Whether it’s for stockpiling or extra workspace, many businesses rely on our units to offer storage solutions. As the business grows, it makes sense to adapt your unit for easier access. This could be for a range of reasons, from making it easier for people to come in and out day to day, to creating better access to stored items.
With some straightforward modifications, you can make your storage stress-free with improved and easy access.
Flexibility Of Access
Our units are versatile and can be modified to suit a vast range of applications. Making units more accessible is often useful for high traffic sites, such as depots, warehouses, and more. It’s also a good way to improve efficiency – it goes without saying that storing items in an easy to access location will make it quicker to collect or move these items.
There are many ways you can make them more accessible:
Ramps
Units have a 4 inch (approximately) lip from the floor, which can make it difficult to lift heavy objects, or pallets of stock, inside the unit. This is where a ramp can come in handy.
Attaching a ramp to the entrance reduces the chance of any health and safety risk associated with lifting, and makes it much easier to load items into the unit.
Additionally, heavy-duty ramps can be used for loading vehicles into a crate, which is ideal for anyone who needs to store cars or motorbikes.
Tunnel
Tunnel containers have two access points at either end. Two access entry points allows improved access to contents, as items can be retrieved from storage no matter which end of the unit they are.
Having two end cargo doors also means that the box can be split into two, so for example half of the unit could be used for warehousing, and the other half an office. This can also benefit those with self-storage sites as you can split one unit into two halves, with a separate access point for each customer.
Side Opening
Side opening containers are often used for onsite housing of bulky items, exhibiting at events, or to pop-up retail stands.
As the name suggests, side opening doors are on the longer side of the unit, so provide a wider access point than a traditional cargo door. This offers much more room to manoeuvre bulky items, or a wide entrance for visitors to step into a retail stand.
Personnel Doors
If you plan on having a converted unit as an office or work hut, fitting a personnel door is a great option to improve accessibility.
A personnel door is a ‘traditional’ style door that is robust, weatherproof, and can be locked with a key like a normal door. Personnel doors are also much easier to open and close many times throughout the day, as opposed to large double cargo doors!
How To Make Your Solution More Accessible
Needless to say, any unit is virtually useless if you can’t get inside of it! However, making them more accessible based on your needs shouldn’t be a daunting task.
First, think about what it is being used for. If you need to store pallets of stock and move them with a forklift, you would be better with a tunnel or side opening entrance. If the stored items are heavy or tricky to move, such as heavy boxes or liquids that might spill, using ramps would be recommended to make storing these items more straightforward.
You’ll also need to consider how often your unit is used. An office conversion, for example, would benefit from having a personnel door installed so it’s easy for staff to come in and out of the unit many times a day. You would also need to make the space accessible for disabled visitors, so you may need to think about adding a ramp to the door.
If you’re unsure of how best to optimise your accessibility, speak to our experienced team at S Jones Containers. With over 40 years of knowledge and experience in the sale, hire and conversion of storage solutions, we can recommend an accessible solution for you.
