The Post Box

Letter boxes are part of life, and are often something we take for granted. They are, however, one of the ways we communicate with the outside world, as mail delivered to our property can be important – though a lot of junk mail is delivered as well!

We do not often give a thought about our letter box, what it is made of or what style or colour it is. All we think about is receiving our mail. However, there is a wide range of colours of letter boxes on the market and if the letter box is fixed to your front door, you might want to consider how aesthetically pleasing it is. When developers are building new properties, they will not often consider the style of letter box required, but install a standard front door with a slot design. In new buildings, the letter box will be of a colour to complement the colour of the front door. This can of course be changed at a later date.

There are four basic designs of letter boxes - a simple slot in the door, a box attached directly on to your house, a Post Box on the street and a unit which is designed for multi occupancy buildings which provides letter boxes for individual residents. The letter Boxes can be made from stainless steel, aluminium, cast iron, uPVC and even plastic. Within the basic four designs, there are different styles of letter boxes to suit the style of your home.

The simple slot in the door design of letter box is generally a standard size of 30cm by 5cm (12 inches by 2 inches) to accept the standard A4 envelope. These letter boxes are available in uPVC, steel and aluminium to suit the style of your front door. There are also different colours of letter boxes. A slot design of Letterbox is often pre-fitted into a new door, whether it is uPVC or of timber construction. However, you may at some stage want to change the letter box, due to it becoming damaged or has started to rattle. It is relatively easy to amend the size of a timber door, should the new letter box be slightly larger, but it is not so easy to resize a uPVC door, and you may need to call in a professional to get his advice.

Letter boxes which are attached to the wall beside the door can be of many styles and colours and you will have more choice. There is also a wider range of materials used in constructing the letter box and of course it will be much easier to change. There are letter boxes available with newspaper holders built in, large capacity newspaper letter boxes, letter boxes which are more stylish made from non corrosive plastic, and letter boxes made from decorative cast aluminium which is more suitable for an older style property.

All letter boxes should be weather proof. If you live by the coast you may want to consider a letter box made from non corrosive materials so that your letter box does not rust and allow water in which will damage your mail.

Even with the advent and growth of electronic data communications and on line shopping, many organisations use the regular postal service, or snail mail, as a method of keeping in touch with their clients, and updating them on products and services available. There is, then, still a requirement for a postal system and letter boxes. Some firms cut their direct mailing budget, but research has found that some people still prefer the traditional method of communicating by post and to receive reminders about some products through their letter box. Despite the wide usage of e-cards which can be sent at birthdays and Christmas, people still prefer to receive a traditional card. At Christmas millions of cards and parcels are sent, and a letter box is required for receiving them. Goods ordered on line has also meant that many more parcels pass through the postal system and letter boxes are still required to deliver notifications if no one is at home.

Direct mail was traditionally used to keep in direct contact with customers who were interested in the company’s products, reducing advertising costs. Catalogues and fliers were sent to the known customers and delivered directly to their door through the letter box. Nowadays, products are often listed on a web site and can be ordered on line, but there is still the need for a letter box in the event of no one being in to receive the parcels so that the postman can leave a note. Some people still prefer to receive a hard copy of a catalogue or brochure through the post box along with the price list.

Traditional greetings cards are habitually sent, regardless of the electronic versions available on the internet. It seems more personal somehow. Technophobes still prefer to receive communications via snail mail. For the elderly, receiving a card through the letter box which they can hold and read is often far preferable to receiving an email or e-card.

Another reason for receiving mail through traditional sources through the letter box is that there is so much spam and junk emails sent, that many people tend to ignore emails which are sent from unknown sources. The sender may be missing the opportunity of making a sale if the customer deletes the email without reading it. It may be company policy therefore to have a mixture of methods of communicating with clients, some through the postal system and others by email. Some clients may prefer to receive mail by traditional methods.

Important documents which must be in hard copy, such as legal documents and bank correspondence, are still sent by traditional methods through the postal system. Security of your letter box is therefore very important and you should ensure that unauthorised persons are not able to access your mail.

Checking the letter box for incoming mail is part of the daily routine, both at home and at the office. Letter boxes are just an important part of life as they were before the technological revolution. Regardless of the growth of electronic methods of communication, the letter box is here to stay for the foreseeable future.

