Filing Cabinet Buying Tips

When choosing a filing cabinet for your home or office it is important to consider several factors. These factors are type, quality, security and whether or not something other than a filing cabinet is really what you’re looking for. In this article I will aim to address some of these factors to help you make a good decision.

There are four types of filing cabinets. Deciding what type of filing cabinet you’re going to use depends on the space in you have and what kind of files you are going to store.

Lateral Filing Cabinet: (also called side files in Great Britain)

These are great if you have enough space as the draw slides out along the long side of the cabinet. Lateral filing allows for 2 sheets side by side going into the drawer, or filing long ways along the drawer. Common sizes are 2, 4 and 5 draws, 5 draw versions often have a shelf instead of a top draw as most people are not tall enough to use a 5th drawer.

Vertical Filing Cabinet:

A better choice if wall space is a commodity as the drawer slides out along the short side. They usually come in 4 drawers for general use or 2 drawers to use as a desk mate.

Horizontal Filing Cabinet:

The ideal choice for storing large sheets of paper such as blueprints, drawings and sketches. They come in a wide range of shelf depths and widths.

Shelf Filing Cabinet:

This type of cabinet has an open shelf like a bookshelf. It either comes open or has a sliding door that can be closed over the front.

An improperly built filing cabinet can be a huge safety hazard in the workplace. Features to look for are:

• Anti-tipping feature on cabinets that allow multiple drawers to be open
• Locking mechanism that allows only one drawer to be open at a time
• Draws open and close smoothly even when heavily loaded (a drawer full of files can be very heavy)
• Counter weighted drawers

Cabinets can be found made out of wood or sheet metal. Wood and low quality-thin sheet metal tends to wear out faster than thick-sturdy sheet metal. If you use the filing cabinet every day I recommend going down this path. However, a wooden cabinet can go well with the atmosphere of the room. Thereby looking more successful and elite rather than drab and boring (metal cabinets can be quite unsightly). A quality cabinet should also come with a central locking system.

As I mentioned previously, a good quality filing cabinet should have a centralized locking system that has one key hole at the top. If you are keeping very important documents it may be worth considering a fire proof cabinet.

If you are pressed for space and need to store a large volume of files you may want to look at high density mechanical shelving. This is a series of shelves (like shelf filing cabinets) that roll back forth leaving a gap so you can access 2 shelves at a time. They come manually operated and alternatively with an electronic system. These truly are the best space savers.

Fireproof filing cabinets can be very expensive, if you only require a small number of your documents to be secure, a safe is a much cheaper option.

For adding some style to your room a wood filing cabinet is a great choice. A wooden filing cabinet is more expensive than it's metal counterparts, however a hand-made product always looks better. On the down side these cabinets tend not to be as durable as a metal filing cabinet, often getting scatch marks or dents.