10 Foot Storage Container Rental in Philadelphia

The 10 foot is right when the stuff is valuable and the room is tight. Common loads on Philadelphia jobs:

The 10 foot's whole reason to exist is the space it fits. On a Philadelphia block that usually means a rear parking pad off an alley, a driveway in the Northeast or the far end of a business's lot. It needs firm, level ground, room at the door end to swing both doors open, and a way for the delivery truck to reach the spot. The truck is longer than the container and needs room to back up and tilt its bed, so the path in matters as much as the spot itself.

The sidewalk and the street belong to the city's right-of-way, so a container there follows the same Streets Department rules as a dumpster. Most 10 foot containers end up on private property for exactly that reason: they fit where the bigger ones don't. Our container delivery page covers what the site needs on drop-off day.

If a 20 foot fits, it's usually the better buy for a full job: twice the room on the same delivery, so the crew isn't playing Tetris every morning to reach the saw at the back. The 10 foot wins when the space decides for you, when the load is small and valuable, or when the container is one of several pieces of equipment sharing a tight lot with a dumpster and a porta potty.

Tools are what walks away from a Philadelphia job site, and a steel container with no windows is the cheapest fix. It's locked with your own padlock, so nobody else has a key. A lock box welded over the padlock blocks bolt cutters from getting a grip, which is the difference between a container that looks locked and one that stays locked. Set the doors facing a wall or the house, where a thief would have to work in view, and keep the key with the superintendent, not under a brick by the door.

A small container fills fast and gets disorganized faster. A few habits keep it usable: put what you need every day by the doors and what you need once at the back, keep the center clear so you can walk in, and stand long items like ladders and trim along the side walls. Shelving and lighting make a big difference in a 10 foot, because there's not enough floor to spread out, and a dark box at 6:30 on a December morning is hard to find a drill bit in.

A shipping container is built to ride on the deck of a ship through ocean storms, so rain, snow and Philadelphia's summer thunderstorms don't get in. What does happen in a closed steel box is condensation on humid days and cold snaps, which matters for drywall, paper, finished wood and anything that can rust. Leave a little space between the load and the walls, keep cardboard off the floor on a pallet, and crack the doors on a dry afternoon to let it air out.

Containers rent by the 28-day period, starting the day it's delivered and renewing until you call for pickup. There's no long-term contract and no guessing at the end date when you book: a job that runs long just keeps the container another period. See monthly storage container rental for how billing works, and add a dumpster or a porta potty for the same job on the same invoice.

The 10 foot is the container people don't know they can get. A few of the Philadelphia renters it fits best:

The container is short, but the truck that delivers it isn't. A 10 foot still comes on a tilt-bed truck that needs to back up straight, tilt its bed and pull forward to let the container slide off. Low wires across an alley, a tree hanging over a parking pad or a car parked at the mouth of the driveway are what stop a delivery more than the size of the spot. Send a photo of the spot and the way in when you ask for the quote, and we'll tell you before delivery day whether it works.

In a small container, how you pack it decides how much fits and whether you can find anything later. Treat the floor plan like a closet: the back wall for things you won't need until the job ends, the side walls for long items standing on end, and the front for anything you'll reach every day. Leave a narrow aisle down the middle if you can, even if it costs a little space, because a container you have to empty to reach the back is a container that slows the job down.

For furniture, wrap upholstered pieces and mattresses in plastic, stand sofas on end only if they're built for it, and put dressers and tables in first with boxes stacked on and around them. Keep boxes off the bare floor on a pallet or a sheet of plywood, label them on the side facing the door, and put the heavy ones on the bottom. A 10 foot packed this way holds far more than one loaded in a rush.

Jobs grow. If the cabinets show up early, the flooring arrives a week before the subfloor is done or the furniture from two more rooms has to come out, a 10 foot can fill up fast. A container can be swapped for a 20 foot during the rental: the bigger one comes in, the small one goes out, and the billing switches to the new size. If you think the job might grow, mention it on the quote, and we'll tell you whether the spot can take a 20 if it comes to that.