Despite the growth of using email and other electronic communications for correspondence, letter boxes still have a place in society. Security and convenience are just two advantages of continuing what has become known as the “snail mail” service with a letter box to receive incoming mail.

Businesses and private users want to ensure that documents delivered to their premises is safe and that thieves cannot access the letter box to retrieve the mail. There is a growth in identity theft and determined criminals can access private information from unlocked letter boxes and use the information to commit fraudulent activities. Whether you are a business or an individual, the security of your mail at risk if you do not have a lockable mail box, and even then, thieves can break into them. Users in apartment and office blocks are potentially at the greatest risk as the letter boxes are often located in the lobby of the building where there are times when people are not around. People are starting to take theft of mail from the mail box very seriously, as the threat grows and criminals find new ways to steal what is rightfully yours. It is not feasible or cost effective to have every letter sent by registered or recorded delivery so that it requires a signature and therefore the correspondence is not put into the letter box but handed to the addressee. By selecting a lockable letterbox with only selected people having the key, you have taken the first step to ensuring that your mail is safe and secure. Some letter boxes have two compartments, so that the mail is dropped into the first compartment, which then slips through into the second sealed compartment underneath which can only be opened with a key. If you are looking for a locking letter box, do not only consider the price, but also whether it is truly tamperproof, even with the use of a screwdriver.

Letter boxes are convenient as the postman can deliver the mail at any time of day or night and you do not have to be at home to receive it. In the business situation, multi occupancy letter boxes are convenient for the postman so that he does not have to spend time delivering mail to individual offices, which saves time. Large capacity letter boxes and newspaper boxes may be more suitable for organisations, whether they are home working businesses or larger companies.

Whether you receive correspondence for your company or as an individual, you will need to consider both the convenience of receiving mail through the letter box and the security aspects. Offsetting convenience against security need not be an “either or” situation, but considering the style of letter box you have will be a big factor, as will the individual circumstances of the location of your premises, whether it is an office or apartment block with a multi occupancy style letter box. In the latter circumstances, if you are really worried about theft of your mail, you can collect it from the post office yourself, or ask the postman to ring the bell of your apartment or office when he has deposited the mail in the letter box so that you can retrieve it immediately.

The usage of letter boxes has developed differently in other parts of the world, but in Britain the Post Office introduced the letter box in 1849. Prior to that, outgoing mail was taken to the Post Office and dropped through letter boxes which had been made available in the walls and doors of the Post Office buildings. As the mail delivery system to homes and businesses was established, people were encouraged to make facilities available so that the postman could deliver mail quickly and easily. Letter boxes, or mail slots as they are known in the United States, started to appear in front doors and office buildings started to have multiple occupancy letter boxes which were allocated to businesses who occupied the building. This also applied to multiple occupancy residential properties with each resident being allocated a personal letter box.

In Europe, personal letter boxes did not become popular until the mid to late nineteenth century. In North America, the first letter box was set up in 1863. The Free City Delivery service was established and postal services were improved by the delivery of mail to individual addresses. Prior to that, the postman was obliged to knock on the door of a property and wait for a response. This meant that a lot of time was wasted if people were not at home or were slow in answering the door. For incoming mail, the advent of the letter box made the postman’s life easier and less time consuming. For outgoing mail, it is common practice in the US for mail boxes to be located at the side of the street to save the postman time in having to physically walk up each path individually to deliver the mail. This method is used in rural areas and mail boxes are mounted on posts at the end of a road or track. Mail boxes are often fitted with a flag to indicate that mail has been delivered.

Typical sizes of letter boxes are 30cm by 5cm (12 inches by 2 inches) and the slot is usually cut horizontally in the middle or lower half of the front door. A weatherproof flap is placed on the outside over the slot and this can be made of brass, chrome or other material to complement the style of your door. The inside of the letter box can be fitted with another flap to exclude draughts as well as a cage to catch the mail so it does not drop on the floor. The cage is often known as an indoor post box and catches the mail as it is pushed through the letter box. Both letter boxes and indoor post boxes are designed to accept A4 envelopes, but larger capacity letter boxes and newspaper boxes are also available.

