"What size COSHH cabinet do I need?" is the question we are asked more than any other in this range, and it is almost always asked too late — after someone has counted the bottles on the floor of a store that has outgrown itself. Buy too small and you end up with substances that should be segregated crammed onto one shelf. Buy too large and you have paid for floor space you did not need.
This guide gives the actual dimensions and prices of every COSHH cabinet size we stock, from a 525 mm wide unit at £269 to an 1800 mm floor-standing cupboard at £2,575.86, and explains how to match one to what you are storing. For the legal picture — what COSHH does and does not require, fire ratings, siting and signage — see our separate COSHH cabinet requirements and regulations guide.
First, a correction worth making
You will read in a lot of places, including an earlier version of this page, that hazardous substances "must be stored in a compliant cabinet under the COSHH Regulations 2002". That is not right, and it matters when you are sizing a cabinet.
The COSHH Regulations place a duty on the employer to assess the risk from hazardous substances and to control exposure. They do not specify a cabinet, they do not set a minimum size, and no British Standard defines the dimensions of a COSHH cupboard. What that means practically is liberating rather than alarming: there is no size you are obliged to buy. The right size is the one that holds your stock, keeps incompatible substances apart, and contains a leak. Everything below follows from those three requirements, not from a regulation.
COSHH cabinet sizes and prices: the full range
Cabinets are quoted height × width × depth in millimetres, though — irritatingly — manufacturers do not agree on the order. GPC quote width × depth × height on the heavy-duty ranges and height × width × depth on the security cupboards. Always check which number is which before you measure your space.
Small COSHH cabinets — 525 to 1050 mm wide
If you are searching for a small COSHH cabinet — a unit for one bench, one van store or a handful of containers at the point of use — the Bott Verso range is where this catalogue starts. These are RAL 1023 safety yellow, with three-point locking, doors that open to 180° and labelling to BS EN ISO 7010:2012+A5:2015.
| Size (W × D × H) | Model | Best for | Price |
|---|---|---|---|
| 525 × 350 × 800 mm | 16926790.12 | Under-bench, a few 1–5 litre containers | £269.00 |
| 525 × 550 × 1000 mm | 16926791.12 | Deeper narrow unit, taller containers | £389.00 |
| 1050 × 550 × 800 mm | 16926794.12 | Wide low unit, sits under a worktop | £519.00 |
| 1050 × 550 × 1000 mm | 16926795.12 | Workshop point-of-use store | £579.00 |
| 1050 × 550 × 2000 mm | 16926796.12 | Full-height wide unit, multiple shelves | £859.00 |
Note the depth on this range: 350 mm and 550 mm, not the 460 mm that gets quoted as an industry standard. There is no standard depth. The 350 mm unit is genuinely shallow and will not take a 5 litre jerrican laid flat — check your containers, not the marketing copy.
Heavy-duty single-width cabinets — 915 × 483 mm, four heights
The GPC heavy-duty ranges all share one footprint — 915 mm wide × 483 mm deep — and offer four heights. This is the most useful part of the range for sizing, because you can pick the height that fits your ceiling, your mezzanine or your under-stairs recess without changing the floor area you have allocated. All are welded steel with adjustable galvanised shelves at 75 mm centres, reversible as spill-retaining trays, a return flange around doors and joints to prevent the passage of flame, all-metal locks and two keys.
| Height | Flammable | Acid | Pesticide / agrochemical |
|---|---|---|---|
| 915 mm | FSC05Z £1,268.10 | ASC05Z £1,319.76 | PSC05Z £1,319.76 |
| 1220 mm | FSC06Z £1,409.58 | ASC06Z £1,461.30 | PSC06Z £1,461.30 |
| 1500 mm | FSC07Z £1,727.88 | ASC07Z £1,779.30 | PSC07Z £1,779.30 |
| 1830 mm | FSC08Z £1,928.82 | ASC08Z £1,980.18 | PSC08Z £1,980.18 |
The general-purpose hazardous materials cabinet HSC08Z shares the tallest of these footprints — 915 × 483 × 1830 mm — at £1,531.56. Browse the ranges at flammable cabinets, acid storage cabinets and pesticide and agrochemical cabinets.
