6 tips for determining the right size of your storage building
“One size does not fit all,” especially when it comes to storage buildings. That’s why at Kroftman, we sell storage buildings in many different lengths and widths. Hopefully, there’s also the right size storage building for you. When assembling a storage building, you have to make many choices. One of them is how much square footage of storage space you need and what size storage building fits that requirement. Now, but also in the near future. In this blog, we give you six tips to help you determine how large your storage building should or can be.
Tip 1: Available space to build your storage building
Determining the size of your storage building depends first and foremost on the space you have available. The surface area of your plot must always be significantly larger than the storage building you want to build on it. Kroftman advises the following three guidelines regarding the required space to build a storage building:
- Around the storage building, you need at least one and a half meters of free space to build the storage building. Because you are working at height, you need a scaffold for safety. To use it, you need 1.5 meters of space.
- A clearance area where the components of the self-build storage building can be placed without getting in the way of building the storage building.
- The construction site should preferably have twice the surface area of the storage building.
Also, make sure that if you want to place the storage building (partly) under trees or power poles, there is enough working height left for the crane to build the storage building. Kroftman recommends a working height of twice the ridge height. If the ridge height is 4.25 meters, you will need 8.5 meters of working height. With these guidelines in mind, you can take another look at your plot. How much land do you have available to build a storage building? Our tool ‘Discover if the storage building fits on your location’ can help you with this.
Tip 2: Legal requirements for building your storage building
How much space you have to build a storage building can be limited by legal requirements. Consider, for example, the following requirements:
- An important requirement from the Building Decree to take into account is that regarding fire safety. Our storage buildings do not have fire-resistant facades. This is also not mandatory for buildings with a ‘light industrial function’ like our storage buildings. However, a safe distance from the property line must be maintained to prevent a fire from spreading. To prevent this, the radiation from a fire on the opposite buildings must not exceed 15 kW/m2. PH Bouwadvies has conducted a so-called ‘radiation calculation’ for our storage buildings to calculate a safe distance from the property line. The calculation by PH Bouwadvies shows that 3 meters is a safe distance. If you adhere to this, no further requirements are imposed on the fire resistance of the facade.
- Under neighbor law, you may not violate your neighbor’s privacy. Therefore, you are not allowed to place a window or door within 2 meters of the property line.
- If you want to build without a permit, keep in mind that the ‘outbuilding’ (in this case the storage building) is placed next to or behind the main building, at least 1 meter behind the front facade. The surface area of the outbuildings is a maximum of 50% of the unbuilt area. But be careful. Regardless of the size of the unbuilt area, the maximum surface area of the outbuildings may never exceed 150 m². At least, if you want to build without a permit. There are many more rules for this. Please read the brochure ‘Building without a permit’ from the Ministry of Infrastructure and the Environment carefully for this.
Tip 3: What and how much will you store in the storage building
What exactly are you going to store in the storage building and in what quantities? If you store items that can easily be stacked on top of each other, the storage building may be smaller in square meters, and the number of cubic meters is important for you. What you are going to store also determines your choice for an insulated or uninsulated storage building. One tip we want to give you is to think ahead. A storage building can last for many years. If you expect to need more storage space in the future, you’d better buy a slightly larger storage building. Then you know for sure that you can use it for the time being. If it turns out that the storage building becomes too small too soon, our storage buildings can always be extended.
Tip 4: Use of vehicles in the storage building
If you want to drive a vehicle into the storage building, from a truck to a forklift, consider the width of the storage building. In that case, you need a large door, which you will only find in our wider storage buildings. The largest door we sell is an overhead door 415 cm in height and 318 cm in width. However, each storage building type has a standard size door. So you cannot choose this yourself. You will find this largest overhead door in our storage buildings from 9 meters wide. These are the storage buildings in the H900 to H1200 series. For a roll-up door, subtract 10 cm from the height dimension of the door to calculate the clearance height. This is due to the handle of the roll-up door hanging against the top bar of the door opening when the door is open. The maximum size of a roll-up door is 275 cm wide and 300 cm high. The clearance height is then (300 cm – 10 cm =) 290 cm high. Read more about the doors in a storage building in this blog.
Tip 5: Maneuvering space around the storage building
When using large vehicles in and around the storage building, you need sufficient maneuvering space. This limits the space you have to build the storage building. Perhaps you also want to store items outside your storage building such as pallets and the like. To get a good idea of how to arrange your plot, you can use a site like Planviewer. For about 20 euros, you can download a site plan of your plot here. You draw in the distances you need to take into account, such as the minimum distance of 2.5 meters to the property line. And the space you want to leave unbuilt, to build the storage building and for maneuvering space for vehicles. The space that remains can be built on. You will then know what the maximum dimensions of your storage building can be.
Tip 6: Number of desired doors in your storage building
If you want more doors in your storage building than standard, that is possible at an additional cost. This can only be done if the storage building has sufficient width and/or length depending on where you want to add the extra door. An overhead door opens by means of rails that hang horizontally in the space. Therefore, in certain door position combinations, the guide rails can obstruct each other. You can imagine that if two overhead doors of 4.15 meters high are both open, and thus hang horizontally from the roof, they may not touch each other. Only from a certain length of the storage building can an extra overhead door be installed. If you have any questions about this, please contact us. We will discuss with you what is possible.
In summary, we can say that the ideal dimensions of a storage building vary for everyone. These are not only determined by what you need in terms of storage space but also by laws and regulations and the ‘free space’ you need around your storage building. And your plot must also provide this space. Do you want to know if we have a storage building that meets your requirements? Then fill in our quotation tool completely free of charge. When you click on ‘Send quotation request’, you will automatically receive the login details from us within a few minutes, which you can use to view your quotation(s). You can request as many quotations as you like, without any consequences.
We hope that the above information helps you make an informed decision. If you want to know exactly what the storage building of your choice costs, please fill in our quotation tool completely free of charge. From this, you will receive a quotation by email, in which you can see at a glance what the costs and transport costs are for your storage building. You can request multiple quotations and check different options. This way, you can compare them thoroughly.
Do you still have questions? We are happy to assist you further.
