Standard
5×8×8 ft · 320 cu ft
$99/mo
- $150 delivery and pickup, once
- $0 deposit, 25 free moving boxes
- Month to month
1-Box by One Stop Moving · Business & jobsite
A steel container that locks, sits at ground level on your site and rents month to month. It suits tools, fixtures and boxed materials. It is not a 20 or 40 ft shipping container, and we say so up front.
A 1-Box works best as the lockup for the things that walk off a site overnight: power tools, shelving, safety gear, boxed tile, fixtures and appliances waiting to go in. The doors are steel and take your own padlock, and the floor sits at ground level, so a crew rolls a hand truck straight in without a ramp.
Terms follow the job rather than a contract length. The rental runs month to month, so a container can arrive before framing and leave the week after final inspection. Delivery and pickup are one $150 charge per rental. When one site wraps up and the next begins, we can pick the container up and set it down at the next address anywhere in San Diego County; that move is one $150 round trip, billed on top of the rental like a delivery.
Know the limits before you order. The largest 1-Box is 7×8×8 ft, with 448 cubic feet. That holds a lot of hand tools and cabinet boxes, but it is not a shipping container. Search for construction storage containers in San Diego and the top results are equipment-rental companies offering steel containers of 20 or 40 feet. We do not rent those sizes. If the build needs a full-size shipping container, one of those companies is the better call. If a smaller lockup that we deliver and move ourselves fits the job, keep reading.
The delivery truck needs roughly 12 feet of vertical clearance, so mention low wires, scaffolding or a tight gate when you reserve. Our crews are W-2 employees, not subcontractors, and One Stop Moving & Storage has worked in San Diego since 2008 under CAL-190616 and USDOT 1956864.
Businesses use the same box for different reasons. A shop can park seasonal stock beside the loading door until it is needed, an office can box up closed files it must keep but rarely opens, and a team changing suites can fill a container on Friday and unload it into the new space on Monday.
A container can stay on your property as long as you rent it, or we can collect it sealed and keep it at our Sorrento Valley facility. The move there and back is one $150 round trip, and the container keeps its monthly rate while it is with us. If you would rather hand over the contents than rent a box at all, our climate-controlled vaulted storage is $225 a month.
Loading help comes from the same company that delivers the container: $139/hr for two movers, $189/hr for three and $239/hr for four, with a 3-hour minimum. For an office, that usually means desks, chairs and file cabinets go out without your staff doing the lifting.
Most of the jobsite rules below were written for cargo or shipping containers; Escondido's code, for one, defines a cargo container as an industrial metal shipping container. Only Chula Vista's section names portable storage containers separately, so elsewhere the code does not say whether a container delivered for a few weeks or months counts. We list what each city's code or bulletin says, with its source, but we cannot answer that question for a city. Before the container goes on your site, call the city's building or planning department, describe the container and how long it will stay, and ask whether the rule applies to it.
"A Building Permit is required to install cargo containers on a site." The only exception listed is stage sets during a permitted special event, and supplying electricity, plumbing or mechanical service needs its own permit whether the container is temporary or permanent. The bulletin, dated March 2024, does not address short-term portable storage units.
SourceCargo containers may sit temporarily on private property in any zone to hold building materials or construction tools during work under an active building permit on the same property. They go within 10 calendar days of the permit's expiry or final, or of the city's notice if work stops for 30 days, and on lots under one acre stay no more than 180 days a calendar year. None may block right-of-way access, exits, required parking or fire lanes.
SourceShipping containers are not allowed in residential zones except with an active construction permit. The same section limits a portable storage container in a residential zone to an existing driveway, one per lot, for 30 consecutive days and 90 days in a calendar year.
SourceConstruction laydown yards in commercial and industrial zones, and prefabricated storage containers used for short-term or seasonal storage, are listed as temporary uses that may be allowed with a Temporary Use Permit.
SourceSantee's local amendment exempts metal storage containers used as temporary storage structures from a residential building permit. The exemption does not cover habitable space.
SourceDumpsters and storage pods are not allowed in the paved street or on sidewalks, so a jobsite container in Carlsbad has to sit on the site itself.
Source5×8×8 ft · 320 cu ft
$99/mo
7×8×8 ft · 448 cu ft
$175/mo
Check the site ZIP, pick a size and see your first-month total. Tell us about the site access, and whether the container will move to a second job.
Questions
A Standard 1-Box is $99 a month and a Large is $175, with one $150 charge for delivery and pickup and a $0 deposit. Moving it to a second site is one $150 round trip. Any city permit is extra, and our movers cost $139/hr for two, with a 3-hour minimum.
Possibly, so ask the city first. The City of San Diego's Information Bulletin 149 requires a building permit to install cargo containers on a site, but it does not address short-term portable storage units. Describe the container to Development Services and ask whether the bulletin applies to it.
Yes, anywhere in San Diego County. Give us 24 hours' notice and we pick the container up and set it down at the next site, loaded. That move is one $150 round trip, billed separately from the $150 delivery charge. We do not take containers outside the county.
For tools, fixtures and boxed materials, usually yes. The Standard is 5×8×8 ft with 320 cubic feet, and the Large is 7×8×8 ft with 448. We do not rent 20 or 40 ft shipping containers, so a large build that needs one should call an equipment-rental company instead.