What a container hire rate actually includes

What the weekly rate covers

A 20ft starts at $27 a week ex GST. For that you get three things.

• Cargo-worthy grade, checked wind and watertight before it goes on the truck. We do not put as-is units on hire — an as-is unit is not sold watertight, and hiring somebody a store that might not stay dry is not a service.
• A lock box fitted. The welded steel shroud that covers the padlock so bolt cutters cannot reach the shackle. It should be standard on a hire unit and it is not always.
• The rate charged from delivery to collection, not from the day you rang, and not to the end of a billing month you did not use.

That is genuinely it. Everything else is quoted separately, and the point of this page is that "separately" should mean "up front", not "later".

What is quoted on top

Two truck movements, not one. Delivery to site at the start, collection at the end. The second one is the one people forget, because at the point of hiring it is months away and nobody is thinking about it. Both are quoted with the container, against your actual address — we do not publish a delivery figure, because what it costs depends on how far your address is from the depot holding the unit and what the truck finds when it gets there. Ask for both numbers at the start. A company that will quote the delivery now and the collection later has left itself somewhere to put a surprise.

The minimum hire period. It varies with the size and the location, and it is the single most common cause of a hire bill that reads wrong. A six-week job on a three-month minimum is a three-month bill. That is not a trick if you were told, and it feels exactly like one if you were not. Ask for the number in weeks or months before you agree to a rate.

Damage beyond fair wear. Assessed on return against the condition report. More on that below, because it is worth doing properly.

The clock: when it starts, when it stops

The rate runs from the day the container is delivered to the day it is collected. The half of that most people get wrong is the second half.

A container does not stop costing money on the day you finish with it. It stops when a truck comes and takes it away, and a truck has to be scheduled. Ring as soon as you know roughly when you will be done, not on the day you empty it. Some flexibility on the collection date helps — a unit going back on a truck already heading that way is a cheaper movement than one that is not, and that is worth more the further out you are.

The practical version: give notice early, be a bit flexible on the day, and you will pay less for the same hire.

The condition report is the whole dispute-prevention system

Every hire unit goes out with a record of what condition it was in. On return it is assessed against that record. This is completely routine and it is also the only thing standing between you and a disagreement you cannot win, so treat it as yours as much as ours.

Two minutes of phone camera, twice:

• On arrival, before you put anything in it. All four sides, both doors open, both doors shut, the floor down its full length, and a close shot of anything already dented, patched or rusty.
• Before collection, once it is empty. Same shots, same order.

Nobody has ever regretted having those photos. Plenty of people have regretted not having them.

Fair wear against damage

These are treated very differently and the line is less mysterious than it sounds. Fair wear is what happens to a steel box that is used for its purpose: more surface rust than it went out with, scuffs and scrapes on the paint, marks on the floor, general weathering.

Damage is what happens to a steel box that is used for something else. Holes cut for a window, a vent or a power lead. Forklift tyne strikes through a door skin or a wall panel. A door skinned or twisted by being forced or by wind. Floor destroyed by something spilled and left. Anything welded to it.

Two things that catch people, both avoidable:

• Do not modify a hire unit. Not a vent, not a shelf bracket, not a hasp for a second padlock. Ask first — if the job needs a modification, buying is usually the better answer anyway.
• Block it up properly and level. A container hired for a year on soft ground, sat on two corners, comes back racked out of square. That is damage, it cannot be economically fixed, and it happened on day one when somebody put it down in a hurry.

The four questions to ask anyone

• What is the minimum hire period for this size at this location?
• Is the collection quoted now, or at the end?
• What grade is the unit, and is it hired wind and watertight?
• What counts as damage rather than fair wear?

Four straight answers are worth more than a dollar or two off the weekly rate. A vague answer to any of them tells you where the money is going to appear later.

When hire stops being the cheaper answer

Hire suits a job with an end date — a build, a renovation, a harvest, a shutdown, a move. Under about a year it is usually the cheaper answer. Past that the weekly rate keeps running while a bought container starts holding resale value, and the sums turn over.

We will tell you when you have crossed that line, because a customer who hires for three years when they should have bought is a customer who feels done over at the end of it. The hire page has the current rate and what is included, and every purchase price is on the prices page with the date it was set. Ring 1300 639 282 with how long you need it for and we will do both sets of numbers with you.