BorrowPortal

Most of what
you own is
asleep.

A drill runs for thirteen minutes in its whole life. Lend yours to the block, borrow theirs when you need one.

Apply to joinRead how it works
A workbench of hand tools in a shared garage
Fourteen households, one set of tools.

The board

Everything your block has spare

This is the real thing, pinned up. Drag the board to move around it and open any note to read the rest.

Drag to move the board

Four moves, then a doorstep

  1. 01Apply
  2. 02List
  3. 03Ask
  4. 04Hand over

Apply

Tell us your street and a few things you would be happy to lend. A person reads it. Most applications are decided inside two business days.

Ownership is a storage problem

13

minutes

Average lifetime running time of a domestic power drill.Cited in the Ellen MacArthur Foundation circular-economy literature.

1 in 4

households

Own a pressure washer they used once in the last year.Indicative figure from our own member survey, 412 responses.

6

streets

The radius a typical borrow request travels before it is answered.BorrowPortal network data, rolling 90 days.
  • Tile saws
  • Camping stoves
  • Extension ladders
  • Projectors
  • Stand mixers
  • Roof boxes
  • Sewing machines
  • Pressure washers
  • Post hole diggers
  • Wallpaper steamers
  • Bike racks
  • Folding tables
  • Dehumidifiers
  • Carpet cleaners
  • Sack trucks
Two neighbours handing over a piece of equipment on a doorstep

What stops it going wrong

Lending to a stranger is a bad idea. Lending to a neighbour who applied under their own name, on your street, with fourteen reviews, is not the same transaction.

Applications are read by a person

Every member gave a real name, a deliverable address and a street we cover. Nobody joins by clicking a button.

Both reviews publish at once

Neither side sees the other's review until both are in, or fourteen days pass. There is no retaliatory reply, because there is nothing to reply to yet.

The reminder comes before the date

We email both people ahead of the return, not after it. Most late returns are a forgotten date, and a forgotten date is a solvable problem.

A damage report has a clock on it

48 hours from return, with photographs. After that it is wear, and wear is the cost of lending things.

Questions

Put your street to work

Applications take about four minutes and are read by a person. You need a real name, a street we cover, and two or three things you would be happy to lend.

Apply to join