Do You Really Need Self Storage?

Self Storage Services are definitely a very fast growing industry in the UK and many of us find them very useful for all sorts of reasons. Self Storage facilities can provide a really useful and helpful service to people looking for extra space to store items, especially a business or someone moving from their own home into rented accommodation.

Although useful, using a storage facility can prove to be an expensive option, especially when storing items for a long period of time. If you want to put items into storage but don’t want to pay a monthly storage charge then maybe there is a different solution you could consider that might work out cheaper or more effective.

Lets look at some of the different alternatives to using a storage facility.

Buy a shed

Sheds are great for storing items in, we wouldn’t recommend storing furniture or anything that can be affected by the damp and cold in a shed but it is a great place to store personal items kept in boxes. I did this myself years ago before I went travelling, just after I finished university. I didn’t want to pay for storage while I was away because I couldn’t afford it, so the only option I really had was to keep all my things at my parents house. I didn’t want to ask them if I could store my belongings inside their house so I bought a shed and put it up in their back garden and stored everything in there until I came back form my travels. My mum and dad didn’t mind as they had a big garden which could easily accommodate another shed, and once I had returned from my travels and removed all my items, they gained another shed, which has been really useful to them ever since.

If your garden is big enough then an additional shed to store items could be the perfect answer to your storage needs.

Use the garage

Not many people actually use their garage to store the car in these days so if you haven’t already turned your garage into a storage facility then it could be the perfect place to store items in.

Garages that are an integrated part of the house are a pretty safe place to store items and, if damp free they would make an excellent place to store items of furniture as well as boxed items and personal possessions.

The trouble with storing items in a garage is it’s an easy place for everyone else in the family to store things. Bikes, mowers, BBQ’s, washing machines and freezers all find their way into garages and can all get put in a place where they make it difficult to get to the items behind them.

Board out the loft

Another great storage area within the house is the loft. By laying boards across roof joists its possible to make a really good safe and secure storage area for boxes of items you want to hang on to. Obviously the loft isn’t usually a great place to store large items as the loft hatch entrance is normally quite small but for the contents of anything up to the size of a large box it’s a perfect place. To make access to the loft easier a loft hatch ladder can be installed and easily pulled down when access to the loft is needed.

De clutter

Before even contemplating putting items into storage or creating a storage space we recommend actually going through the items that will be going into storage.

Consider whether you are really going to need the items again or whether they will just go into storage for a few years only to be thrown away at a later date. Are the items things of no great value that you could easily buy again if you really needed to and the cost of putting them into storage really just isn’t worth it?

In summary, it’s probably best to evaluate what you are storing before putting it into storage. Do the items really need to be kept and are they worth spending money on them to keep them? Storing items means they are being put out of sight so if they are being hidden away is it really worth keeping them in the first place.

About the author

Jon Lamming writes on various topics about Cambridge Man and Van removal services, house clearance, storage and packing. Here he writes about alternative storage ideas. Besides writing for blogs Jon enjoys surfing all over the world, Thai Boxing and riding his motorbike. The most important things in the world to Jon are his lovely Polish wife Magda and his two girls, Emily and Olivia. www.cambridgevanman.co.uk

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