Self Storage- Lockout equipment

[Henry Clark]

My wife retired and has made some changes.  Great having a second set of eyes looking over everything from a fresh perspective.  Went to the Las Vegas Storage show and just recently the Iowa show.  Always getting good ideas, whether they apply or not.

Since we have 8 locations over 5 towns/cities and also travel; lockouts have always been an area we were weak on.  

After looking at the vendors at the Las Vegas show she ordered some products we have been trying out and its great.

We used to use regular disc locks and when someone paid up, we would unlock them on our next trip to that facility, which might be a week.  Or when we got back from a trip, unless we had our high school helper unlock.

Started using the below combo lock and we put a zip tie on it, to designate it is ours.  Still a disc lock, so it is hard to cut off.  See the "140060" numbering.  This helps us to keep track of which lock it is, so we can reference the combination in our log.  Some competitors don't have individual markers so we were going to have to stencil them.  When we lock someone out, we put the combination in the "Note" section on our management software for that unit so we can see it anytime, and don't have to check the log book.  If we are away travelling, we just pull up that units note section and tell them the lock combination.  You can get colored locks, but we didn't like their design.  Now we give the customer the combo and they can get in, without waiting for us to do a site visit.

The combinations for each lock can be reset to whatever you want.  The flathead screw tab in the bottom right of the picture.  When you have the lock in the open position, not locked position.  You can use a screw driver to turn it to 90 degrees to the next marker.  See the two little dimples in the lock.  When you do this you dial in the new combo.  Then turn the screw head back 90 degrees and you have a new lock combo.

Once the customer unlocks then they take the special lock back to the office and drop it into the specially designed box.  Our normal Contract box cannot handle the lock sizes.