Large COSHH cabinets — 900 and 1200 mm wide security cupboards
The large COSHH cabinet sizes are the CoSHH security cupboards: two heights in two widths, all 460 mm deep, welded from 1.5 mm steel with a seven-lever anti-pick safe lock, full-length heavy-duty hinges with concealed fixings, adjustable spill-retaining galvanised shelves, an integral liquid-tight sump and a Germ Guard Active Technology anti-bacterial powder coat.
| Size (H × W × D) | Model | Price |
|---|---|---|
| 1200 × 900 × 460 mm | CSSC120945 | £1,369.98 |
| 1200 × 1200 × 460 mm | CSSC121245 | £2,092.14 |
| 1800 × 900 × 460 mm | CSSC180945 | £2,107.38 |
| 1800 × 1200 × 460 mm | CSSC181245 | £2,575.86 |
One thing worth knowing before you compare quotes: the Hazardous Substance Security Cupboards (HSSC120945, HSSC121245, HSSC180945, HSSC181245) are the same four sizes at the same four prices. The naming difference is a labelling difference, not a specification difference. If a supplier quotes you one against the other as though they were different products, they are not.
Petroleum storage chests — the outdoor option
Where the substance goes outside, the petroleum storage chests are a different shape entirely: low, wide and lidded, with a sloping roof of 810 mm at the rear falling to 610 mm at the front to shed water, a hasp and staple, and a removable sump. They are welded to A.P.E.A. requirements and labelled per the Petroleum Consolidation Act 1928. Three widths, all 630 mm deep: SSB09Z 610 mm £1,357.02, SSB10Z 965 mm £1,684.98, SSB11Z 1270 mm £1,993.14. A forklift is needed to unload these.
The capacity that matters is the sump — and nobody publishes it
Cabinet height tells you how much you can stack. The figure that decides whether the cabinet does its job is the sump capacity: the leak-tight tray under the lowest shelf that catches the contents of a failed container before they reach a drain.
The working rule is that the sump should hold at least 110% of the volume of the largest single container, or 25% of the total volume stored, whichever is greater. Most people apply the first test and stop. The crossover is where it catches you out: with a handful of 5 litre containers, 110% of the largest is the binding number and it is small. Once you are storing twenty or thirty containers, 25% of the total overtakes it and keeps climbing. A cabinet sized on the 110% test alone will be under-specified the moment your inventory grows, which is exactly the failure mode this page exists to prevent.
We will be straight about a gap here: GPC publishes no sump capacity figure for any cabinet in this range. Neither, in our experience, do most of their competitors. We are not going to estimate one from the footprint, because a number invented that way is worse than no number when someone is relying on it. What we will do is confirm the figure against the manufacturer's drawing before an order is placed, if your assessment depends on it. If your total volumes are large enough that the sump is the binding constraint, the honest answer may be that a cabinet is the wrong product and you want floor-level bunded spill containment or a drum store instead. The bunding guide works through the same 110%/25% arithmetic at drum and IBC scale.
Wall-mounted, under-bench or floor-standing?
A wall-mounted COSHH cabinet keeps a small quantity at the point of use and off the floor, which is worth doing where the alternative is a bottle on a bench. The constraint is weight: a filled steel cabinet is heavy, and the fixing has to carry the cabinet plus the contents plus the shock load of a door being slammed. Fix into structural masonry or steel, never into plasterboard or a partition, and if you cannot be confident of the substrate, put the cabinet on the floor instead. The small end of the Bott Verso range — the 525 × 350 × 800 mm unit — is the sensible candidate.
