Organizing Your Storage Unit With Boltless Shelving

If you can remember, the economy pretty much went into the dumper a few years back.  A lot of people lost their homes and there was an unprecedented surge/demand in the storage unit industry as people scrambled to find a place for their belongings and began renting storage units.

Now for some of us, this was a very temporary fix.  And for others, sadly enough many of their possessions remain in storage until some indefinite time in the future.  For others it may have helped them find extra value in cleaning out their garages  and putting outdoors gear, seasonal decorations and other odds-and-ends into a storage unit for the first time ever.  And perhaps those same people found using a storage shed helped rid themselves of the “clutter” in their garages and homes.

BUT, when they began to box stuff up and stack stuff in their storage units these people perhaps forgot one major, helpful tip and their storage units began to look like THIS:

Wow!  Stack upon stack of boxes, furniture and other things with no rhyme or reason to them.  Now if your storage unit does look like this, here is how a simple tip can turn it into a highly organized and impressive storage unit.  Here is how…

First; does your storage unit look like this:

Or this?

If so, here is an awesome solution!

Buy a few units of a industrial-strength shelving solution called boltless shelving.  This can be found a most material handling companies and will pay back that investment in the long term, double and even triple fold!

This is what that shelving can do to organize your storage unit.  If a picture is truly worth 1,000 words, then here is what your storage shed most likely looks like without any shelving set up, whatsoever.

Gravity is not your friend if you are looking to store things for longer than a few months. Odds are you placed your things in sturdy cardboard boxes were built pretty thick, but still these boxes are dangerous in six-foot-tall stacks because they can suddenly tip over and cause you an awful lot of pain, but also they are slowly–ever so slowly–crushing the contents under their staggering, combined weight.

The longer that these stacks sit there, the more they’re going to compress  upon themselves.  That isn’t going to go well for grandma’s treasured Lladro figurines that she handed down to you, and your daughters.

Also notice how hard it would be to try and get even halfway into this storage shed to access seasonal holiday decorations, or a suddenly needed binder or piece of camping gear?  The only way to get back in there is to spend 30 minutes removing box after box from the storage unit to clear a pathway inside.  This is a chore that takes times and is very tedious to do each and every instance as well when you need something from the back of the storage unit.

By buying a simple boltless shelving rack system, you can not only increase the ease of accessing anything in that storage unit, but you can also help protect those boxes better as well since they will not be stacked upon each other, like columns.

When we think about it, a boltless shelving system should be required for anyone looking to use a storage shed for an extended period of time.  The way these shelving units are constructed allows them to be easily set up without any tools, but the unsurpassed weight capacity of both single rivet and double rivet boltless shelving designs make these types of shelving perfect for storage units.

For example, those cheap little shelving units that you find in Lowes or some other hardware store aren’t going to hold up to the weight you will stack in that storage unit.

Boltless shelving (single and double rivet) holds several hundred, if not thousands of pounds, depending on the span and the type.  Remember that you “get what you pay for” and when it comes to shelving, you want something whose legs won’t fold and create a disaster in that shed; so dig deep/save your pennies and take a serious look at boltless shelving options.

Now, here is what one of our clients did with several sections of boltless shelving in his storage unit.  Since the unit was used in storing outdoor gear that weighed quite a bit, he decided to go with a double rivet design.  If you are confused at the difference between the two, read more about boltless shelving on our other blog entry by CLICKING HERE.

So with these shelving racks he also purchased those large Rubbermaid totes where he could keep things protected from the elements, and organized in each bin.  Notice how easy it is to get at anything in this storage unit, and not have to move box upon box, upon box to get at something.

He confesses that this boltless racking solution cost was more than the cheap stuff, but it won’t bend or fold, giving him assurance his gear is protected.  This design has also saved him hours in having to dig through box upon box, and totes that were stacked (pancaked) upon each other when he needed something for his outdoor adventures.

Plus in these photos did you notice something else?  Notice how the boltless shelving offers protection from the GROUND.  These bins, and other stored items are NOT touching the ground!  And that helps if there is flooding, or a water leak or anything else that could seep in under that storage unit door and ruin your valuables in those cardboard boxes.

Ask yourself; “How valuable is what I am storing and what would happen if there was even a quarter inch of water on the floor?”  Not only does this boltless shelving solution organize, but it protects by keeping that stuff three inches off the floor.

Face it; easy is good.  We like easy and having a storage unit shelving system makes things that easy.  If you have a storage unit, and want it to be easily accessible and protect your valuables than the minor investment of a shelving system can prove invaluable to you.