The basic design of the standard letter box used in the majority of houses in urban Britain has changed little since its inception in 1849. The availability of a letter box improves efficiency for the postman which in turn cuts costs to the consumer by keeping the price of postage at an economic level.

Even with the advent of the digital age, it is thought that the Royal Mail delivers 72 million letters every day. Having a letter box to receive incoming mail is still an important part of life. At Christmas, there is a phenomenal growth in the numbers of letters, cards and parcels delivered our letter boxes, and the mail service is stretched to the limit. Temporary postmen are employed and the site of your letter box is even more important to make it easy for the postman to find your letter box. If your letter box is easy to find and accessible, it will speed up the postman’s job of delivering the mail and allow him to get home early.

Where you live will in the main dictate where the letter box is located, and the type of letter box you will have. If you live in an urban area with terraced housing, the majority of letter boxes are in the front doors or on the wall adjacent to the door. The post box should not be at the rear of the property, unless that is the door facing the road and other houses in the road have their post boxes at the back door. Make it easy for the postman by locating the post box at the same side of the building as your neighbours.

Houses with gates and gardens may have the letter box on the gate post or in the garden to make it quicker and more convenient for the postman to deliver your mail. In rural areas, especially farms, there may not be a letter box at all, but the postman knows by experience where to put the mail. You can make it easier for the postman by putting a post box at the end of your track so that he does not have to physically drive up to the house to deliver your mail, unless there is a package to be signed for. If you live in an apartment block, you will not have a choice about where to locate the letter box as this will have been decided by the developers and the management committee when the block was built. This will also apply to office blocks.

The most important point to take into account when deciding on a site for your letter box is that is convenient and easy to access, but also it must be visible to the postman who may not be familiar with the area. You will also want to take into account security of your mail by having a lockable or arson proof post box.

The provision of a letter box in which your mail can be placed safely and securely allows the postman to fulfil his duties efficiently. If the letter box is easy to find and sympathetically sited, it will make his job easier, especially in the winter on days when the weather is bad and the postman just wants to get home. Think about the postman when deciding on the location for your new letter box, and if you have a choice of places it might be sited, make sure it is easy to use.

A Letter Box of some description is a must for receiving incoming mail and it should be in a location which is convenient both for your postman to easily deliver your mail and for yourself to be able to retrieve the mail. In urban areas of the UK, the majority of Letter Boxes are slots in the front door. However, these can be problematical if not fitted correctly, flapping around and allowing draughts and heat loss from your home. Draught excluders can be fitted to your Letter Box to stop it rattling and the LetterBox should be fitted carefully. If you are purchasing a new front door, Letter Boxes are often pre fitted, but you may have the opportunity to select your own style of Letter Box.

In reality, the majority of Letter Boxes which are of the rear retrieval design have a plate inside which is held in place with only two screws. If you are replacing your Letter Box, you might like to consider an outside letter plate which can be decorative and made of steel, stainless steel, brass or chrome. This is the part of the Letter Box which is seen by visitors and should complement the style and design of the door and can be purchased with or without a name plate.

You should measure the size of the existing hole carefully before purchasing your new Letter Box to ensure that it will fit. There is no overall standard size for Letter Boxes, so you may need to do some alterations to the existing hole. Of course, you can make the hole bigger, but not smaller, so take this into consideration. This will also depend on the material of which your door is made – PVC is not easy to enlarge whereas wood easy to work with. The thickness of the door and the length of the screws you have available should also be taken into consideration.

Once you have purchased a new Letter Box, having decided on the design and colour and made sure that it will suit your purpose, you can remove the old one. Letter plates which are designed for rear retrieval of your mail are fitted over the front of the slot in the door so this is the only part of the Letter Box which the postman sees. Inside the door, you can fit a plate which is also a draught excluder which is basically two brushes mounted on the plate, and will stop your Letter Box rattling in the wind. You may also wish to fit a letter cage inside the door to prevent the mail from falling on the floor and being chewed by the dog or the children.

The majority of Letter Boxes are designed to easily accept A4 envelopes without them folding. If you regularly receive larger envelopes, packages and newspapers, you may want to consider purchasing one of the larger capacity Letter Boxes which are on the market.

