Storage for domestic refurbishment projects

A domestic refurbishment goes better when the rooms are empty. Trades work faster, nothing gets moved from room to room three times, and the dust from plastering and sanding has nothing to settle into. The awkward part is where the contents go for the twelve weeks in between.

Here is how storage during a refurbishment usually works, and what it costs.

What to move out, and what to leave

Clear anything that cannot take dust or a knock. In practice that means upholstery, mattresses, rugs, curtains, artwork, electronics and anything wooden you care about. Also move what the trades will be working around: if the floor is coming up, the room needs to be empty, not half empty.

Leave what you genuinely use daily and keep it in one room you can close. Deciding this before the skip arrives saves a week of shuffling.

Where the storage goes

Our units are built on your property rather than delivered whole, which is what makes this practical during a refurbishment. The steel panels arrive flat-packed on a van and two people carry them in and assemble the unit on the spot. No crane, no HGV.

That means it can go on a driveway, on a parking space, in a back garden reached through a side gate, or on a patio. What we need is a route in with 2,150 mm of height clearance and a firm, reasonably level spot the size of the unit. Grass, gravel and concrete all work, and we level it on wooden blocks so air circulates underneath.

One thing to fix before the build: a loaded unit cannot be moved. If the drive is being relaid in month three, put the unit somewhere else now.

What it costs

Prices exclude VAT. Hire is billed every four weeks with a four week minimum, and installation and collection are one-off fees. Pay six months up front and both halve; pay twelve months up front and both are free. Booking online takes 10% off the hire. Transport is included within 30 road miles of our Luton depot, then £2 plus VAT per extra mile each way.

As a rough guide to size, a single room refit fits in a 2 × 2 m or 2 × 4 m, a two bedroom house in a 2 × 6 m, and a three bedroom house in a 2 × 8 m or 4 × 4 m. Our storage calculator is more precise, and the office will talk it through if you are between two.

Access while the work is going on

This is the part that matters most on a refurbishment and the part off-site storage handles worst. The unit is on your land and you hold the keys, so there are no opening hours and no drive across town. Two built-in deadlocks secure the door, so there is no padlock to buy.

Pack with that in mind. Put the things you will want during the job near the door, and if the refurbishment will run for months, leave a walkway down the centre so you can reach the back without unloading the front.

Protecting what you store

The units are steel, wind and watertight, and built to sit outdoors through a British winter. The thing to watch is not rain but condensation, which is what damages fabric and timber over a long hire. Absorpoles at £25 each sit inside and pull moisture out of the air; the bigger the unit, the more we suggest.

Beyond that, the ordinary rules apply. Heavy items low and against the walls, fragile items off the bottom of stacks, mirrors and glass upright rather than flat, and soft items filling the gaps.

Timing

We ask for 7 days’ notice to book an installation and can often manage sooner. Off-hire needs 7 working days’ notice, so as soon as the job has a real finish date, tell us. Refurbishments overrun more often than they finish early, so the rolling four week hire is usually the safer choice unless the programme is genuinely fixed.

More detail on our renovation storage page, or get an instant quote with your postcode. You can also call 0800 043 9302.