Keeping delivered packages secure with a fabricated metal lock box

The concept of the package delivery box arose through a gate contract Matt LaHay was working on last year. Images: Cedar Valley Innovations

Editor’s Note: This feature originally appeared on Canadian Fabricating & Welding

An inevitable result of being stuck in your house for months at a time is that you are going to shop online. According to the Census Bureau’s Annual Retail Trade Survey, e-commerce sales increased by $244.2 billion or 43% in 2020, the first year of the pandemic, rising from $571.2 billion in 2019 to $815.4 billion in 2020. That’s a lot of packages being delivered every day.

Between the fear of porch pirates and bad weather, some online shoppers are likely to be concerned about how their packages get into their houses safely. Cedar Valley Innovations, a one-man shop in Mission, B.C., has fabricated a product to allay those concerns.

Gates to a Prototype

Cedar Valley, created and operated by Matt LaHay, builds what the company’s website refers to as a “secure package delivery system”—essentially, a mailbox big enough and secure enough for many of the parcels we receive regularly.

LaHay has spent the past four years as an independent contractor building custom driveway gates for clients in and around Vancouver.

“My cousins build fences, so anytime they had a customer who wanted gates, they’d call me, and I’d return the favor when I could,” he said. “Among my customers, some would often complain about packages getting stolen or broken. I didn’t think much of it until about eight months ago when I was building a gate for a customer, and they realized that the gate would be an issue for deliveries. They asked if I could design a secure box for those deliveries.”

LaHay went to the drawing board to see what he could come up with. This particular customer decided against having a box built, but LaHay saw the potential and went ahead and built a prototype for himself.

“That original design is still sitting outside our front door,” he said. “It evolved quickly from that rough prototype—I created nice cross bends on the doors to give it a more robust look, and the lines of the box itself are pristine in comparison—but it works, and I’ve had a number of delivery people knock on the door to tell me how impressed they are by it.”

Design Details

The design is reminiscent of a standard mailbox but with a larger drawer in which to deposit packages. It measures 48-in. tall by 32-in. wide by 24-in. deep with a sloped top so that moisture doesn’t pool on it in the rain or snow. The box is made from mild steel except for the stainless steel inset lock mechanism at the bottom.

It’s early days for Cedar Valley Innovations. LaHay has his own three-bay shop, but it was strictly designed for the welding work he has been doing over the past four years. For now, once he gets an order for 10 boxes, he rents out space from a friend who has a shear and a press brake, hires on a second fabricator, and spends two days cutting and forming the product.

“The door through which you drop the package is designed to be easy to open—when you open it, it will stay open if you need to use two hands to insert the package—and when you close it, it closes slowly, like many kitchen cabinets do, and holds firmly closed,” said LaHay.

“Ultimately, once sales increase, I want to invest in my own brake,” he said. “But we have to get more orders before we’ll be ready for that.”

It’s important to LaHay that the boxes stand the test of time, so he’s careful about how he constructs and paints them.

“Because almost everything is pop riveted together, I need to make sure the material is powder coated so that there is no exposed steel,” he said. “What I do is build a box, putting it together with temporary rivets. Once all the holes are drilled and everything operates properly, the box is completely disassembled and goes to get sandblasted, powder coated, and then reassembled. It means there is less chance that there is any exposed steel.”

The front face for the framework of the doors is made of 2- by 2-in. angle welded together. The doors are made using 12-ga. steel and the rest of the body is 14-ga. steel.

Market Expansion

Even though the product is fairly new, the feedback from customers—and delivery people—has been positive.

“Every customer I’ve sold to has been thrilled,” said LaHay. “It’s a great start. I still do the odd custom fab jobs to pay the bills right now, but my fiancée, Stephanie Modenese, who is in promotional work, really pushed me, saying I had to stay focused on this product if I’m going to make a go of it.”

Modenese is helping the cause, managing his website and social media to give Cedar Valley a brand design that stands out.

The key now is finding markets beyond homeowners.

“I’m looking at expanding into schools that need delivery boxes,” he said. “It’s also useful for businesses. After all, some delivery companies run seven days a week; it’s helpful to have a secure method for receiving items when you are not at the office.”

Access to packages is made through the base of the unit, which opens using a key. LaHay designed a hinge for the drop box door that can only be accessed from below, discouraging potential thieves from attempting to break the unit open.