How Much Storage Space Do You Really Need?
A Warrington guide to choosing a unit size.
Very few people plan to need storage. It usually arrives as a problem. The completion date on the new house slips by three weeks, the loft has to be emptied before the estate agent takes photographs, or a family home needs clearing at a point when nobody feels ready to decide what goes where.
Then comes the second problem. You ring around for a quote, and the very first question is the one you cannot answer. What size unit do you need?
It is the question we are asked most often, and there is no shame in not knowing. Almost nobody can look at a living room and translate it into square feet. So this guide does the translating for you: what each unit size holds, how long people tend to store for, and what to check before you hand your belongings to anybody.
Why people in Warrington end up needing storage
Storage is rarely the plan. It is almost always the answer to something else that has changed. These are the reasons we hear week in, week out.
A broken or delayed chain.
You have to be out of one property before you can get into the next, and the gap is anything from a weekend to two months.
Downsizing.
The new place is smaller, and some furniture needs somewhere to live while the family decides who wants what.
Renovations.
Floors are coming up or a kitchen is going in, and everything needs to be out of the way rather than pushed into the back bedroom.
Probate and bereavement.
A house has to be emptied to a deadline, but the decisions about what to keep do not have to be made on the same timescale.
Working away or travelling.
A tenancy ends, you are out of the country for six months, and paying rent on an empty flat makes no sense.
Business stock and equipment.
Seasonal stock, office furniture between premises, or tools that cannot stay in the van overnight.
The reason matters, because it changes the answer. Someone bridging a two week chain gap wants the smallest unit that will take a full house load. Someone downsizing permanently is better off decluttering first and paying for less space over longer.
Storage unit sizes explained, from a few boxes to a full house
Storage in the UK is measured in square feet, which is not a unit most of us think in. The easiest way to picture it is to compare each size to a room or a garage you already know.
Our storage units in Warrington come in a range of sizes rather than one standard box, so you are not paying for space you will never fill. Sizes typically run from around 25 sq ft, roughly a large garden shed, up to 200 sq ft and beyond for large homes and commercial storage.
One thing worth knowing is that the figure describes floor area, not volume. Units are well overhead height, so a unit holds considerably more than the floor space suggests once boxes are stacked properly. If you are borderline between two sizes, sensible stacking often makes the smaller one work.
What fits in each size
Use the table below as a starting point. It assumes an average amount of furniture per bedroom and boxes stacked to a reasonable height.
These are guides rather than guarantees. Two three bedroom houses can differ enormously. A family with a corner sofa, a piano and a garage full of garden equipment needs more room than a couple who have just moved out of a flat. If you are unsure, tell us which rooms you are emptying, and we will size it with you over the phone on 01925 899 989.
A quick sizing shortcut
Count your bedrooms, then count the standard removal boxes you expect to fill. Roughly 30 boxes plus the furniture from one bedroom fills about 25 sq ft, and every additional bedroom adds about 25 sq ft on top. It is rough, but it gets most people to within one size of the right answer.
How long will you need it? Short term against long term
The honest answer is that most people store for longer than they first expect. A chain gap booked as two weeks becomes six. A renovation overruns. A probate clearance sits until the family can get together.
Short term storage, a week to three months
This is the classic moving gap. Everything goes in at once, comes out at once, and access in between is occasional at best. What matters here is loading efficiency and vehicle access to the door, not how neatly the unit is arranged. If we are handling your house removal as well, we can take the load straight into storage and back out to the new property, which saves you handling everything twice.
Long term storage, three months and beyond
Here it pays to think about layout. Anything you might want during the period should sit at the front. Label every box on more than one side. Leave a walkway down the middle rather than filling the unit wall to wall, because a unit you cannot walk into is a unit you cannot use.
It is also worth being realistic about cost over time. If you are storing furniture that will not fit in a smaller home, twelve months of storage can quietly cost more than replacing it. We would rather say that at the quote stage than take the booking.
What you should not put into storage
Storage suits most household and office contents, but a few things do not belong in a unit, either because they are unsafe, because they will spoil, or because they are better kept with you.
- Food and anything perishable. It attracts pests, sealed or not.
- Plants and anything living. Units are dark and sealed.
- Petrol, gas bottles, paint, aerosols, fireworks and other flammables.
- Cash, jewellery, passports and original documents. Keep these with you.
- Anything damp. A rug that goes in wet will still be wet in March, and it will take the box next to it with it.
- Anything illegal or hazardous, which no reputable facility will accept.
Plenty of items people assume are a problem are perfectly fine. Furniture, white goods, electricals, garden equipment that has been drained and cleaned, and business records all store well. Pianos store well too, provided they are moved properly at both ends, which is a job for a team with the right trolleys and straps. There is more on that on our piano removals page.
What to look for in a secure storage facility
Storage prices in Warrington look broadly similar until you read what is included. These are the points worth asking about before you book anywhere.
- Monitoring and CCTV. Ask whether the site is monitored around the clock or simply locked at night. Our units are monitored 24 hours a day with CCTV throughout.
- Access hours. A unit you can only reach on a weekday morning is no use if you work. Ours are accessible seven days a week, 365 days a year.
- Vehicle access to the door. Carrying a wardrobe 200 metres along a corridor is a very different job to reversing a van up to your own unit. Each of our containers has vehicle access right to the door.
- Indoor or outdoor. Both work, but they suit different contents and different budgets. We can offer either or arrange storage at an alternative location if that suits you better.
- How quickly you can start. Registration should take minutes, not days.
- Flexibility. Dates move. Check you can extend, shorten or change unit size without penalty, because moving dates rarely hold the first time.
Ask too whether the provider can move your belongings as well as store them. One team for both means one point of contact, one set of dates, and nobody able to blame anybody else if something goes wrong.
Getting the right unit at Crown Removals
We are a family run firm based on Kerfoot Street in Warrington, handling storage alongside removals for households and businesses across Warrington, Cheshire and the wider North West. The full list is on our areas we cover page.
If you are moving with us, storage slots into the same job. We load room by room, protect furniture with blankets as standard, and can take everything straight into a secure storage unit in Warrington until your new property is ready. We can also supply packing materials so that everything going into storage is boxed properly in the first place, which makes far more difference to how it comes out than most people expect.
Still not sure what size you need? Tell us which rooms you are emptying and roughly how long for, and we will size it with you. There is no charge for the conversation and no obligation to book.
Get a free storage quote
Call the depot directly on 01925 899 989 and speak to someone who knows the units, or send your details through the contact form and we will come back with a price and availability. You can also see the full range of sizes, security and access options on our storage units in Warrington page.