Choosing to rent a storage unit is a big investment for anyone. The expense of keeping a storage unit space can be quite a big chunk out of the family finances, but if you have items that need to be stored in a certain way and need to be looked after, the price may actually outweigh the risk for you.
Nowhere is this more commonly seen than when storing things that require a specific temperature and humidity to be kept safe.
Getting Some Expert Advice
Here at Storage Area, we put homeowners and businesses in touch with storage unit owners across the USA, and we help to facilitate finding the best-priced storage area for your needs, including storage areas that have climate control to ensure that your items will be safe and looked after during your storage time.
Many items can go into storage that really don’t need any special requirements, but here are six items that will benefit from having a storage area that is climate controlled and humidity controlled to ensure that they are kept safe.
1. Long Term Food Storage
It’s worth checking your contract with your chosen storage unit rentals because some storage unit owners don’t allow you to store food items in your storage unit, including those in cans and tins.
For most climate-controlled storage areas, however, it is usually possible to store both cans and tins because the risk of them breaking or exploding due to a change in temperature is mitigated by the climate-controlled system. If you are into your prepping, preserving, or just like to keep a food store for long-term storage, then a climate-controlled storage unit may be something that is really helpful for you.
2. Photos and Cinefilm
Young people today have rarely ever seen a photograph in the flesh, but for those of us of a certain age, we know only too painfully that badly stored paper photographs can end up with erased memories lost forever.
Both photographs and tape film (such as cine film) really need to be stored in a dark, dry area that runs at a constant temperature of between 25 and 40 degrees Fahrenheit (25F for color film, and between 35F-40F for black and white). Cine film and photographs stored in higher temperatures can really begin to degrade, and this can be heartbreaking for families trying to save their precious memories.
3. Wooden Furniture
Furniture made out of natural materials such as wood, bamboo, and even wicker and straw, really benefits from being kept at a reasonable temperature and humidity. While most furniture is designed to withstand the changing temperatures inside a home over winter and summer, if you choose a storage unit with no climate control that may drop below freezing in the winter and get very hot in the summer; your wooden and natural materials furniture is really likely to suffer.
In this case, it’s worth consulting both a furniture expert if your piece of furniture is particularly expensive, such as an antique, and speaking with the storage unit facility owner to get an idea of the general ranges of temperatures and humidity that the unit will experience over the months or years you are going to be storing items.
You may not need a climate-controlled storage unit specifically, but definitely, one with a more regular climate would be useful.
4. Important Documents
Everyone, no matter who you are, has important documents that must be looked after and stored correctly. Whether these important documents are your birth certificates, passport, wedding licenses, driving documents, home deeds, or any other form of personal documents, or even business documents, you need to make sure that the storage unit you choose is safe and reliable for documents that you are storing.
Of course, it almost goes without saying that making sure your documents are stored in the correct boxes and filed correctly will go a long way to ensuring your documents are kept safe, but if you get a storage unit that is prone to getting damp or a storage unit that has a problem with rodents, you are risking losing those documents!
Most storage units are very safe when it comes to rodents and dampness, but if your unit is not climate-controlled, it may get very cold and then warm-up, which will mean you have an issue with condensation. This can be an absolute nightmare with paper documents that may have been printed with inks that run and cannot get damp at all. This is especially true for older and perhaps ancient documents.
5. Clothing
There are many reasons why people may wish to store clothing. Some may simply be moving home and need to store clothing ready for their new house. Others may be going away for a few months and need to store their clothing while they’re away. No matter what your reason for needing to store clothing is though, you really do need to invest in a climate-controlled storage unit to ensure that your clothing is kept to the very best quality possible.
A unit that is prone to condensation will mean that your clothing gets damp and could end up with a musty smell. While this is not much of a problem for modern clothing that can be easily washed, if you are storing clothing such as your wedding outfit, your heirloom christening outfit for your children, or even specialist clothing such as reenactment costumes which use specific fabrics that are not easy to wash, having your clothes smell musty may not be what you want!
6. Art and Antiques
Perhaps one of the most common things to store in a climate-controlled storage unit is pieces of art and antiques. As any museum curator will tell you, storing artwork so that it is at its best possible quality can be a challenge for even the most experienced professionals, which means that if you are not an experienced professional, you should definitely take advice on how to store your art and antiques to keep them in the best condition, and you should definitely get a climate-controlled storage unit to assist you in that.