Storage: Out of Sight...

We all have a certain amount of “stuff” about our houses that we know we won't need for some time and would rather wasn't taking up space.

This section discusses:

Existing Provision

What

Here we consider storage of items we own that are not particularly valuable and do not need careful temperature or humidity control. This includes:

How

While some keep huge amounts of clutter out on view, many us try to hide this stuff:

These locations are often cramped, damp, cold, poorly lit, not well protected from moths and vermin and are typically inconvenient to retrieve the items from in a hurry. Actually finding the right cardboard box can be a time consuming exercise.

The more desperate among us actually pay for storage rooms in what appears to be a growing industry of self-storage facilities, often several miles away from our home. Retrieving items from these therefore also entails a round trip in the car.

Volume and Frequency

Most of us have more of this stuff than we care to contemplate. Despite regular purges, we often have two garages full of boxes of gradually deteriorating items. It's actually fairly rare that we need something from this huge collection and can easily take half an hour to find what we're looking for.

Financial Model

For those who store stuff in the house, the direct cost is difficult to gauge. If we didn't have to cater for it, could we have bought a smaller house? Could we be getting cheaper car insurance if our garage was used for its intended purpose? How much would we save if things didn't have to be replaced having been eaten by mice or hidden so well we can't find them when we do, eventually, need them again?

Many people have a “box room” or “junk room” where this stuff accumulates – often to the point where the room becomes unusable for its original purpose. As with the garage option, this may have hidden costs. These could even extend to making the house feel more cramped and less attractive when prospective purchasers are shown round – potentially costing thousands of pounds.

Self-storage companies typically charge a rate based on a per square-foot per month calculation. There is therefore an incentive to “pile it high” to save floor space – but this just makes it harder and more time consuming to retrieve the item you want (as this is guaranteed to be in the far back bottom corner).

Providers

Everyone with a dwelling is an unwitting provider of storage space to themselves.

There are many self-storage companies around the country.

Trends

Higher density housing is being encouraged, particularly in towns and cities. This is not only driven by the need to house a growing population in the available space, it also makes sense from a sustainability perspective. Discounting the nominal benefit of insulating a house that having stacks of boxes against exterior walls might conceivably contribute, smaller houses require fewer resources to construct and less energy to heat or cool.

The availability of spare space to store goods is thus reducing as houses and apartments shrink. Japanese houses, in particular, are very short of space but so are most new builds where the smallest bedroom is often barely longer than a bed.

The growth of the consumer society, with most of owning vastly more “stuff” than our parents did is in direct conflict with this move to smaller properties. This is probably a large part of the reason behind the appearance of so many self-storage providers – a trend that looks likely to continue.

 Growing environmental concerns should also be encouraging us to hang on to things that still have a useful life ahead of them – even though we may not need them now or even for several years. A perfectly serviceable canteen of cutlery, for example, may no longer be needed if our spouse just splashed out on a smarter set that we can now afford. If we could put it away for when our son leaves home and needs to furnish his first home, then we'd like to do that.

With Localnet

What

While it would be nice to offer storage solutions for the complete range of things that we keep in our attics, cupboards and garages, there are some limits on what could and should be stored in a general storage service in localnet.

  1. Very fragile items should not be stored in this way. Although automated handling systems should be fairly gentle on boxes and their contents, the way in which these contents have been packed will ultimately determine their resilience to the handling they will undergo. With the best will in the world, a box could be accidentally dropped or at least put down more heavily than normal.
It will be important that boxes have airtight seals, not only from a security and tracking perspective but also to avoid odours permeating from items in shared racking. Anything that needs to “breathe” should not be stored in this way. Similarly, anything damp should not be stored as the sealed box will potentially be very mouldy after several years in storage.

How

Residents of the localnet area pack their belongings that they wish to be stored into one or more  OmniBox. Using the localnet touchpad on their DeliveryPoint, they direct these boxes to one of several “storage” destinations. The box is collected and transported to an automated storage facility where it is stored in racks of similar boxes until the owner asks for it to be returned.

A neat feature of this service is the “spoken inventory” feature. Rather than typing in a list of the contents (which can also be done for those with time on their hands and/or OCD) you just have to tap the picture of your box and talk into the screen. Describe in as much or as little detail as you like what you are putting in the box. Top the list up with more items as you fill the box to the brim. Then, whenever you want to find something, you'll be able to see all your stored boxes, listed by date they went into storage and listen to your inventory before deciding which to retrieve.

It may be appropriate for a specialised type of box to be used rather than the normal  OmniBox. A “StorageBox” designed for racked or stacked storage where it may not be retrieved for several years has a very different life from an  OmniBox that is being used every day for deliveries and collections. It should be a simpler, cheaper box, without the internal dividers, potentially with thinner, perhaps steel or aluminium walls giving it greater internal volume while keeping it rigid enough for several other boxes to be stacked on top of it. A metal shell would also be more resistant to rodent attack. A more robust locking mechanism than normal, that only the owner of the contents can undo would also be beneficial.

