We’re looking around at prices of container storage to tide us through between selling & buying houses. Initial prices seem to suggest a ballpark of £200+ per month for the average contents of a 4-bed house. We’re probably looking at a bit more than that (large 5-bed with outbuilding) but I’m pretty staggered at how much this is looking like it’s going to cost. Any thoughts/experiences out there? Is this a reasonable price? Cheers!

I would be tempted to shop around strangely..

a friend bought a container where he lived and had it kept in a yard near where he moved to while he moved in at a leisurely pace. The container was about £400 and the storage/rent for the box was about the same over three years.

Those ‘self-storage’ places seem to be reasonably priced – have you looked at those?

I was looking to do similar with my stuff (a bedsits worth). Fit in the back of a big volvo estate.

It would have been cheeper to buy a MOT failiure Volvo and keep it on the drive!

It would have been cheeper to buy a MOT failiure Volvo and keep it on the drive!

I suspect somewhere with with a bit of climate control would be advised unless you’re partial to mould

ohh and its like ryanair

1) Pay for storage
2) Would sir like acces to that storage? That’ll be another £10 a month
3) Insurance (compulsorary ~£12, per £500, per month)
4) Padlock (you can bring your own, if you’ve one the size of a D-lock made from something as thin as piano wire, ~£40)

Am I right in thinning your Cotswold area? My mrs had a load of junk in storage when I met her which she brought out to put in our new house when we moved in together, jeez it was a lot!
She used 5 valleys near quedgely who also did all our packing and moving.
I’ve no idea how much it cost but my mrs is fairly savvy when it comes to office moves/ house moves etc.

Thanks guys. Yes, I’m pretty close to Cotswolds. Will check out 5 valleys, cheers. I’m guessing we’d need something with an amount of temperature control as we’ll have sofas/clothes etc in there.

I’ll be storing the contents of our 3 bedroom flat in a couple of weeks. I spoke to the Big Yellow Self Storage, who I believe are a national chain. For a 150sq ft storage unit they quoted me £72 a week – but the first 8 weeks are half price. I’m looking to store for at least 3 months, so that worked out pretty expensive. I had a bit of a look round and found a local guy (unimaginatively trading as The Green Self Storage Company!), who has a warehouse with storage units inside, on his farm, and he gave me a quote of £30 a week, for the same size unit, for as long a period as I like, with access whenever I wanted it.
So I guess my advice would be to shop around, as you may find a local independant doing decent deals.

Edit – sadly for you, nowhere near the Cotwolds, I’m afraid!

Have to say that sounds about right. IIRC it cost us about £150/month 7 years ago for storage for a 2 bed house. And yes you have to have your own padlock etc… We used Pickfords self store in Bath. Shop around, and look carefully at the actual space they offer. We didn’t actually have that much stuff but the units are tiny – and we had to do some rather creative ‘stacking’! to get it all in. That said it was worth it for the simplicity (all in one space, secure, easy access etc). HTH.

Just to add – I also did some research on this for work and found a farmer doing it for pretty cheap. Given that it was only archive material I really didn’t care, but I wouldn’t have put any of my personal stuff in his units….

Would you pack it up into boxes and get it collected by a courier and stored in a secure warehouse if it was cheaper? And when you wanted it back you just call up and they courier it all back?

Or is the ‘access’ bit important?
Curious.

heh, sounds like I need someone like Mr Green Self Storage ’round my way!

Or is the ‘access’ bit important?
Curious.

My wife informs me we’d need access. I’m guessing mainly for her clothes 🙂

Breaking it into 2 lots might help- a longer term that you won’t want access to and a smaller “room” which you might. Also, this might not apply to you but speaking to someone from a storage chain who will remain nameless, they make a mint off people misjudging how much space they need, due to either not really understanding how the sizes work, misjudging how much stuff they have, or forgetting you can stack things.

I use these guys, quite competitive and v secure, plus they bring the container to your house, you load it, they take it to the storage depo;

http://www.kellystore.co.uk/

Make sure you are well (over?) insured – my brother and his wife had their life in storage whilst travelling. The storage warehouse caught fire. They lost everything and had a real fight on their hands to get any reasonable payout back from the insurer the warehouse had insisted they insure with.

Alternatively check the spinklers work well in whichever warehouse/starage unit you use 🙄

Would you pack it up into boxes and get it collected by a courier and stored in a secure warehouse if it was cheaper? And when you wanted it back you just call up and they courier it all back?

Damo is onto something there. Why not parcel all the stuff up and post it to your new house. It should be delivered about the right time (judging by the delays I’ve had this past couple of months) and saves you having to arrange a van to transort it to the new gaff.

Or, how about the Old Librarians Tale about a library moving buildings ? They made every customer take out ten books, then bring them back when the new building was open. Loan loads of stuff to your friends ??

It might sound daft but have you thought about having a good clearout of everything you own.

We’ve all packed for a move, had some stuff thats gone in a box up in the attic, only not to be untouched until you move again for it just to be moved to another attic somewhere.

You’ll be surprised how much tat you accumulated.

Have a good sort out, reduce the amount of space you need to store stuff, and save money that way.

Chew speaks the truth.

We store a lot of stuff from our two houses when we moved in together. Paid good money to store the junk, got it back, then promptly binned most of it.

It’s generally pricier via your removals than if you can shift it yourself somewhere/somehow – I had my house in storage for around 5 days with the removals due to a <expletive deleted> of a buyer – cost me a few hundred quid but I had no choice (other than lose the sale and therefore my purchase).

I suspect ‘storage’ was what I normally call ‘parked’ judging by how it came back.

Have a clear out, use friends and family to take some of the stuff that would deteriorate anyway and accept the fact the being wealthy enough to have a big house means it might cost a bit to store the stuff in it.

maybe you could buy an old luton van and put it in a local farmers grain store for a few quid month?

Yeah I’ve got a major clearout planned, although I’ve done most of it over the past few years. Amazing how much crap you can accumulate, especially with children.

Thanks for the continued suggestions. Kellystore is a bit scary though…£96 per week!!

Take pictures of it all and save them onto a big hard drive.