Do you have some valuable furniture that's too small for your new apartment? Maybe you have a few perfectly good kitchen utensils that are too big and only used occasionally, or some clothes for another season that you don't need right now. Storage units can give you the extra space you need for everything from clothes to consumer electronics, but there are different budget and feature levels to consider. Here are a few features to consider if you'd like to get exactly what you need, or don't want to miss out on something because of a low cost decision.

Door And Lock Features

The most basic storage unit is a shed with a rolling door. These doors are usually locked by a metal look with a padlock that you provide, although more high-security sheds may use internal locking mechanisms and reinforced doors.

Door quality varies depending on the facility. Low end storage facilities have strong doors that can protect from most water leaks when they're new, but a dedicated thief at knife could pry their way through the sides or cut away at the metal within half an hour if it's thin enough. If fast access in an outdoor facilities with quick, rolling doors is important, just make sure that the doors are thick enough for your preferences.

Large, rolling doors or garage doors are suited for people with trucks, or at least big items that can't be brought in through a single panel door that you'd use for a house entry. If your items are small and you'd rather focus on specific security points, a storage facility with single or double doors is better. The locks are the responsibility of the storage facility, and can be upgrade to more complex configurations than the standard padlock--or even enhanced with a padlock.

Air Quality Control

Many objects are sensitive to humidity, or become a huge pain when dust is involved. For computers, sensitive cloth, or untreated wood, an air conditioned facility is the bare minimum.

Air conditioning provides passive humidity control and dust filtering. Humidity is removed during the air conditioning process--although not 100%, especially if the outdoor unit is exposed to rain--and dust is filtered by the air conditioning's filter system.

An important inspection area is figuring out the air filter quality. You'll need to make sure that the facility changes its filters on a regular basis and not simply cleaning up dust that may hide--not usually intentionally--a dust problem.

You don't need to focus on the type of air filter in most cases. There are higher specificity filters such as High-efficiency particulate arrestance (HEPA) filters to keep out pollen and even some airborne virus and bacteria. If a HEPA filter is important to you, you'll want storage units that are filtered per unit, as a full facility air conditioning system is one big failure point. It's easier for you to control the quality if its limited to your storage unit.

Contact a storage facility management team like http://www.storageinphila.com to discuss self storage units and their features, along with price points.