Volume and Frequency

There may be a great temptation to fill dozens of boxes as soon as localnet becomes available to you. A heavy burst of storage like this would require many boxes to be delivered to you in short order and hence take up a lot of space on the delivery van, potentially requiring additional trips.

Ideally, users fill a box occasionally or at least no more than one a day so that these – non time critical transfers to storage – can be efficiently fitted in around the more urgent contents of a delivery round.

Once a householder has reached “equilibrium” it should be a very occasionally used service. Perhaps a couple of times a year another box is sent to storage.

Frequency of retrieval (and probably re-storing having extracted something from a box) may happen only a few times a year or much more frequently – according to what proportion of one's chattels have been stored. In most cases, the need for the item is known in plenty of time and retrieval within 48 or even 72 hours may be perfectly acceptable. Although it would only take a few hours to retrieve a box from a nearby storage facility, offering this as the standard level of service:

Also, being very large, these centralised facilities become more cost effective per square foot and allow greater automation of the storage and retrieval process. They also become cheaper to maintain at an acceptable temperature as the surface area to volume ratio decreases.

On moving house into a localnet area - especially if down-sizing - having a supply of StorageBox alongside the normal removal boxes would allow a family to sort and thin at the same time. The StorageBox can then be shipped straight to the storage depot leaving the family with only those items they need in their new property.

Financial Model

If we want to encourage reuse of items rather than a throwaway society, then the storage costs should be as low as possible while still making this service viable. If every resident were given a small free allowance (maybe four  OmniBoxes and 10 movements per annum) this would encourage them to try out the service.

Additional charges could be levied for those who need:

Additional subsidies, on the other hand, could be given to those taking smaller properties. A bedsit in an ecotown development, for example, might have as an automatic entitlement, twenty StorageBoxes and a hundred box movements per annum thrown in as part of the purchase price or service charges.

In fact, any move to an eco-town (or other area with localnet coverage) could incorporate storage options as part of the removal process. It will be in a removal firm's interest to reduce their labour costs by leaving a proportion of their customer's belongings at the loading bay in the LocalHub rather than carrying them each into the new property.

The service should include, as standard, insurance against theft, fire, flood etc. Accidental damage insurance is potentially open to abuse as people could pack items that are already broken when packed. It may be that the localnet staff member collecting the box has to sign off the contents as intact should this insurance be required. A high resolution photo or two of the contents might be required for higher value items or where fraud is suspected.

Theft, on the other hand is harder to fake. As long as each box is weighed as it is collected (an automatic operation in the DeliveryPoint and/or delivery van), sealed throughout its time in storage and weighed again on retrieval then one can refute any claim of theft if the weights noted on collection and subsequent delivery match closely.

Providers

As with several of the other services discussed, it may make sense for the current providers of the nearest equivalent service (in this case self-storage companies) to convert some or all of their storage space to serve as localnet storage rather than their current “walk-in” spaces.

Alternatively, and certainly until the demand is proven and can be predicted well enough to plan serious investments in serving it, localnet providers may have to offer this service themselves.

Evolution

The first implementations of localnet storage depots are likely to be partially automated and may require manual placing and retrieval of boxes. As volume builds, however, this will justify investment in automated pick and place systems with boxes stacked several storeys high and in solid blocks several boxes on each side. These would operate much like the way cars are garaged in some multi-storey car parks in Manhattan. There, cars are raised to the appropriate level and then completely fill an area, hence requiring several to be moved if you want one out from the back.

 

Comparison

The table below assesses the impact of localnet on this service on a scale of -5 to +5 (details here)

  Existing services As part of localnet Score
Scope Self-store units will hold even large items. Only items that will fit in a standard StorageBox. -2
Frequency Trip to the storage unit is a deterrent to frequent use. Ease of collection and retrieval should encourage use for things that are needed more often +1
Security Lock-up units quite secure. Boxes locked and traceable. 0
Convenience Depends where you live and how deep you stack your space. Assumes you can get to the storage unit. Easy to get the specific box back. Accessible to those without transport or housebound. +3
Cost Very variable according to volume and location. Flat rate per box and per transfer but must cover cost of the box. 0
Quality Depends where and how well you stack your items. It's easy to crush cardboard boxes; to let rodents get at them or to leave them somewhere damp or dusty. Sealed robust boxes give consistent, vermin proof storage. +1
Carbon Footprint Driving to and from storage is inefficient. Marginal extra transport cost. Fills gaps on existing deliveries. +2
Time Depends on distance to storage unit. Takes just seconds to enter storage details or request retrieval. +3
Resources Used Reuses cardboard boxes typically. More robust, probably metal boxes tied up long term but availability will encourage reuse of items rather than junk and buy new. +1
Reuse & Recycling Hassle of keeping stuff means some goods are sent for recycling rather than kept for possible later use. Lower hassle encourages keeping for reuse - which is better than recycling. +1
Landfill Waste Hassle of storing stuff means some items are thrown out rather than kept for possible reuse. More items being reused means less landfill. +1
Other Differentiators Encourages smaller, higher density dwellings. +2

Services