There are many styles of Letter Boxes on the market, and it will depend on whether you live in a house which is an individual dwelling or a multi occupancy building as to which type of Letter Box suits your requirements. Multi occupancy buildings such as apartments and office blocks will often have a Mail Box with individual compartments either inside or outside the building. This will make the postman’s job much easier, as he will not have to visit every individual apartment or office in the building to distribute the post, unless he has to deliver a package which must be signed for.

As with Post Boxes for individual residences and businesses, there are many styles and designs of multi occupancy Mail Boxes on the market. These can be horizontal or vertical, mounted on supports or fixed to a wall inside or outside the building. When a new apartment or office block is commissioned, the style and location of the multi occupancy Mail Box will often have been decided by the developer. Security of the mail should be taken into account, and each individual Mail Box will have a key so that the recipient can retrieve the delivered mail. Each box will be labelled with the name of the person or the office or apartment number to ensure that the mail goes to the correct addressee. The Mail Boxes are usually made of stainless steel or steel and are fire resistant.

The sizes of the Mail Boxes will depend on whether the building is a residential or commercial premises, and there are multi occupancy Mail Boxes which are of a larger capacity than the standard A4 and will accept bigger C4 mail without bending as well as more post.

Communal Mail Boxes in large apartment blocks are often the target of vandals, so they must be fire proof so that a fire started in a Post Box will not spread to other parts of the building. Some Mail Boxes are specifically designed to extinguish fires and are fitted with fire extinguishers which detects the fire and puts it out before it can spread to other parts of the building. It is always important to protect the important documents which are delivered to your premises, so investing in a Mail Box with the additional feature of being anti arson is money well spent. If you are moving to new premises which already has a multi occupancy Mail Box you can ask whether it is fireproof, and if it does not have this feature, it would be worth lobbying the other occupants of the building to agree to a new Mail Box for the building. If the building is still under development and are considering a lease for an apartment or office within the block, you can request the management company to negotiate with the builders to agree the style of the multi occupancy Mail Box which is fire proof. Often these details are overlooked in the rush to finalise and commission a building.

With the phenomenal growth of the internet and digital media, the question arises as to why there is a still a need for letter boxes and why they are so important. Many firms, especially banks and lawyers, still send documents by snail mail and you need a letter box as a receptacle for the incoming mail. Security of incoming mail is very important and you do not want other people accessing your mail, especially if it contains confidential information such as bank details or information about legal transactions. Much of this is sent by recorded delivery and must be signed for, but it is still important to have a letter box in case you are not in and the postman has to leave a card so you can collect the letter from the post office later.

There is a rising crime rate in data theft and you must always consider the security of your private information. By providing a letter box, you are making it easy for the postman to deliver the mail which is not then accessible to other parties than the addressee. The Royal Mail is legally bound to deliver mail only to the addressee and not to a third party, even if you are out, so a letter box is a must. Lockable letter boxes, arson proof letter boxes and letter boxes which can be built into the walls or doors of your property are all available to maximise the security of your mail.

Some people do not wish to provide bank details over the phone or internet and may prefer to have paper contracts for some documents which must be signed and returned instead of downloading them from the internet. When opening a new bank account or setting up a new insurance policy, the financial institution concerned will always want an original signature. This means sending out original paper documents which are delivered through your letter box to prevent money laundering and identity theft.

Security is becoming more and more necessary these days as criminals find ever more ingenious ways to steal identities when payments for goods are made via the internet. This can be avoided by insisting that bank details and other personal information are only provided in writing and sent through the post. The recipient will also then require a letter box to receive the documents, making it more difficult for the would-be thief to intercept your information for their own use, or to sell on to a third party.

Letter boxes for incoming mail have been in use in the UK for many years, and red post boxes for outgoing mail a national institution. The Royal Mail is legally obliged to keep your mail safe at all times while it is in their care and are very diligent when you request redirection of your mail to another address, requiring the signature of the person to whom mail is addressed as well as photographic identification. This will ensure that mail is delivered to the correct letter box at your new address.

