20ft, 40ft, high cube, modified, and refrigerated containers delivered to Philadelphia and the Philadelphia metro area, including King of Prussia, Norristown, Upper Darby, Bensalem, Levittown. Price always includes delivery.
Philadelphia is Pennsylvania's largest city, home to roughly one and a half million people, and the center of a metro region of about six million that spreads across southeastern Pennsylvania, southern New Jersey and northern Delaware Deliveries reach Philadelphia, Montgomery, Delaware, Bucks, Chester, Berks, Lancaster, Lebanon, Schuylkill, Northampton, Lehigh, Carbon counties, and the practical questions change from one part of the area to the next. Center City, Old City, Society Hill, Queen Village, Bella Vista, Passyunk Square, Point Breeze, Graduate Hospital, Fairmount, Brewerytown, Northern Liberties, Fishtown, Port Richmond, Kensington, East Falls, Manayunk, Roxborough, Germantown, Mount Airy, Chestnut Hill, University City, Mayfair each bring their own access, placement, and ground-preparation considerations.
Philadelphia is a consolidated city and county under its own Home Rule Charter. Land use is governed by Title 14 of the Philadelphia Code, the Zoning Code, and permits are issued by the Department of Licenses and Inspections. A container on a private lot is evaluated against the accessory use and structure rules and the standards of the underlying zoning district rather than against any container-specific rule. A container placed in the street or on the sidewalk is an entirely separate question handled by the Streets Department. Work on a historic property adds a review by the Philadelphia Historical Commission.
We have delivered containers throughout the Philadelphia metro area and we know the local ground: Four corner castings carrying the entire load onto ground that changes five times across the state, and two of those grounds are problems most states do not have at all. Start with why it matters more for a container than for a house: a house spreads its weight along a continuous footing, a container puts all of it through four points. Karst is the first Pennsylvania problem. Large parts of the southeast and the south-central valleys sit on carbonate bedrock, and the Bureau of Geological Survey describes a sinkhole as a subsidence feature caused by surficial material moving down into a pre-existing void. The Lehigh Valley, Lancaster County and the Cumberland and Lebanon valleys are the classic karst country, and concentrating four point loads and then routing roof runoff to one spot is exactly the combination karst does not forgive. Mine subsidence is the second. The Department of Environmental Protection states that millions of Pennsylvania structures sit over old abandoned underground coal and clay mines, and it runs a state mine subsidence insurance program because standard homeowner policies usually do not cover that damage. The rest of the state reads more normally: glacial till, boulders and perched water in the north, steep slopes and shallow rock through the ridges, red shale and clay soils in the Piedmont that hold water and soften, and Pittsburgh hillsides where the city maintains landslide-prone and steep-slope overlays. Over all of it runs freeze and thaw, which lifts a gravel lane every March and sets it back down somewhere slightly different., along with the access and clearance realities of the streets here. Tell us your address and your situation, and you get an honest assessment and an accurate delivery quote.
Most Philadelphia housing was built before the automobile, which means narrow lots, no garage and a back yard the size of a parking space. When a rowhouse in Fishtown, Point Breeze or Passyunk Square gets opened up, a container holds cabinetry, flooring, appliances and furniture at the property instead of in a rented unit across town. The container often sits at the curb rather than on the lot, which is a Streets Department question rather than a zoning one.
Infill construction runs constantly across the river wards and the western neighborhoods, and copper, tools and fixtures walk off open sites. A container on the job means the crew stops loading and unloading a trailer twice a day, and the general contractor stops absorbing replacement costs that never appear on a bid sheet.
Penn, Jefferson, Temple, Drexel and Children's Hospital run near-continuous construction and fit-out work. Containers hold furniture, equipment, records and lab casework while a floor is being turned over, and they sit on the campus lot rather than in rented warehouse space across the river.
Commercial corridors here were built without storage. A restaurant on East Passyunk or a shop in Old City has no basement to spare and no stockroom, so seasonal inventory, sidewalk cafe furniture, holiday displays and paper goods go into a container in the lot behind the building or in a shared rear yard.
The Delaware River terminals and the warehouse belt along Interstate 95 and through the Northeast move goods on a seasonal curve, but warehouse space is committed on a flat one. A container or a row of them at the dock gives an operation the peak it actually needs without signing for square footage it will not use in March.
Parishes, charter schools, block associations and neighborhood groups across the city use containers for chairs, sound equipment, athletic gear, seasonal programming supplies and donation drives. It keeps expensive interior space in use for people rather than for boxes.
A few things shape how a delivery goes in this area:
For permit questions on a specific address, contact City of Philadelphia Department of Licenses and Inspections, Permit and License Center, 1401 John F. Kennedy Blvd., MSB, Public Service Concourse, Philadelphia, PA 19102. Call 311 inside Philadelphia or (215) 686-8686 from outside. For a container that will sit in the street or on the sidewalk, call the Streets Department Right-of-Way Unit at (215) 686-5500 about a Temporary No Parking permit, at least four business days ahead. For a historic property, the Philadelphia Historical Commission is at (215) 686-7660 or [email protected]..
Used wind and water tight and one-trip containers are both available. Every unit is inspected before delivery.
All-in pricing with delivery included. Call or text (330) 510-5817, or use the quote form above.