The biggest market on this stretch of coast by a distance, and the one where people most often buy a container they have never seen. We deliver into Coffs constantly — the industrial land at North Boambee Valley, the growth estates out towards Bonville and Sapphire, and the tight older streets around the Jetty and Park Beach where the answer is usually a crane truck rather than a tilt-tray.
Around Coffs Harbour it is mostly site storage on the estates going up around Bonville, Sapphire Beach and Moonee, lockable trade storage on the industrial land at North Boambee Valley and Isles Drive, chemical and packing storage for the blueberry country behind the highway, marine and boat gear near the marina, and household storage while a Toormina or Park Beach renovation runs three months over. Whatever the job, the sequence is the same: work out the grade, then the size, then how the truck gets in. Ten minutes on the phone covers all three.
| Size | Used from | New from |
|---|---|---|
| 10ft Containers | $4,350 | $6,400 |
| 20ft Containers | $2,200 | $3,300 |
| 40ft Containers | $2,600 | $5,500 |
Guide prices only, ex GST. What you pay depends on the grade and what is in the yard that week. Cartage to Coffs Harbour is quoted with the container, so the number you are given is the number you pay.
The single largest group is construction. Coffs has been building steadily for years — the estates south towards Bonville and Sawtell, north through Korora, Sapphire and Moonee, and infill right through Toormina and Boambee East. Every one of those sites needs somewhere lockable for tools, fixings and materials that will not walk overnight, and a 20ft with a lock box does that better and cheaper than a site shed hired by the month.
The second is horticulture. The blueberry country behind Woolgoolga and out through the valleys west of the highway runs on inputs — spray chemical, fertiliser, netting, punnets, picking gear — and most of it needs to be stored somewhere dry, lockable and, in the case of anything scheduled, properly ventilated and bunded. That is why we get more dangerous goods enquiries from this postcode than from anywhere else we deliver.
Third is marine and trade. The marina, the boat yards, the trailer and engineering shops on the industrial estates. Fourth, and the one people underestimate, is households: Coffs has an enormous renovation market and a rental vacancy rate that makes six weeks of storage very difficult to arrange any other way.
The Coffs Harbour bypass has reshaped how heavy vehicles move through this town, and it has done two things that matter if you are ordering a container. The first is that the highway works themselves have generated a lot of demand — contractors and subcontractors arriving with compliance schedules, needing lockable and in some cases bunded storage on site before work starts, often at short notice and often for a defined period. That is hire territory rather than sales, and we quote a lot of it.
The second is that through-traffic and local traffic are separating. For deliveries into the town itself that is straightforwardly good news: fewer heavy vehicles crawling through the middle of Coffs means a truck booked for your address is far less likely to lose an hour on the way. It also means the approach a driver takes to your street may not be the route you would drive, so when you describe access, describe the last two hundred metres rather than the way you come home.
Salt air matters less than people fear and more than sellers admit. It does not eat a sound container. What it does is find bare steel quickly — a scrape from a forklift tine, a drilled hole left open, a chip where a bracket was cut off. Left alone, that shows rust in a season instead of in five years. Keep a tin of cold gal and touch up bare metal when you see it and a container at Sapphire Beach lasts as long as one at Glenreagh.
Humidity is the bigger practical problem and it catches nearly everyone. A sealed steel box through a Coffs summer will sweat if you load damp gear and shut it up for a month. Load dry, allow airflow where the contents will tolerate it, and think about vents if you are storing anything that minds moisture. Condensation does more damage on this coast than leaks do — which is also why we would rather sell you a cargo-worthy unit that seals properly than an as-is one that lets air move but also lets rain in.
For siting, the thing that costs nothing and saves the most is spreading the load. On sand, pavers under each corner casting rather than a single block stops the container settling unevenly over its first wet month — and an out-of-square container is a container whose doors stop meeting.
North Boambee Valley, Isles Drive and the pockets around the airport are where most of the commercial demand sits, and the arithmetic there is usually about tenancy rather than storage. Additional warehouse space in Coffs is expensive and often not available in the size increment a growing business actually needs — nobody wants another six hundred square metres, they want another forty.
