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What people built from our totes.

Twenty of the eighty-plus second-life projects we know about. None of these were our work — these are customers turning a reconditioned IBC into something else useful. Send us photos of your build and we'll add it.

Got a project?

Same form, every page. Tell us what you've got or what you need; we send a real quote (not a sales drip).

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4 totes

Rooftop strawberry hydroponics

Short North, Columbus

NFT recirculation, gravity-fed, on a duplex roof.

5 totes

Maple sap collection rig

Geauga County, OH

Vacuum collection from a 200-tap sugarbush.

1 tote

Mobile catering sink

Clintonville, Columbus

Twin-basin stainless drop-in, recirculating greywater.

1 tote, modified

Biochar reactor

Lancaster, OH

Insulated retort burning woody waste at 12% biochar yield.

11 totes

Block-club rainwater system

Olde Towne East, Columbus

Linked downspout collection for neighborhood gardens.

1 tote

Garage cold plunge

Worthington, OH

Insulated, off-the-shelf chiller. Weekly plunge habit.

6 totes

Kombucha brewing system

Franklinton, Columbus

Multi-batch fermentation with bottom-fill plumbing.

3 totes

Aquaponics greenhouse, school

Dublin, OH

Tilapia + lettuce, classroom recirculation system.

1 tote

Backyard apiary cleanout tank

Granville, OH

Hot-knife wax separation for a small-scale beekeeper.

20 totes

Mobile dust suppression

Construction, Greater Columbus

Site water for a contractor's seasonal jobs.

8 totes

Beer wort collection

Brewery District, Columbus

Post-fermentation transfer between facilities.

12 totes

Concrete batching water

Builder, Hilliard, OH

On-site mix water for residential pours.

4 totes

Goat-farm milk transfer

Athens County, OH

Stainless food-grade for raw milk movement.

2 totes

Vermicomposting wormery

Urban farm, Weinland Park

Cut-top conversion for a worm-bin operation.

3 totes

Bioethanol prototype

OSU engineering lab

Student capstone fermentation rig.

2 totes

Parade float ballast tanks

Doo Dah Parade entry

Stability and water-balloon ammo. Different vibe.

2 totes

Soap-makers' lye batching

German Village, Columbus

Concentrated NaOH transfer; PTFE gasketed.

5 totes

Trout-pond recirculation

Hocking Hills, OH

Backyard pond with biofilter and air-stone manifold.

9 totes

Rain-barrel art installation

Goodale Park, Columbus

Public art piece with collection function.

6 totes

Mobile ice-melt brine

Central Ohio snow contractor

Calcium chloride brine batching and transport.

Send us your build.

Photo, location, what you used the tote for. We add a new project every couple of weeks.

Email a photo →

Build categories — sorted by use

Food & beverage adjacent

  • Maple sap collection vacuum lines (raw side: composite; concentrate: stainless).
  • Brewery wort transfer and dry-hopping rigs.
  • Soap-maker batching tanks (glycerin, surfactants, base oils).
  • Maple evaporator hoods.
  • Kombucha multi-batch fermentation systems.
  • Cider-making juice transfer.
  • Coffee cold-brew steeping rigs.

Agriculture & growing

  • Hydroponic NFT systems (rooftop, greenhouse, classroom).
  • Aquaponic combined fish/plant systems.
  • Compost tea brewing and distribution.
  • Worm bins (vermicomposting).
  • Liquid fertilizer batching and delivery.
  • Drip-irrigation reservoirs.
  • Greenhouse passive thermal mass storage.

Water management

  • Residential rain barrels (single-tote and multi-tote arrays).
  • Block-club neighborhood rainwater collection.
  • Site water for construction and dust suppression.
  • Outdoor pond filtration buffer tanks.
  • Trout pond recirculation systems.
  • Greywater filtration for outdoor showers.

Energy & climate experiments

  • Biochar reactors (woody waste pyrolysis).
  • Cold plunges (insulated + chiller).
  • Bioethanol prototype fermentation tanks.
  • Used-cooking-oil collection for biodiesel.
  • Sap-evaporator pre-warm condensate recovery.

Public, art, and creative

  • Parade float ballast tanks (and water-balloon ammo).
  • Public art rain-collection installations.
  • Outdoor pop-up sinks for catering and events.
  • Festival water stations.
  • Off-grid garden sinks for community gardens.

Industrial / niche

  • Calcium chloride brine for snow contractors.
  • Beekeeping wax separation.
  • Fish-farm milk-style batch transfer (raw goat milk).
  • Custom mobile vehicle wash stations.
  • Fuel storage caches (off-grid generators).
  • Mobile slurry pumping for sample collection.

If you want to build one yourself

The fab shop will help. Common starting points:

  • Choose a tote grade. As-is is cheapest if you'll modify heavily; reconditioned is fine for water/garden uses.
  • Sketch what you want before you ask. Even a hand-drawn sketch saves us 30 minutes of email back-and-forth.
  • Tell us the operating environment. Outdoor in winter? Indoor heated? Live-stock contact? It changes recommendations.
  • Budget realistically. Most one-off conversions land $200-800 in fab costs on top of the tote.

Email us with a sketch and a couple of sentences and we'll quote within two business days.

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