Thoughts on having a storage unit for my scrap and items I will sell...

I live in a subdivision with strict (read: enforced) deed restrictions so several months ago I rented a small storage unit for some items I had won at auction. I wasn't going to be able to plow through all of the material immediately (this was before I was scrapping full-time) and I figured the HOA would prefer that I not store it in my driveway. Since then I moved up to a slightly larger unit (5x10) and today I moved into a 10x30. Thinking being that I can store the scrap and make one big trip every couple of weeks and/or I can hoard if prices are low like they are now. We also started selling several items for more than scrap value at 1-2 garage sells per month and ebay/CL and the larger unit gives us space to store more inventory. Downside = $180/mo ($250/mo in six months after the promotion goes away.)



Do any of you other fine folks maintain storage units for these or other purposes? Any thoughts on upside/downside I may have missed?

The cost of these units seem crazy to me. How are they able to rent them out at such a high cost, you would think they would have a ton of open units. Granted I have a 3 car garage at home and have a ton of crap in it, to the point I'm lucky to fit a bike in it.

I'm pretty shocked that more people don't live in them, with this economy

Just an idea, and this would be smaller than what you have...but what about an enclosed trailer in your driveway to work out of?

I actually have a small camp trailer in my driveway to work from. In my AZ home, not here in NC. So it does work.

A camp trailer would be awesome. Great idea. But I'd still have the issue on where to store the processed scrap. Went out for 4ish hours tonight and the 10x30 is about 1/5th full and I have a garage full of stuff to break down. Some of that stuff in the storage unit is re-sell.

I do plan on working out of the unit some. I still have about 25 monitors to break down and I plan on doing that there. As long as my cordless power tools last, at least. I don't have electricity nearby my unit that I can use.

Thanks for the feedback.

You might need to break your shred down to stackable pieces if you don't keep the storage unit

I have a pop up garage from costco that is 10x20 and paid 200 cdn for it and it has been working out great, just got to watch where sparks fly and in the winter when it snows you have to remember to go out and bang the snow off the roof.

I love my inverter. Good idea.

Or repurpose a UPS and use it as an inverter running off your car/truck battery. I have a 10x20 and a 10x30 both 1 mile from my scrap yard. LOVE it! I'm also renting a 2 car garage with a loft. Best decision I've made so far in this business. Boxes and shipping supplies are upstairs and out of the way, but when a resale item comes in, I have everything I need to ship it out. I started with a 10x10 this time last year. Now I have > 1000 ft sq of storage and I'm starting to really get out of my own way enough to successfully hit the resale markets. However... I can say, the overhead kills you if you don't have a business so the rent can be taken as a deduction. Next step is a warehouse, but that's a big step for me as a part-timer with a FT job and a 3 hr round trip commute daily.

Building the master plan in small incremental steps! Seems like it takes forever, but looking back I can't believe how far I've come since I sold my first piece of scrap just over 18 months ago!

Great idea on the inverter and suggested items, particularly the coffee pot. :-) I need a new battery for my truck as it is so that setup might not be too far down the road.

Originally Posted by alekwb

I live in a subdivision with strict (read: enforced) deed restrictions so several months ago I rented a small storage unit for some items I had won at auction. I wasn't going to be able to plow through all of the material immediately (this was before I was scrapping full-time) and I figured the HOA would prefer that I not store it in my driveway. Since then I moved up to a slightly larger unit (5x10) and today I moved into a 10x30. Thinking being that I can store the scrap and make one big trip every couple of weeks and/or I can hoard if prices are low like they are now. We also started selling several items for more than scrap value at 1-2 garage sells per month and ebay/CL and the larger unit gives us space to store more inventory. Downside = $180/mo ($250/mo in six months after the promotion goes away.)

Do any of you other fine folks maintain storage units for these or other purposes? Any thoughts on upside/downside I may have missed?

If cost is an issue on storage you might consider prioritizing what you break down (which you probably already do). Perhaps you can stick with a smaller unit and move the items quicker. For me most steel and aluminum that requires lots of cleaning for better price, I just recycle it as contaminated. You get a little better price but you also loose weight as well, unless its a quick cut, it goes in the contaminated pile. Also getting rid of the bigger items first helps to make room in storage.

I have more at the house (about 15 servers, 25 laptops, a box full of optical drives, some breakage, about a dozen TVs,) but this is how it's coming along. Sellable items in the back, scrap to the right, monitors in the middle, and a mess of cable I've got to go through on the left. And a little over 100# of motors in the foreground on the right. I'm starting to refer to my storage unit as my very expensive bank.