How to Select the Right Cabinet

There are many things that need to be considered when it comes time to purchase your cabinets.

Every home or office needs cabinets. Cabinets allow you to store a variety of items, are great for organizing things, and allow you to file away important documents for safe keeping. They make it easy to retrieve these items when it is time to use them.

There are many things that need to be considered when it comes time to purchase your cabinets. Of course style is important, but whether they are purchased or custom made, all cabinets also have other things that need to be taken into consideration.

Size
There are two main factors when it comes to size: the material that needs to be stored and the space you have in which to place the cabinet.

When you think about where the cabinet will be located you want to be sure that you will have adequate room to open and close the cabinet doors. You should also think about the amount of space you will want in front of the cabinet to make your items easy to access.

There should be enough room to comfortably walk in front of the cabinet when it is open. This will enable you enough room to stand in front of the cabinet when you need to place or retrieve articles from it.

It is also helpful to think about the amount of items you will need the cabinet to store. A great idea is to have one cabinet in which to place all the items you have which are related to one another. This will save you the hassle of checking several different places when you are trying to complete a project. You should also consider purchasing a cabinet with some extra space so that you can purchase additional items without worrying about where to place them.

Vertical or Lateral
With any new filing system the question of vertical versus lateral is almost always raised. Offices most typically make use of vertical filing drawers. These files are arranged so that the file tabs are facing the user, and run from the front of the cabinet to the back. The advantage of vertical drawers is that they take up very little wall space and are able to stack anywhere from two to five drawers on top of each other.

Almost every employee can have their own vertical file drawer, as they do not take up very much space. One disadvantage of vertical files is that they can be quite deep, which may make it difficult to walk around the office space.

Lateral drawers are not as deep, but they do require additional wall space. While they are not as deep as vertical drawers they still have the capacity to hold a lot of files.

Like vertical files, lateral files have the capacity to hold either letter or legal sized files. The difference is that the files are arranged either in a couple of rows facing the user or facing the side of the cabinet. You will also find lateral files with between two and five file drawers.

Because of the additional wall space required not all employees will be able to accommodate a lateral file in their workspace. They tend to work best to hold department or corporate files in a central location that can be accessed by several employees.

Construction
Wood and steel are the most common materials used for the construction of cabinets. Metal is stronger and more durable, which is why it is the material of choice for office cabinets. Wood is usually preferred for home cabinets. Wood works bets in the home because it can blend well with a variety of decorating schemes, as well as make a home look warmer and more comfortable.

When purchasing your cabinet be sure that you are able to fully extend the drawers and that that extend smoothly. Having a stuck drawer can cause a host of other problems.

Protection
As you will most likely use your new cabinet to store important documents, you need to ensure that it is well made. One nice feature is cabinets that are constructed with interlock drawers. This only allows you to open one drawer at a time, which helps prevent the entire cabinet from tipping over.

Some cabinets are also constructed with built in fire resistance and locks. You will find the Underwriters Laboratories class 50 rating affixed to those cabinets that can withstand 1700 F for 1 hour and the impact of a thirty-foot drop.

Mobility and Ease of Cleaning
Pick a cabinet that is fairly light and easy to move it you wan to be able to clean around it. Cabinets that stand a few centimeters above floor level also make it easier to clean around them.

Offices files that need to be moved frequently can be stored in a mobile file cart. Some mobile carts will also have the security feature in other file cabinets. One nice thing about mobile carts is their small size, which makes them easy to tuck away when they are not in use.

Once you know exactly what you are looking for, check online retailers where you are bound to get the best selection at the very best prices.

 

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