HOW TO PACK THE MOST INTO STORAGE CONTAINERS
You’d be surprised the number of items you can pack into a storage unit with just a little planning. While you may think you can just stack boxes from floor to ceiling and move your entire home belongings into a container, it takes some planning to make the most of your storage space.
Some items that definitely help are pallets, thick strips of plywood and plenty of bubble wrap.
5 TIPS TO PACK EVERYTHING YOU NEED INTO STORAGE SAFELY
- Move the pallets in first
At Top Box Self Storage, all our containers come with fully fitted ventilators & are raised off the ground on concrete blocks to help minimise the ground temperature transferring through and condensation building up. Another additional measure you can take is to place your items on wooden pallets. This is going to increase the airflow under the boxes and the furniture you store. Any paper items or wood items should be protected by bubble wrap or thick dry fabric. Curtains make for good wrapping material.
- Strengthen Your Boxes
Cardboard boxes are the most affordable storage solution; however, they do have drawbacks. Mainly, the bottom collapsing when the box weakens or the items in the box are too heavy.
There are a few packing hacks you can use to strengthen your boxes.
- Double the boxes up.
- Use kitchen roll tubes in the corners of the boxes (cut to size, they are extremely strong)
- Or use corrugated cardboard to make a corner piece that slots into each corner.
Either method will strengthen your box, letting you store more in them, or store less knowing the box isn’t likely to collapse risking everything that’s in it.
- Plan Your Packing and Storage
With limited space, you need to plan what’s going to go where. Larger items are better put into storage first because once your container is stocked up, it’s unlikely you’ll need to get to your sofa or fridge freezer before you need to look in a box. Put your large appliances and furniture to the back of the container to give you easier access to the boxed items.
- Label Every Box
When you get around to unloading your container to move your items into your new home, it’ll be a lot easier to know what goes into which room when you have labels on your boxes. And you (or anyone assisting with the move) will be able to judge the weight of the box before lifting. It’s also a good idea to label boxes as fragile that have breakables in them, however, for glass, kitchen plates, ceramics and anything else that’s breakable, it’s best to make it clear that the items are fragile by either using fragile tape on your boxes or a bright highlighter pen to write fragile on the box.
- Support Your Stacks
To get the most from the rented storage space, people will stack boxes upon boxes. Storage containers are just an open space so the only thing supporting stacks are the boxes at the very bottom. To take some of the pressure off, you can use strips of plywood that rest on the strongest of boxes that are packed with solid items such as books, at either side with boxes with less solid items such as cushions in between. The strip of plywood then becomes somewhat of a shelf for the next row of boxes to rest on, rather than sitting on top of every box, which can weaken them.
Plan your packing before unloading your items into a storage unit and you’ll get far more in and store it safer too.