A container in the yard beside an existing tenancy solves that at a fraction of the cost and, importantly, is not a lease. If you own it, you can move it when you move. If you hire it, you can hand it back the month the overflow stops. For businesses running seasonal peaks — and a lot of Coffs businesses do — that flexibility is the whole point.
Worth knowing: a 40ft is nearly always cheaper than two 20fts for the same volume, but two 20fts win on flexibility, on tight yards, and when you may want to move or sell one later. If the yard is tight enough that a sidelifter cannot get thirty metres of working room, that decision is made for you.
Under about a year, hire is generally in front. No capital tied up, no disposal question at the end, and the cost sits in project expenses where a job can carry it. That covers most builds, most fit-outs and most seasonal storage on the farms.
Past about two years, buying wins clearly, and it wins harder than the weekly rate suggests because a well-bought used unit resells for a good share of what you paid. In between is a genuine conversation and it turns on whether the work is contracted or rolling.
We do both, so there is nothing here steering you. Ring with the timeline and we will price it both ways. There is more detail on how hire works and on buying.
A great deal of container selling on this coast is a website and a mobile number pointed at a depot several hundred kilometres away. The unit is described by somebody who has not seen it. The first proper inspection anyone does is when it comes off the truck at your place, and by then the money has moved.
Our yard is at 1a Reid St, South Grafton — a bit under an hour and a half up the highway. You can stand in front of the actual container, open the doors, shut yourself in and look for daylight, walk the floor for soft patches, and decide. For a purchase you will keep for twenty years, that is a reasonable morning to spend. There is more about the yard and what is usually on the ground on our yard page.
If the drive is not practical, ask and we will send photographs of the specific unit with the serial number visible before delivery. That is a normal request and we are happy with it.
Coffs is really three delivery problems wearing one postcode. The industrial land and the newer estates — North Boambee Valley, Bonville, Sapphire Beach, Moonee Beach, the growth pockets out past Toormina — are about as easy as delivery gets: wide entries, level pads, room for a truck to line up and swing. The older beachside streets are the opposite. The Jetty, Park Beach and the streets running back from Diggers have narrow frontages, cars both sides, established figs and camphors over the road and low services on timber poles, and a tilt-tray that fits down the street still has to get the bed up on the angle. The third case is sand. Anywhere close to the beach, and through much of the flat country behind it, the ground looks perfectly firm and gives way under a concentrated load — which matters most when a sidelifter is trying to stand on four pads to place a 40ft. Send a photo of the entry, one down the approach and one of the spot, and we will tell you which truck it is before anyone quotes.
Beyond the local detail, every drop needs the same three things — ground that carries the weight, a straight run to line up on, and clear air above the spot. Photographs answer all three faster than measurements do. Full checklist in getting a container onto your block.
Yes, constantly. It is about 85 km down the Pacific Highway from our South Grafton yard and it is one of our regular runs. Cartage is quoted with the container so you get one delivered figure rather than a container price and a freight surprise afterwards.
Guide pricing starts at $2,200 for a cargo-worthy used 20ft and $3,300 for a new single-trip 20ft, ex GST, with delivery quoted on top and stated as one number. A 40ft starts from $2,600 used. Ring (02) 5616 9099 with the address and the grade you want and you will get a real figure.
Usually, but often not with a tilt-tray. Narrow frontages, parked cars, established street trees and low services are the constraints, and the answer in those streets is frequently a crane truck lifting over the obstacle. It costs more per job and it gets a container into places nothing else will. Send photos and we will confirm the vehicle before quoting.
It can be, and it matters most for 40ft deliveries. A sidelifter puts a lot of weight through four small pads, and coastal sand carries a car perfectly well and gives way under that. We use plates or timber under the legs where we need to. Tell us the surface when you enquire rather than on the day.
For a container placed as temporary storage on a property, usually not — but it depends on how long it stays and whether you are altering it. City of Coffs Harbour publishes guidance and it is worth ten minutes of reading. If the plan is a permanent structure or anything habitable, assume you need to ask them before you buy.
Yes. A 20ft starts from $27 a week ex GST, with delivery and collection quoted separately. Hire suits builds, fit-outs, seasonal storage and any job with an end date on it. If a hire turns into something permanent, ask about a buy-out rather than starting again — it saves a second delivery.
Size, grade, cartage and timing sorted in a single conversation.
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Call (02) 5616 9099