton Avenue East in Brantford, and the fastest way to settle a grade question is to walk the rows and see the difference with your own eyes.
Van Blanc Ent. Inc., 90 Morton Ave E Unit 1B, Brantford, ON N3R 7J7, 519-754-6844
Buyers considering an As-Is unit are especially welcome to come and inspect it in person before committing. On this grade more than any other, the yard visit is the product.