Contractor Storage Containers: What Actually Fits in a 20 and a 40

A 20 foot container holds a one truck plumbing or electrical operation with room to spare. A 40 holds a crew. That is the short version, and most people pick wrong in one direction or the other, so here are the real numbers.

The dimensions nobody gives you up front

A standard 20 foot container is 8 feet wide and 8 feet 6 inches tall on the outside. Inside you get about 7 feet 8 inches of width and 7 feet 10 inches of height, which works out to roughly 150 square feet of floor and 1,170 cubic feet of space.

A 40 foot is the same width and height with double the length. Call it 300 square feet of floor and 2,390 cubic feet. A 40 foot high cube adds a foot of height, so 9 feet 6 inches outside and about 8 feet 10 inches inside. That foot matters if you stack pallets or stand up 10 foot sections of pipe.

The door opening on both is about 7 feet 8 inches wide and 7 feet 5 inches tall. Measure your widest thing against that number before you rent anything.

What fits in a 20

Shelving down both long walls with a clear walkway in the middle. That is the normal plumbing or electrical setup. Fittings and fixtures on the shelves, a couple of job boxes on the floor, a cart by the door.

Or skip the shelving and park equipment. A mini excavator in the 3 to 4 ton range fits with room to walk around it. A walk behind trencher and a plate compactor both live in the front third with shelving still on one wall.

Or pipe. Racked overhead on one side you can keep several hundred feet of PVC and copper up off the floor and still get a cart down the middle.

What does not work in a 20: anything you pick from daily with a pallet jack. It is too narrow to turn in.

What fits in a 40

Pallet racking down one side, two levels, with a clear 4 foot aisle. That is around 16 pallet positions and a manual jack still gets in and out.

Or split it. Front half as a work area with a bench, a vise and a cord reel, back half racked for material. Guys running concrete and roofing crews tend to use it this way, because forms and tear off tools need floor, not shelf.

Or two trades split one box, which happens more than you would think. Works fine as long as both of you have a key and nobody stores anything that leaks.

The honest limitation

Containers are deep, dark and have one door at one end. If your inventory has to be visible all at once and gets picked several times a day, a container is the wrong tool and you want a bay with a roll up door. We have those too. 5,656 square feet of warehouse with yard at $3,250 a month at the Wheat Ridge yards, which is a different animal and priced like one.

Also, add a light. Every container tenant eventually runs a battery light or a solar strip inside. The ones who do it in week one are happier than the ones who do it in month six.

What they cost

At our Colorado yards a 20 foot container is $200 a month and a 40 foot is $330, month to month. In Houston a 40 foot high cube is $215. In Arizona a 20 is $160 and a 40 is $250.

The thing that separates a container yard from a container lot is the ground around the box. You back a trailer to the door and load without moving anything else. More on that in storage container yards in Colorado.

See what is open on the availability page or call 720-266-0400.