My wife Charlene and I live in Georgetown, a very small town located in the Sierra Foothills of Northern California. As with a lot of people living in the country we use shipping/cargo containers to store a lot of our stuff. About 18 years ago we purchased a 40 footer from a supplier that offered modifications to the container such as windows, doors, and vents. Knowing that our container would have to have ventilation, we opted for 2 vents to be installed at a cost of about $100 each. But these vents were horizontal consisting of a tack welded flat frame, corrugation adapting slugs which were tack welded to the container wall, and a very cheap aluminum wall vent screwed on to the frame. And the whole thing was simply caulked to the container wall. Though it is effectively ventilating our container, it is extremely difficult to make and install, and does not keep the bugs out.
Because we have acquired an insane amount of additional stuff over the years, we recently found ourselves in need of another storage container, but this time the supplier we purchased from didn’t offer modifications. I figured that in all these years someone must have come up with an easy to install and effective vent that I could purchase and install myself. I was very surprised when I searched the Internet and couldn't find a single, reasonably priced, easy to install, and effective, vent for my container. And I also read many similar complaints on several forums I visited. So I figured I would just have to design and build my own.
All of the vents I found on the Internet, except a very small plastic one, were horizontal in design, which meant that you would have to adapt the vent to the corrugated wall. That not only makes for a very difficult installation, but they were expensive as well. After some thought I concluded that rather than using a flat vent, and having to adapt it to the corrugated sides of a container, why not use the corrugations and design a vertical vent instead. It would be more cost effective to produce and a whole lot easier to install.
After a lot of trial and error I came up with the Con-Vents® design. It works so well that I decided to manufacture a “boat load” of them and make them available to every one of the thousands of people across the USA who also use these containers for storage of their stuff.
Then I thought of some of the other uses I've seen for these containers, such as for jobsite storage at construction sites. Due to typically harsh conditions at these sites, as well as the frequent moving to and from these sites, the louvers may be subject to damage. So I designed an inverted vent which uses the exterior corrugations of the wall to protect the louvers.
Finally, I noticed that the container doors have large flat areas where another vent could be installed as well. Since I'm not too keen on making roof penetrations due to the potential for water leaks, I figured a vent with twice the width of louvers, mounted high on a door, would provide a lot more ventilation without having to penetrate the roof.
So now all 3 of these styles are available for anyone who uses these containers for storage or other un-conditioned space.
We hope you're satisfied and happy with your vents.