If you’re reading this article, there’s a good chance that you’re looking to do some improvements on a property of yours. If you clicked on this one specifically, there’s a good chance that you’ve been curious specifically about storage solutions on your property specifically.
There are a lot of properties all over the world that have already hopped on the trend of getting on-site storage of some type installed on their property. It only makes sense, if you want to make sure that you’re getting the most possible money out of your property, you add some storage you can rent out to tenants.
Getting storage solutions in your apartment complex is important for a lot of reasons, but making sure that you do it safely is even more important. If no one gets hurt and you’re able to get your bulk storage solutions set up without any hassle, that’s a good day.
The easier, quicker, and safer the process is, the better it is for you. If someone gets hurt during the installation of these storage units it’s going to cause you a big headache, as well as potentially severely injuring another human being.
A lot of people don’t really know how to do this safely, regardless of how important it is. In fact, a lot of companies, in general, don’t know how to be safe on the work-site, that’s why OSHA exists. So, how do you install bulk storage as safely as possible?
This is exactly the topic that we’re going to cover today. If you follow the instructions in this article, there’s a good chance that everything will go as safely as possible. There is, however, no accounting for accidents. We can just help you minimize accidents as much as possible, but life comes at you fast.
Hire a Professional
When you’re doing any kind of renovation on your property, you want three things. You want it done well, you want it done correctly, and you want it done quickly. All three of these are important for your daily operations.
That’s why you should make sure that you hire professionals to install your bulk storage. It might cost a bit of money, but you’ll definitely be able to make that back through the rental of the storage units. The extra money is worth it for a lot of different reasons anyway.
Firstly, professionals have experience with this kind of thing. That means that there’s a good chance that someone on the crew will have worked on a property just like yours at some point in time or another. That is, unless your property is incredibly unique, but most properties have similarities.
Because they probably have experience at a property just like yours, they’ll probably already know some of the obstacles that will stand in their way during the job. Maybe a certain part of the parking spot is too narrow, or maybe there is some other issue that could make this more difficult.
Secondly, they have to experience putting up these kinds of things in the first place. That means that they’ll be able to get it done a lot more quickly than someone who hasn’t had to install any sort of on-site storage before, and that makes it go by a lot more quickly.
On top of that, if you hire professionals, there’s a good chance that someone is going to be doing quality assurance every step of the way. While that means that it might not be done correctly the first time, odds are it will be done correctly by the time you see it.
Giving this project to the professionals just means that you’ll have one less thing to worry about. They’ll be able to get your bulk storage units installed quickly and correctly, leaving you more time to do the more important parts of your job.
Give Notice to Your Tenants
You probably have to have big projects done on your property from time to time. Maybe you needed to shut off the water for half of a day to fix a water main leak, or maybe you needed to expand the parking lot for some reason.
Who knows, maybe you needed to redo the walkways because they were old and falling apart so they were starting to cause a giant safety hazard to your tenants. Regardless of what the project was, there’s a good chance that each of these projects has had something in common.
You’ve given your tenants a bit of notice before the project began. Maybe you informed them that the water would be out or maybe you told them that the walkways would be gone, or of whatever you needed to let them know of beforehand. This has a lot of benefits, for example:
- It allows your tenants the chance to plan ahead.
- It makes you look like you care more about your tenants.
- It could potentially be illegal not to, depending on your county and state laws.
- It makes everything feel more planned out for everyone involved.
When putting out this kind of a notice, it’s also important that you’re making sure that the relevant information is included in the memo, and you want to make sure that your tenants are made aware of this project in an appropriate time frame. A good memo should meet the following criteria:
- The beginning and end dates of the project clearly notated.
- If the project is only expected to last a single day you can just put that date.
- Inclusion of the impact that this will have on the tenant.
- This can vary a lot depending on where on your property this will be installed and some spots will cause more inconvenience than others.
- The exact location where the project will be taking place in clear writing.
- This will better help your tenants plan for the project.
- The notice is sent out at least a week in advance.
- We get it, emergencies happen sometimes and you don’t always have a week to send out a notice. That’s fine, but if you’re installing bulk storage it’s good to give earlier notice than that. It’s unlikely this is going to be a last-minute project.
- Necessary updates are sent out when needed.
- If you planned to start this project on August 3rd but you needed to reschedule to August 9th, your tenants will need to be made aware of that.
These notices can easily be left on your tenants’ doors, in their mailboxes, or even sent over email if your apartment complex has the necessary infrastructure to make that happen.
Set Up Any Markers You Can
While this project is happening, there’s going to be a space where your tenants, or really anyone other than those working on the project, should be. While the workers are installing the bulk storage it will be incredibly obvious where they’re working.
That being said, it’s unlikely that you’re going to have your team working on this all through the night. While your workers might not be on the property at 3:00 AM, your tenants will be. There are a lot of situations where a poorly marked project area can cause injuries and issues.
For example, maybe Lewis in unit 3B was just out for a night on the town. He was enjoying the local craft beers and the company of his friends and strangers alike. He finally gets home after his long night out, and he stumbles into the construction area by accident.
Does he trip and injure himself? Does he fall into a hole? It’s hard to say, but Lewis is definitely not sober walking into the apartment complex, and he’s not the only person you need to worry about getting injured in the space where the project is being done.
Elderly people, children, and just normal adults that aren’t paying enough attention can easily cause accidents in an unmarked workspace. These accidents can lead to the person involved getting hurt, your building supplies being damaged, or both. No matter what, you’re out of money and someone’s potentially severely injured.
So, all you need to do is get a few cones and some caution tape. This won’t help avoid every accident, sometimes people slip through the cracks, but keeping the area as visible as possible can reduce the risk of non-worker accidents by a lot, and it’s not even a lot of money or effort.
If you really want to go the whole 9 yards, you could erect one of those chain-link fences and move it down when the project is done, or move some brightly colored barricades to block off the area. However you go about it, keeping the space visible is important.
Getting the Job Done Safely
There’s an old saying, “safety first, then safety second.” everything comes after safety. Keeping your project space as a safe environment can ensure that there aren’t any major hiccups with the project at all, meaning you can get your storage units installed and move on to the next step.
Knowing how to get this job done safely can make a world of difference. It doesn’t matter if your property has 5 units or 5000, keeping your tenants and their guests safe while you’re doing renovations on the property is important for everyone involved.