What size storage container do I need?

For most homes the answer is one container. A single 250 cu ft container holds roughly a Luton van load, or the contents of a one to two bedroom flat including the furniture, and that covers a large share of the storage jobs we quote. Larger homes simply use more containers, each one loaded and sealed separately at your address.

That is the short answer, and it is honest as far as it goes. The fuller answer is worth ten minutes of your time, because “what size” is the wrong question in one important way. Container storage is not sold by the square foot like a self-storage room, where you pick a unit size and live with the consequences of your guess. It is sold by the container, and the container count is something we work out together from what you actually own. This page walks through how that sizing works, what pushes a job from one container to two, and why the survey settles the count rather than a calculator.

The one-container benchmark

Each of our containers is a sealed wooden box with a solid floor and lockable doors, built to our own specification and stored at our own yard in Harlow under 24 hour security and CCTV. The interior measures 250 cubic feet. In real terms:

• It holds about what a Luton van holds in one trip.
• That is enough for the contents of a one to two bedroom flat, furniture included. Beds, wardrobes, sofas, a dining table and a full household of boxes all fit.
• The interior is tall enough to stand in, so stacking is straightforward rather than a puzzle.
• There are no shelves or racking inside. The absence is deliberate. It gives the loading crew full control over how each item is placed and padded.

If your whole home fits the one to two bedroom description, stop reading pricing calculators now. You are a one-container job in most cases, and the survey will confirm it.

The three things that decide the count

When we size a storage job, three inputs matter, and they are not equally important. Knowing which one carries the weight helps you estimate your own job before you even call us.

Bulky items first, always. Furniture decides the count, not boxes. Sofas, wardrobes, mattresses, white goods, dining tables and anything else that cannot be squeezed make up the skeleton of the load, and the boxes are stacked into the gaps around them. Two homes with identical room counts can need different container counts entirely because one had a piano and the other did not. When customers guess their own sizing, this is the part they get wrong: they count rooms, forget the garage fridge, and the sums fall apart. List your large pieces honestly, including the ones in the loft and the shed, and you are most of the way there.

Box count second. Boxes are the forgiving part of the load. They stack into corners, fill the footwell under a table, and slot into the space a dismantled bedframe leaves behind. Books, clothes, kitchenware and paperwork rarely force a second container on their own. What they do is fill a container efficiently or inefficiently depending on who is loading it, which is one of the quieter arguments for letting our crew do it.

Room count last, as a sanity check. The number of bedrooms is a rough map of the other two, useful for a ballpark and nothing more. A minimally furnished two-bed let between tenants and a packed two-bed family home with a loft both read as “two bedrooms” on paper and are different jobs in person. This is why no honest storage company sizes a job from the room count alone over the phone.

Why the survey settles it, not a calculator

You will find container size calculators all over the web, and most of them ask you to tick room counts and spit out a volume. We could build one. We have not, because sizing a load from a form is exactly how the wrong container count gets booked, and the person who pays for that mistake is you, either in storage weeks for containers you did not need or in the mess of a load that does not fit.

So we look instead. Tell us what is going into storage and when, and we confirm the container count and the access at your address, usually on a video call or a walk-through. Then you get an accurate written quote covering the collection, the loading, the storage weeks and the redelivery. The count is agreed before anything moves, and nothing gets rediscovered on loading day.

The full detail of how the container itself works, the sealing and the security, sits on our container storage in London page.

What happens if the answer is more than one

Nothing dramatic, and that is the point. For larger homes we simply use multiple containers, each loaded and sealed separately, so your goods stay in your containers and nothing of yours shares a unit with a stranger’s furniture. The seal on each one goes on in front of you and the numbers are logged.

Because pricing runs per container per week, the arithmetic stays legible too. Our rates are £20 + VAT per week for stays under 8 weeks and £15 + VAT per week from 8 weeks onward, so a second container adds a second container’s weekly rate and changes nothing else about the job. If you want to see what different stay lengths do to the total bill, our storage cost guide works through the sums in full.

When the sizing question is really a move question

Most people asking about container size are not storing furniture for the fun of it. They are in the gap between two addresses, and the storage is riding alongside a move. If that is you, the container count matters less than you think, because the whole thing runs as one job: our crew collects your goods, loads the containers at your address, stores them, and brings everything back to the new place when you are ready. One crew from the first box to the last, and one quote to match. Our removals with storage in London page covers how the combined booking works.

One sizing question that does matter in that situation is timing. If your dates slip, the containers simply keep sitting at the yard at the same weekly rate, and if your stay will run past eight weeks, the longer-stay rate rewards you for it. There is no penalty for a gap that turns out longer than planned, which for anyone caught in a chain is worth more than a slightly tidier container count.

And if part of you is wondering whether a container is even the right product, that is a fair question to ask before sizing anything. Sealed containers win on custody and handling but lose on mid-stay access, and our container storage vs self-storage comparison sets out which situation suits which, including the cases where we will tell you to book a self-storage unit instead.

Prefer to talk first? Call 0207 846 0282 or email info@avivremovals.com. List out the big pieces and tell us how long the gap is, and we will tell you the container count and the full job price, set in writing after the survey.

Written by Adam, owner of Aviv Removals - 15 years in the removals trade.