Six Reasons to Buy and Six Reasons to Rent Storage Containers

Should We Buy or Borrow?

As a small and mid-size contractor you’ve got many decisions to make on a daily basis. How to deploy crews to maximize your returns, what will your crews do today now that the material you were promised did not get delivered, how are you going to get the invoices out and the certified payroll in, and tomorrow it starts all over again?  A huge issue (headache) for most contractors is dealing with equipment; factors like deployment, maintenance, and cost are a continuing frustration. Fortunately contractors have the option to rent or to buy capital equipment.

Six reasons you should buy your storage containers:
1) Containers don’t cost a significant amount of money for so you are not tying up a great deal of cash.
2) If you buy right, containers generally don’t cost a lot to maintain.
3) Once you load up your stuff you can ship your tools and equipment back to your yard or to the next site.
4) It’s your container so you can “brand” it with your logo, tag lines and phone number turning one of your tools of the trade into a small marketing bill board.
5) You will be responsible to repair any dents or significant paint damage. You will need to clean it out and broom sweep it prior to returning it or have it power washed if it has a great deal of dirt or mud splashed on it.
6) If renting a container you will more than likely be responsible to provide and insurance certificate specific to the container.

Six Reasons you should rent your storage containers:
1) If your projects require you to travel in a large geographic area, it may cost more to ship your container to the project site than it does to rent one locally.
2) Your field crew may be the greatest bunch of people in the world but sometimes they are not always the most careful. After a while your high dollar container “branding” may get a little tattered looking, your customer may not appreciate a beat up piece of equipment on the job site.
3) If the roof leaks, or the cam locks break than it’s some else’s responsibility to fix it.
4) All the arrangements to deliver, rent and pick up can be made with a single phone call. No need to send a truck back to a site to pick up your container after de-mobilizing.
5) When the container is idle you won’t have a container taking up valuable yard space.
6) Working capital will not be tied up in equipment, the rental costs can be charged directly to the job. Renting storage containers for job site use with get you a good looking, well maintained piece of equipment for plus or minus $100/month depending on the size, length of rental and marketplace.

I realize I didn’t provide a definitive answer but rather a list of items you to consider for your particular situation. Which one you choose is entirely up to you and maybe a combination of both renting some of your site storage containers and buying storage containers for other projects will best fit your particular situation. If you have any further questions or would like help sourcing equipment please feel free to contact me.