The most common question we get, and the one people most often get wrong in both directions. Here's how to work it out properly before you book.
We do three container sizes. A 5ft is 5 x 8ft with 9ft of headroom (40 sq ft, about 10m³) and takes a single room's worth of things. A 10ft is 10 x 8ft, also 9ft high (80 sq ft, about 20m³), and holds roughly the contents of a one-bedroom flat. A 20ft is 20 x 8ft and 8ft high (160 sq ft, about 36m³), and holds the contents of a typical three-bedroom house. Worth knowing: the 5ft and 10ft are a foot taller inside than the 20ft. If you're storing a car's worth of boxes and a few bits of furniture, 10ft is plenty. If you're clearing a whole family home, or you want to walk into the container rather than stack it solid, go 20ft. Caravans, motorhomes, boats and trailers don't go in a container at all — they go on an outdoor hardstanding pitch.
A 5ft container measures 5ft long by 8ft wide and stands 9ft high — 40 sq ft of floor and around 10m³ of space. That makes it roughly the size of a large garden shed, but a dry, steel, lockable one on a monitored site.
It takes a single room's worth of belongings comfortably: a bed, a chest of drawers, a handful of boxes and the odd bulky item. It's also the size most people want for the jobs that aren't a house move — a motorbike over winter, garden furniture and a mower out of the rain, a student's things over the summer, or a trade tool store that isn't the back of a van.
The extra height is more useful than it sounds. At 9ft you get a genuine second level of stacking above head height, so the floor area understates what it holds. Shelving down one side turns it into a proper store rather than a pile.
If you're clearing a whole flat, this isn't the one — go up to a 10ft. But for a room, a hobby, or a van's worth of kit, it's the cheapest secure space we do at £96 a month including VAT.
A 10ft container is 10 x 8ft with 9ft of headroom — 80 sq ft of floor and around 20m³, about the size of a single garage bay. In practice that means a sofa, a bed, a wardrobe, a chest of drawers, a dining table with chairs, a washing machine, and somewhere between twenty and thirty boxes — with room to move things around rather than wedging them in.
It's the right choice if you're storing the contents of a one-bedroom flat, clearing a couple of rooms while you decorate, putting a student's belongings away over the summer, or keeping tools and materials off the van overnight.
Where people get caught out is bulk rather than weight. Mattresses, sofas and garden furniture eat space fast. Three sofas and a mattress will fill a 10ft on their own, however few boxes you've got.
A 20ft container is 20 x 8ft and 8ft high — 160 sq ft and around 36m³, double the floor space of a 10ft. It's our most-booked unit for a reason: it comfortably takes the contents of a three-bedroom house, including white goods, beds, sofas, wardrobes, garden furniture and the loft.
It's also the sensible choice when you need to get at your things regularly. In a 20ft you can stack down one side and keep a walkway down the other, so the boxes you need in week six aren't buried behind the ones you packed in week one. If you're running a business out of the unit, that walkway is the difference between a five-minute visit and a forty-minute one.
Trade customers usually land on a 20ft as well — racking down one wall, stock down the other, and room to reverse a van up to the doors.
Don't count rooms. Count what you'd struggle to lift on your own.
Walk the house and note the big items: sofas, beds, mattresses, wardrobes, tables, appliances, garden furniture, bikes. If that list runs past about eight or ten items, you're into 20ft territory regardless of how few boxes you have. If it's under that, a 10ft will almost certainly do.
Then add a bit for how you'll use it. Storing and forgetting for six months? Pack tight and size down. Dipping in every week? Size up so you can actually walk in.
Ring us and describe what you've got. We do this every week and we'd far rather size you correctly first time than move you later — an under-sized unit means things left outside or a second trip, and an over-sized one means you're paying for air.
If you genuinely are on the line, two things are worth knowing. Stepping up a size is £29 a month from 5ft to 10ft, or £55 from 10ft to 20ft — usually less than a second van hire or a wasted Saturday. And if you outgrow the unit you took, we'll move you up as soon as one is free rather than making you sit it out.
Caravans, motorhomes, boats, ribs, jet skis, trailers and plant go on an outdoor hardstanding pitch, not inside a container. A pitch is £120 a month including VAT, on level ground with wide gateways so you can turn and reverse without jacks, chocks or churned-up mud.
Plenty of customers take both — a pitch for the caravan and a 10ft alongside it for the awning, the outdoor furniture and the kit that would otherwise live in the garage all winter.