Used IBC totes in West Palm Beach, Florida

What the sources say about West Palm Beach

It is the county seat, a role it gained in 1909, and was incorporated on November 5, 1894; the 1928 Okeechobee hurricane devastated it.

Palm Beach County leads the nation in sugarcane, fresh sweet corn and sweet bell peppers and has 396 horticultural nurseries.

More background on West Palm Beach

West Palm Beach covers 58.2 square miles, 5.26 percent of it water, and Wikipedia gives 61.75 inches of precipitation a year with most rain from May through October.

ZIP codes and neighbors

33401, 33405, 33407, 33409, 33412, 33417. Nearest: Riviera Beach (39,620), Lake Worth Beach (44,417), Wellington (63,258).

What that means for totes

Our reading: a county seat with farm country to its west sees both city-business and grower requests. Tell us which you are.

The 1928 storm is a reminder to strap and shelter totes.

A county seat built to house hotel workers has a downtown, an airport and neighborhoods that were flooded in 1928. Our reading: requests will come from restaurants, construction and homes, and the plan for each should include raising the tote.

Before you buy in West Palm Beach, check whether your address is in a historic district or near the Intracoastal, since both can add rules and flood risk. A restaurant near Clematis Street should also check alley access.

Wikipedia's figures give some perspective. At 58.2 square miles including 3.1 of water, the city has 55.1 square miles of land, and its 117,415 residents at the 2020 census work out to about 2,100 people per square mile, roughly a fifth of Hialeah's density. That spread-out pattern means large yards, long driveways and open lots on the western side.

Our reading: that makes West Palm Beach a place where a household can fit a 275 or even a 330 gallon tote, where a landscaper can keep several, and where a drive is usually wide. Henry Flagler platted the city in 1893 for hotel workers, and the old Clematis Street district remains the compact exception, where an alley and a hand truck decide everything.

Our reading: a gardener in zone 10b who wants frost-free irrigation water will buy a rinsed tote, a landscaper will want several, and a campus such as Palm Beach Atlantic University, which Wikipedia places along the Intracoastal Waterway, is a different kind of customer entirely.

Practical consequence: check whether your lot lies inside a historic district, near the Intracoastal Waterway or in a low spot, because each carries different rules and risks. A restaurant near Clematis Street should measure its alley, and a household on the western side should measure its driveway and gate.

Seasonal note: most of the 61.75 inches falls from May through October, so the best time to set up a pad and a downspout connection is the dry winter, when the ground is firm.

Before you write, state your neighborhood or the nearest cross street, because ZIP code areas here cover very different housing, and add the type of ground under the pad: sand, grass, or concrete.

For a house in the 61.75 inches a year the city averages, UF/IFAS's 0.62 gallon per square foot per inch means about 38,300 gallons a year per 1,000 square feet of roof, most of it between May and October.

Our reading: West Palm Beach combines a downtown, a working waterfront and a large residential area, so the likely requests are restaurants, property managers, marine suppliers and households. Property managers with several buildings should group totes by site and say who owns them; a tote left by a former tenant is not always the manager's to sell, and we would rather the form said so than guessed.

For restaurants downtown, name the product and say if the tote was ever used for anything but food-safe liquid.