Under-bench is usually the better answer in a workshop, because it uses space that is already dead and puts nothing at head height. The 800 mm high units in the Bott range and the 915 mm GPC cabinets both fit under a standard worktop, though check the worktop's own clearance rather than assuming.
Floor-standing at 1200 mm or 1800 mm is the workhorse for stores, goods-in and anywhere stock is held in volume. The one ergonomic caution: an 1800 mm cabinet gives you more shelves, but the top shelf is above shoulder height, and lifting a full 25 litre container down from it is a manual handling problem you have designed in. Put light, infrequently-used stock at the top and the heavy items at waist height.
Segregation: why two cabinets often beat one
The instinct when sizing is to buy one big cabinet. Often the right answer is two smaller ones, because incompatible substances should not share an enclosure. Acids away from flammables. Oxidisers away from organics. Pesticides separate from general chemicals. That is why the GPC range is built as separate acid, flammable and pesticide cabinets sharing one 915 × 483 mm footprint rather than as one universal cupboard — two 1220 mm cabinets side by side occupy the same wall run as one 1830 mm cabinet and solve a problem the single cabinet does not.
If you are unsure which of your substances conflict, the hazard pictograms on the containers are the starting point — our guide to COSHH symbols and their meanings decodes them. And if what you are actually storing is lithium batteries rather than chemicals, none of this range applies: see lithium battery storage and the guidance on battery cabinets.
What about a cheaper cabinet, or a second-hand one?
Two searches come up constantly alongside sizing, and both deserve a straight answer.
Cheaper cabinets exist and they are not all a false economy. If you are storing a few litres of cleaning chemicals in a small workshop, the £269 Bott Verso unit or a comparable trade-counter cabinet will do the job, and paying £1,900 for a heavy-duty flammable cabinet would be over-specifying. The point at which the heavy-duty ranges earn their price is when the substance is genuinely flammable, when the quantity is significant, or when the cabinet sits somewhere it will get knocked. Match the cabinet to the risk, not to the biggest number in the catalogue.
Second-hand is where we would urge caution, and not out of self-interest. The two things that make a COSHH cabinet work are the integrity of the sump and the integrity of the door seal and lock. Both are the things that fail invisibly on a used cabinet: a sump half-full of dried spillage has lost the capacity you are relying on, and a warped door on a flammables cabinet has lost the flame path protection. If you do buy used, empty and inspect the sump before you put anything in it.
Sizing a COSHH cabinet in five steps
- Inventory what you store, in litres. Not "some solvents" — an actual list with container sizes. This one step decides both the shelf area and the sump requirement.
- Apply both sump tests. 110% of the largest container and 25% of the total. Take the larger. If the total is climbing, size for where you will be in two years.
- Split by compatibility before you size. Decide how many cabinets you need first, then how big each one is. Doing it the other way round produces one cabinet that cannot legally hold its contents.
- Measure the space including the door swing. The footprint is not the problem; the arc of an opened door in a corridor is. Check ceiling height, and check what is above if the cabinet needs ventilation.
- Buy one size up if it is close. The price step from a 1220 mm to a 1500 mm cabinet in the GPC range is about £320. Replacing a cabinet that filled up within a year costs the whole cabinet.
Where to go next
Browse the full range and current prices on the COSHH cabinets page, or the wider hazardous storage range for gas, batteries and spill containment. If you are still deciding what type of cabinet you need rather than what size, read flammable storage cabinet vs COSHH cabinet. For the regulations, signage, fire ratings and siting rules, the COSHH cabinet requirements guide is the companion to this one. And if the requirement turns out to be general secure steel storage rather than chemical storage, see industrial cupboards and our comparison of steel cupboards vs lockers.
Everything on this page is manufactured by GPC Industries or Bott. Prices are correct at the time of writing and exclude VAT and delivery. If you send us your inventory list and the dimensions of the space, we will tell you which cabinet fits — including when the answer is a smaller one than you were expecting.
This guide is general information, not legal advice. Storage decisions should follow your own COSHH risk assessment.