Talking About Placing Collectibles In Storage

Posted on: 7 February 2018

If you planning to rent a storage unit for keeping your documents, you need to educate yourself first on how to keep the documents safe for the duration of the storage. Here are some practical ideas to ensure your documents won't be damaged in storage:

Frequently Accessed Documents at the Front

Storing documents you won't need to access every now and again is much different from storing documents you are planning to access frequently. You can afford to store the documents randomly if you aren't planning to access them at different times. However, if you will be accessing them at different times, then you need to put the ones you plan on accessing most of the times at the front of the storage unit for ease of access.

Ensure They Go In Dry

One of the biggest threats to stored documents is moisture. Moisture can cause discoloration, physical damage and even attract destructive pests. Such destructive moisture doesn't always attack in storage; sometimes documents are damaged in storage because they were stored when wet. Therefore, ensure the documents are dry before taking them to the storage unit. For example, if the documents have been stored in a damp place, air them out first before taking them to the storage unit.

Encourage Air Circulation       

Proper air circulation within the storage unit is also necessary for the integrity of your documents. This will keep the documents dry and safe in storage. Here are some ways of doing this:

• Keep the document boxes on wooden pellets; an added advantage of this is that the documents will be safe in case of flooding
• Arrange the boxes in rows and columns and leave some spaces between them; the spaces can also double up as walkways for ease of accessibility
• Leave some spaces between the boxes and the walls of the storage unit

Sort and Label the Boxes

Do you want to rummage through all the boxes while looking for a single document? No one would want to do that, but it is the conundrum you are setting up for if you don't label the boxes. In fact, you should label at least two sides of each box that you can identify each box without lifting it off the floor or rotating it.

Use Climate-Controlled Unit

Ideally, paper documents should be stored in climate-controlled storage units. This will protect your documents from the effects of weather, which means they will not discolor or curl due to high temperatures or get damaged due to moisture issues.

For more information, contact companies like Access Self Storage.