Don’t risk over estimating the space you require for your stored items and end up paying for unused space. Alternatively don’t under estimate the space you require and end up having to pay for an additional storage room. Take the time to measure up the rooms in your home for storage needs.
Start With Rooms, Not Guesswork
For storage of a small room, such as a single bedroom or even a box room, 25-35 square feet of space is generally required. Larger rooms, i.e. living rooms or double bedrooms, will require 50-75 square feet of space for their contents, whilst the contents of a garage or even a full house move could require 100 square feet or more of space. By estimating the space required for each room of your home in square feet and then adding these figures together you will arrive at a total figure for the amount of space required for your storage needs.
Measure Your Biggest Items First
You can easily fill space with boxes, but items such as sofas, wardrobes, dining tables and beds will more likely dictate the amount of floor space your storage needs. Work out the length and width of each of the larger items in your home and add them up together to get an approximate total floor space required to store these items. A 3 seat sofa and a double wardrobe alone can occupy a large proportion of a small storage unit.
Don’t Forget Ceiling Height
Measuring the height of your storage space is just as important as measuring the floor area. By making the most of the ceiling height, you can reduce the floor area needed to store your items. Boxes can be stacked on top of each other to make use of the space above your head and items such as wardrobes or even furniture can be stored upright to make use of the space.
Count Your Boxes Properly
You can generally work out how much space your boxes are going to take up by estimating how many of them you are going to need and using the rough guide below. A medium sized box is approximately 18 inches cubed, whilst a large tea-chest style box is about 20 inches cubed. So 15-20 medium sized boxes would roughly fill 10 square feet of floor space if stacked up two or three high.
Leave Room to Get In
If you fill your unit to the ceiling then it will be very difficult for you to retrieve items from the back of the unit. Remember to leave a small aisle way in order to be able to retrieve items as and when you require them. This is particularly important if you are planning to store items from time to time. Try to remember that storage units are not jigsaw puzzles and you must be able to get into your unit to retrieve items that you have stored.
Go One Size Up for Longer Stays
Unless you’re planning a short-term move, it’s generally better to book a unit one size up than risk it being too small to fit everything. When people move house, their belongings rarely shrink in size, and it’s easy to forget about items such as an extra chair or that lamp in the loft, left in the storage unit for months. Within six months, what seems like plenty of space could become stifling.
Check Sizes Before You Book
It is also worth remembering that the measurement of a storage unit is best described using an online size calculator, however nothing quite compares to viewing a storage space before renting and this will give you a much better idea of the true size of your proposed storage space.
For Self Storage Dudley, visit Anchor Self Storage.
List Items Room by Room, Not by Eye
The biggest error in estimating the amount of space required when looking for self storage in Dudley is to consider a house in general rather than listing all the furniture, boxes and other items that will be stored. When searching for storage for a house move or for storing goods from a business it is best to list items room by room. Writing down the furniture, boxes etc in each room is similar to how a professional would measure the floor area of a room, methodically going from wall to wall and listing all the features. This provides a far more accurate figure than an initial ‘guestimate’ of a house in general!
Getting the size of your storage space right isn’t that difficult and it’s worth spending 10 minutes or so with a tape measure and a notebook to work out how much space your items will take up before you book a unit.
