Monthly Storage Container Rental in Philadelphia

Before anything is delivered, the quote spells out every number:

A container for a few weeks is the most common rental there is: a kitchen remodel, a floor refinish, a move with a gap between closings, a basement drying out after a flood. One 28-day period covers most of them. If the job runs over, the next period starts and the container stays put. There's no penalty for keeping it longer and nothing to renegotiate.

Some containers stay for a year or more. New construction and multifamily jobs keep a container from the foundation to the punch list. A business uses one as permanent overflow storage behind the building. A school keeps one for athletic equipment, a church for festival supplies, a landscaper for seasonal gear. The same 28-day periods simply keep renewing.

On a long rental, the container doesn't need anything from you except a clear door and a locked padlock. If it needs to move to another spot on the site as the job changes, that's a relocation trip, priced on the quote, and the rental keeps running.

Buying a used container makes sense for a business that needs storage permanently, has the land for it and wants to own it. For almost everyone else, renting wins: there's nothing to sell when the job ends, no delivery to arrange twice, no maintenance, and the container leaves when you're done with it. A contractor who needs a container on three jobs a year rents three containers, each set right on the site where the work is.

When you're done, call or email for pickup. Empty the container, take your padlock off, and leave the doors closed and latched. The truck needs the same path it used for delivery, so move anything that's been parked or stacked in the way since. Billing stops when the container is picked up. See storage container delivery & pickup for what the truck needs.

A container rarely sits on a job alone. Porta potties on weekly service bill on the same 28-day cycle, and a roll-off dumpster goes on the same invoice by the haul. When the job wraps, one call schedules every pickup.

Every job is different, but these are typical rental lengths for Philadelphia renters:

Jobs change. A rehab that started with a 10 foot for tools may need a 20 once the cabinets and flooring show up, and a commercial job may outgrow a 20 and need a 40. A container can be swapped for a different size: the new one comes in and the old one goes out, and billing switches to the new size's rate from the swap. Plan it for when the old container is close to empty, so nobody has to move everything twice.

For a contractor pricing a job, a container is one of the easiest lines to budget, because the rate per period doesn't change. Multiply the rate by the number of 28-day periods the job will run, add delivery and pickup, and add one extra period for the job that runs long, which most do. Put the dumpster swaps and the porta potty service on the same estimate, and the whole site's equipment cost is on one invoice from one company.

Businesses rent containers month to month for the same reason contractors do: the need is real, but nobody knows exactly how long it will last. A retailer brings in a container before the holidays for extra stock and sends it back in January. A restaurant keeps one through a kitchen renovation and returns it when the new line is installed. A school keeps one over the summer while classrooms are painted. A property manager keeps one through a building's turnover season.

In each case, the 28-day period means the cost is the same every time the bill comes, and the rental ends the day the container leaves. For a business that needs storage every year at the same time, the container can come back next season on a new quote, and nothing has to be stored or maintained in between.

Every monthly rental is the same steel shipping container: wind- and water-tight, with cargo doors that lock with your own padlock and a floor built to carry cargo across an ocean. The extras are optional and priced on the quote: