Too Much Stuff? Store It At
My Place!!!

 

Cleaner, Drier, Safer And More Secure Self-Storage, Guaranteed – No Ifs
Nor Buts.

 

Complaints Are Like Gold To Us.

 

Time to read, about 2 minutes.

 

What’s In This Month’s Edition?

 

There is no advertising here but there may be the odd offer.

• This Month’s Comment. I read an article about why Lisa Carrington has been so successful. She never missed one training session. In other words, she was
  totally committed.
• Storage Hints And Tips Come From A Complaint.
• How To Save Money On Your Storage Fees.

We Value Complaints.

 

We have had a complaint, and we love it.

Most businesses hate complaints, but here at Masterton Self-Storage we value them – they are like gold to us. People in business take complaints personally whereas we see them as something in our business that is not functioning as it should, and the complaint gives us the opportunity to fix it or put it right. And of course, if one person is experiencing a problem then chances are others could be experiencing the same problem. And even worse, people that don’t complain usually vote with their feet and that’s a business killer – we hate that.

Therefore, because we care about our customers and our business, if something is ticking you off about us or our business, PLEASE tell us so we can fix it. We are not
perfect, we will make mistakes, but it’s the fixing or putting right that matters.

On the 2nd of November 2006 Masterton Storage And Lockups Limited was incorporated. In other words, became a Limited liability company. That is 17 years of trading as a self-storage facility. During those 17 years we have had about 4 complaints regarding dust on stuff inside the lockup. 4 complaints in 17 years and now with 266 lockups isn’t bad but we would like to eliminate all things that annoy our customers.

Although Masterton Self-Storage has 266 lockups there are 3 main reasons why only 3 of them are shipping containers – which we purchased as a test and measure

1. Dampness from condensation on colder and on winter days – but no dust.
2. Excessive heat over 37.5 deg c on warmer and on summer days – but no dust.
3. Poor or no ventilation – but no dust.

I now want to discuss these 3 reasons but before I do I want to say that shipping containers were never designed for long-term storage – say more than 3 months. I say 3 months because this is about the longest time it would take to move goods around the world by ship before they start to feel the effects from one or more of the above reasons.

I will now discuss each in a little more depth and in particular the dust issue.

Condensation:

Shipping containers are made from steel although they do have a wooden floor. The roof of your house is also probably made of steel and if you tried to build it without building paper directly under the steel long-run roofing you wouldn’t get a building permit let alone a code of compliance certificate. Why is building paper so important? It stops condensation dropping onto your ceiling and making your house damp. Shipping containers don’t have building paper fitted so stuff stored inside can get damp from condensation. Drip drip.

Heat:

Of course, some items that are stored are not affected by dampness or heat. But if you wish to store more sensitive stuff like household items and furniture, musical
instruments, artwork, and appliances etc then 37.5 deg c can start to adversely affect items stored. As example, a lot of wooden items and some furniture are held
together by glue and excessive heat could compromise the integrity of the glue, even causing it to fail.

Ventilation:

This is where dust can be a nuisance. Because shipping containers have little or no ventilation very little if any dust can get in. However, going back to using a modern house as an example, you may recall about 25 years ago houses were starting to be badly affected by mold and dampness. Not only was it affecting the occupants’
health, but the building as well as furnishings were starting to rot. It was blamed on the construction of the day of airtight houses because they offered poor or no
ventilation.

This means that good ventilation is far more important for the welfare of your stuff than airtight and dampness. Currently we are experiencing storms and spring wind – and it is forecast to carry on into the summer. Even so, dust is only likely to be a nuisance when stuff is in storage for more than 3 months and only then in a handful of lockups based on location within the facility.

So, what is the answer? Even a well-ventilated modern home gets some dust inside and regular dusting is required. We don’t want damp, we don’t want heat, and we don’t want airtight. But when there is ventilation, we are going to get some dust.

There is a very effective and simple solution – cover it. Old bed sheets or drop sheets are perfect. By placing drop sheets over the top of items as the storage lockup is being filled will take care of 99.9% of dust and even then, a sheet is only necessary if a bit of dust is an issue for your stuff. And drop sheets can be retro fitted. Of course, stuff stored in removal boxes or storage bins will never be affected.

Comments we have heard during dust complaints is, possibly because our yard is not sealed. We can understand a comment like that but there is a very good reason for leaving it unsealed. An unsealed surface is like a sponge – it soaks up a large proportion of surface rainwater. Then if rain persists, you’ll note that the yard surface is carefully graded to large sumps.

The ground here is quite interesting. The first meter (the pan) is very compact because of the ancient forest that used to be here but once we broke the pan the old riverbed was exposed which is ideal for sumps and discharging stormwater.

As a sum up I repeat, if you have any concerns about dust or any other subject for that matter, please tell us so we can either fix it of find a solution.

Would you like to save on your storage fees? It’s easy.

We have printed this on business card size and all you need to do is put your name on it and hand it to someone who needs storage. When they bring it in, they’ll
get ½ the third month FREE and each time we get a new customer you’ll get a FREE week

– which will show as a credit to your account or can be refunded to you. It’s a win-win-win as we won’t have to spend money on advertising – we’d much rather you benefit than the media giants.

You can either print the voucher off this email, request we post you some cards, or you can collect some cards from the office, or
you can even capture an image of it on your phone’s camera and forward it to a friend, colleague, or family member (just make sure they put your name on it so we know it’s come from you).

PS: If you wish to unsubscribe form the newsletter, we can do that but if you are a current customer, we cannot delete your from our database