Portable Storage Containers in Boulder County

We come up from our Brighton yard on our own truck. Longmont, Lafayette, Louisville, Superior and Erie sit inside our flat move-fee radius; central Boulder and points west may be charged by the mile, and we tell you which applies when we look at the address.

Placement is the conversation in this county. Central Boulder and old-town Longmont have narrow streets, alleys, mature trees and overhead lines, so we want a photo of the spot before we book. We need a level space roughly a car and a half long with a clear approach overhead. In Louisville, Lafayette, Superior and the newer parts of Longmont, driveways are standard width and the job is usually simple.

If the container has to go in the street, that is a city right-of-way question and each city sets its own rule. If there is nowhere on the property, we store the loaded unit at our gated yard and bring it back when the work is done. The unit is month to month.

Before delivery day: clear the spot, look up for tree limbs and overhead lines, and if the unit is going anywhere near the street check the city's rule first. Send a photo of the frontage and the alley if there is one. Have a contact number ready for the driver. In central Boulder, a few minutes of planning ahead of time is the difference between a simple placement and a second trip.

Boulder County's older homes are being opened up, added on to and in some cases scraped and rebuilt, and each of those means the contents of a house have to live somewhere for months. A container on the driveway keeps them dry and locked a few steps from the door. For a scrape-and-rebuild where nothing can stay on the lot, we hold the loaded unit at our yard until there is a house to bring it back to.

The other rhythm here is the university. Move-ins and move-outs cluster in August and May, and a container that loads over a week and waits at our yard over the summer is a calmer answer than a storage unit across town and two truck rentals.

The container is welded steel with a gasketed door seal, which handles the wet spring snow and the wind that comes off the foothills.

Load it evenly. We picked up a container for a woman moving out of Boulder who had put every canned good she owned along one wall and the furniture along the other. One side was far heavier than the other, which makes lifting and hauling the unit unsafe. Spread heavy items across the floor and front to back. If you have water storage, drain it first.

A Boulder fact: the containers themselves are built in Boulder County. Boxwell, the manufacturer of every Velox unit, is based here, so a container delivered to a Boulder driveway has come home.

Boulder: Mapleton Hill, Whittier, Newlands, Table Mesa, Martin Acres and the neighborhoods around the university. See our Boulder page.

Longmont: Old Town and the newer subdivisions on all sides, the largest share of our Boulder County work.

Louisville, Lafayette and Superior: Standard driveways, HOA neighborhoods and, since the Marshall Fire, a good deal of rebuilding.

Niwot, Gunbarrel and the Boulder County side of Erie: Larger lots and simpler placements.

Longmont, Louisville, Lafayette, Superior and Erie sit inside our flat move-fee radius from Brighton; Boulder itself and points west may be charged by the mile.