Self storage is one of those arrangements that starts as a stopgap and quietly becomes permanent. A unit taken during a house move or a divorce or a probate is still being paid for four years later, and by then the monthly cost has long overtaken the value of what is inside it. A storage unit clearance in Bamber Bridge is a job we get asked about regularly, and it has one complication that a house clearance does not, which is that you almost certainly cannot put the skip where the belongings are. Arranging Bamber Bridge skip hire for this needs a slightly different plan.
Why a storage unit clearance in Bamber Bridge happens at home
Storage facilities do not generally permit a skip on their site, and the reasons are reasonable ones from their point of view. The yards are laid out for vans and trolleys with tight turning circles, the surfaces are not built for a lorry with a loaded skip on the back, and a shared skip in a yard full of tenants is an invitation for everybody else to fill it overnight. A few operators will allow it by arrangement. Most will not, and it is worth asking the site manager before you plan anything rather than assuming either way.
That means the practical route for nearly everyone is to bring the contents home in van loads and work through them there, with a skip on the drive. It sounds like more work and in reality it is less, because sorting in a unit under a strip light with no room to make piles is miserable and slow, whereas sorting in a garage or on a driveway is quick.
Working out what is actually in there
Go and look before you book anything. People are consistently wrong about the contents of a unit they have not opened in two years, in both directions. Some find the good furniture they remembered has been sitting against a damp wall and is beyond saving. Others find three quarters of it is boxes of items they would not now buy, and that the whole thing fits in a single load.
Damp is the recurring theme. Units are usually dry, but soft furnishings, mattresses, upholstered chairs and boxed textiles that went in without being fully dry do not recover, and neither does chipboard furniture that has been stacked against an outside wall. Anything that smells when you open the box will smell the same after a week in the garden, so the decision is easier than it feels at the time.
Set aside paperwork and anything sentimental for a separate pass rather than doing it in the unit with the clock running. Our piece on skip hire for furniture and bulky household items covers how the larger items load, which is the part that dictates the size you need.
What cannot come back with the rest
Storage contracts prohibit fuel, gas and chemicals, so in theory none of it is in there. In practice the things people find at the back of a unit include camping gas cylinders, half tins of paint from the decorating job that prompted the move in the first place, a strimmer with fuel still in the tank and occasionally a car battery. None of that can travel in a mixed skip load. Fridges, freezers and televisions are the same story and go through the electrical route instead.
Sizing the skip for a unit
Storage contents are bulky rather than heavy, which is the key to getting this right. Boxes, soft furnishings and flat pack furniture take volume and almost no weight, so a 4 tonne midi skip handles a small unit comfortably and you will fill the space long before you approach the limit. For a larger unit, or where a household’s entire contents have been in storage since a move fell through, the 8 tonne builders skip is the one to take, because carrying furniture up over a high side is hard work and having the room to keep going matters. Our full range of skip sizes gives the internal dimensions if you want to compare against what you are bringing back.
Break down what you can. Flat pack furniture that comes apart, drawers pulled out of carcasses and boxes flattened rather than tipped in whole will roughly halve what the same contents occupy. It is dull work and it saves a skip.
Placement and the permit question
Most properties around Bamber Bridge have a driveway that takes a skip, which avoids the permit entirely and is the simplest way to do it. Where the skip has to stand on the road, Lancashire County Council is the highway authority under the Highways Act 1980 and the permit currently costs thirty six pounds per month. We handle the application when you book, and we would rather know at that point than on the morning of delivery.
What happens once we take it away
Storage loads are unusually good for recovery, because they are heavy in timber, textiles, metal and cardboard and light in the material that has nowhere useful to go. It all comes back to our own recycling centre to be separated and sent on, which is a better end for it than another year of standing charges.
Clearances across the wider area
We deliver for this kind of job right across the district, including for customers arranging Lostock Hall skip hire and those covered by Leyland skip hire. If the van loads are coming back over two or three weekends, tell us and we will time the skip so you are not paying for it to sit empty.
Ring our team on 01772 364399 and describe the size of the unit and we will tell you what skip that usually translates into. You can also get a price from us before you start so you know the number before you give notice on the unit.
