The past weekend it rained in our town quite a bit. I spent a major portion of the weekend indoors straightening up my workshop. A couple of years ago, I had built in shelves to store and organize my assorted stuff. I had built the shelves based on specifications to accommodate these Rubbermaid Roughneck Totes.
I like to keep my work area organized and clutter free. So, I put my "stuff" in these tubs, then I label the tub with its contents, and stick them on the shelves I built. The shelves look neat and orderly, and the "stuff" is protected from dust, moisture, and pests. I store hardware, paintbrushes, fire alarms, cleaning supplies, rags, wire, light bulbs, sandpaper, paper towels, stuff for my mopeds, stuff for my pinball machines - basically anything that will fit into the tubs!
Stuff I put in the tubs pretty much stays in the same condition until I take it out. The plastic walls of the tub protects the contents from pretty much all of the outside environment. The tubs come with a separate cover that comes completely off of the tub when not needed and snaps fairly securely in place when needed.
These tubs are fairly sturdy and can hold some hefty weight. However, I have put some heavy items in them and lifted them up (onto the lower shelves) and found that the tub's shape became distorted a bit while picking it up. Also, if something falls on the tub that is rather heavy, the tub will take on a new shape and it is rather difficult to get the original shape back. So, I try to avoid loading up the tubs with heavy items.
So far, over two years, most of the tubs have held up well. They still look pretty much the same as they did when new. That is, except for one tub.... I had used one tub to store some garden hand tools and seeds. Instead of dumping everything into a garden cart, I decided to just carry the tub out to the garden and pick out the items I needed. Well, I forgot about the tub in the garden and left it out there all summer. When I went to bring the tub back into the shed, the plastic crumbled up and became brittle. Apparently, the plastic became very brittle under the direct rays of the sun. On the other hand, most people do not store stuff out in their gardens....
Two years ago, I bought my tubs at Lowes on sale for $5 each. I had a $25 off $250 purchase, so I bought 50 of them all at the same time. They stack up neatly when nested together. I can carry a stack of 5 empty tubs at a time with no difficulty. The big problem with buying large quantities of tubs at once is finding the covers for them! For some reason, there never seems to be enough covers at the store for all of the tubs. (Fortunately at Lowes, they had another area with the tubs that had enough covers for my large order). As of today, I still have 49 in very good condition and one got bad sun burn and had to be recycled.
In addition to storing stuff, we also use the tubs for various other things. I put one by the swimming pool with water in it for a foot bath so the children do not track dirt in the pool. I also used one temporarily to house my baby chicks, before building a bigger coup for them. The children love to play with the empty tubs too! They use them as blocks and stack them up to make walls. My wife also uses them to temporarily use them to store away seasonal clothing. She also puts party supplies in them (cups, plastic forks, napkins, etc.). There are many uses for them!
I would highly recommend these storage tubs. I should also point out that Rubbermaid makes several other sizes of tubs that are either bigger or smaller. I like the 14 gallon size as I find they are easier to lift when full, yet big enough for most stuff. I also have bigger tubs and smaller tubs, which are also useful. Also, there are other manufacturers of tubs such as these. I have also used the competitors products and find many of them to be equally as good! In fact, the Sterling brand sells tubs made in various colors such as red and green (Christmas) and orange and black (Halloween) which makes sorting holiday stuff easy. So, my rule of thumb is to get what is on sale, as long as they appear to be quality made. Thanks for reading my review and best wishes for a nice day!
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