Why You Should, and Shouldn’t, Add Shelving to Your Self Storage Space

When people decide to rent a self storage space, one of our key pieces of advice is to pick the smallest space that will hold everything you want to store and gives you enough room to move around. That’s why we share our helpful size guide.

One way to ensure your space will hold all of your belongings with enough room to move around is to add shelving.

Getting Shelving into Your Unit

Usually, if you want shelving installed in your storage space, the property you’re renting at will handle it for you. The property may not advertise this on their site, so ask about it, many have a type of shelving they prefer that works well for them.

When a property installs shelving for you, they may charge you for the installation and add a bit to your monthly bill, since technically you’ll be renting the shelves. This will probably be a minimal amount and worth it for the convenience that shelving adds.

It’s also possible that the property doesn’t install shelves, but will allow you to install them on your own. This is less likely, but if they do allow it, ask for recommendations for the type of shelving to use, they may want to comply with certain standards.

The Pros and Cons of Shelving

The pros include:

• Shelving makes it easier to find a place for small and random-sized boxes. It’s easier to organize them onto a section of a shelf than on top of larger boxes, and they’re less likely to fall.

• You’ll end up with more, and safer, vertical space.

• Unlike with large stacks, you won’t have to worry much about boxes caving in.

• It’s easy to retrieve items from any shelf. You don’t have to remove a bunch of upper boxes, first.

The cons include:

• You’ll have to pay a little to a lot extra, depending on whether you rent the shelves from the property or buy them yourself.

• It will delay your ability to move into the storage space.

• If you install them yourself, it will take a time and energy investment up-front.

Shelving is best for people with many small boxes, business owners storing inventory, tools, samples, or documents, and people who access their units regularly and need the ability to get to any box quickly. They’re less useful if you’re using storage short term, such as when using storage as a staging ground for a move.