Where Do Construction Companies Store Materials Between Jobs?

Where Do Construction Companies Store Materials Between Jobs?

You finish a job Friday. The next one does not start for three weeks. The trailer is loaded, the truck is full, and the extra material has to go somewhere.

There are four places it usually goes. Here is what each one actually costs and what it costs you when it goes wrong.

1. Leave it on the job site

Free, and that is the only thing going for it.

Copper, tools and fuel walk off open sites constantly. Worse, once the job closes out you often cannot leave anything there at all. This works for a weekend. It does not work between jobs.

2. A self storage unit

Better than a job site. Still a poor fit for construction.

You are paying for a climate controlled room inside a building you have to walk into. Corridors, carts, sometimes an elevator. There is a height limit on the drive aisle and no way to park a trailer in front of the door while you load.

A 10x20 unit in the Denver metro runs somewhere near $200 to $300 a month and gives you 200 square feet you have to carry everything into. We compared the two directly in container storage yard vs self storage.

3. A small industrial lease

This is the real shop option, and sometimes it is the right one.

You get power, heat, a roll up door and a place to work on things. If you need a bench and a compressor, take the lease.

What it costs you is commitment. Small industrial in the metro usually runs one to five years. Several months up front. Utilities on top. Often build out on top of that. If the work slows down in February you are still paying for a heated building you are not standing in.

Full breakdown here: contractor storage yard vs industrial lease. If you do want a building, Box Yard has a warehouse and yard space in Wheat Ridge.

4. A storage yard with a container

Fenced gravel yard, gated, rented by the month. Your own assigned space. A 20 or 40 foot steel container sitting on it.

The truck parks there. The trailer parks there. The tools and material lock in the box on the same space. One address, one gate code.

At Box Yard that starts at $525 a month for space plus a container. A container on its own is $180 for a 20 foot and $325 for a 40 foot. Month to month, so you can give 30 days notice when the work changes.

More on the day to day of it in where contractors store trucks, trailers and equipment.

How to pick

If you need power, heat and a work surface, take the industrial lease. Nothing else replaces a shop.

If what you actually need is somewhere to put vehicles and material, a lease means paying for enclosed heated space you barely walk into, and you cannot get out of it when things slow down. That is where the yard wins.

Box Yard runs three Colorado yards: Arvada and two in Wheat Ridge, Van Gordon and Tabor.

Check what is open or call 720 266 0400.