Even the modern world of communications and the internet, people are still inundated with mail received through Letter Boxes both at residential and at business premises. As we all try to cut down on waste in all forms, it is annoying to receive unsolicited mail and to have to sift through communications which are delivered through post boxes to separate bona fide letters from unwanted mail. Advertising fliers posted through letter boxes are often thrown away without being read, and even glossy magazines received through letter boxes can be put in the paper recycling without even having been opened.  This is not only a waste of paper, but a waste of money for the advertisers and promoters. People lead busy lives, and do not want to receive unsolicited mail through their letter boxes and to have to sort out the mail at the end of a busy day.

Some people who do not wish to receive unwanted mail through their post boxes put notices with “no junk mail” above their letter boxes, but this is bad news not only for the postman who has carried the mail and has to sort it out, but also for the company who has spent money producing the material.  It is not cost effective for advertisers to have their hard earned cash basically thrown in the bin. According to the BBC News site (November 2011), new measures are being introduced to reduce the amount of junk mail received through letter boxes. From April 2012 there is to be a single web site where the people can register to opt out of receiving unsolicited fliers and other mail.  Direct marketing companies have agreed to only use recyclable materials in advertisements whereas at the moment 80% of items received through your letter box do not fall into that category.   Currently people have to register on three separate web sites if they do not wish to receive junk mail – the Mailing Preference Service, the Your Choice Preference System and the Royal Mail’s Door-to-Door opt-out service.

Mail Boxes are often overflowing or letters are piled up behind the door when people return from holiday and much of it is unsolicited mail.  This all has to be sorted, causing aggravation when the majority of what has been delivered through the letter box is effectively rubbish. According to the BBC News report, on average the UK householder receives more than 370 items of unsolicited paper mail through their letter boxes each year, the greater part of it unaddressed.

In the same report, it was stated that an estimated nine billion items of unaddressed post are delivered through post boxes every year. Such mail inevitably ends up in the bin creating a lot of waste.    The Government are so concerned about the level of waste that they have brokered a deal with the Direct Marketing Association to reduce the level of unsolicited mail being delivered through post boxes in a crack down on junk mail as part of its waste review in the UK’s effort to forge ahead with a zero waste economy.

Even in these days of emails and other electronic transmission of correspondence, the humble Letter Box is of paramount importance for your communications.   There are four main designs of Letter Boxes for incoming mail – a simple slot in the door,  a box attached directly on to your house, a Post Box on the street and a unit which is designed for multi occupancy buildings which provides Letter Boxes for individual residents.

The simple slot in the door style of Letter Box by far the most commonly used in the United Kingdom, especially in urban areas.   It is convenient for the postman as he can simply deliver the mail without having to open individual receptacles.  The Letter Boxes are often pre-fitted into new doors and can be made of aluminium, chrome, brass, uVPC or stainless steel.  The design of the Letter Box allows weather proofing by having an interior draught excluder.  Many Letter Boxes have spring loaded flaps to ensure that they close automatically and are weatherproof.   The slots in the door are usually horizontal, but can be vertical, and measure 30 cm by 5cm (12inches by 2 inches).

Letter boxes which are directly attached to your property  may be more beneficial if you regularly receive larger envelopes which will not fit through the standard slots.  .  The Letter Boxes can be mounted on the door and be made of stainless steel, cast aluminium, uVPC or wood.  Security of your mail may be an issue with this style of letter box and the slot should be small enough so that the mail cannot be retrieved once it has been delivered.  The front of the box usually has an aperture which can be opened with a key by the owner of the letter box.

Standard letter boxes on the street in North America consist of a metal box mounted on a post, usually with a tag which can be reset to indicate that mail has been delivered.  In the UK,  there is a selection of letter boxes which can be mounted by the roadside on posts or on walls for the convenience of the postman.  If you have a dog who does not like the postman, this may be an option for you as you can mount the post box outside the gate so that the postman does not have to come into the garden.  To keep your mail safe, the post box will have a key so that mail can be retrieved only by the owner.

Letter boxes for multi occupancy buildings usually consist of a bank of individual boxes with keys.  This style of letter box can be located either inside or outside the building with the numbers on the boxes corresponding to that of the apartment or office.   The Letter Boxes can be constructed to suit each building, with the same number of individual boxes made available for each company or residence.

All in all, Letter Boxes continue to be an important part of any communications, despite the phenomenal rise in the usage of email and electronic messaging.