Considering Outdoor/Uncovered Storage

[Dennis P]

This has worked for me over the years, I brush off the snow when it accumulates . I have 4 poles with small dog bowls with rubber anti slip bottoms affixed on the top to replace the plastic discs that break under the weight of wet snow. The cover also keeps my disc brakes protected from the elements.

 

[RobbieO]

My neighbor keeps his boat in one of these. Seems to hold up very nicely. Any chance they would let you put one up at work? Or just get a autostart for your car. I have 1 and love that thing. Start my car from inside the house and when I get out there the car is nice and toasty.
Storing boat outside in the elements is the last thing I would do.

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I agree. I would sell my boat before I had to store it outside. I don't even like leaving it in the sun on the trailer at the lake on a weekend trip. LOL

 

[Sean R]

I probably stole the checklist from you, and it looks like we have the same trailer jack. That thing is rugged. I could not help but notice you left the handle attached. Being magnetic, I don't sleep well if I leave it there !

Holy Shit nice catch, no I always remove the handle. Having a different routine messed me up, thanks I was planning on heading to the boat this weekend anyway, I can't remember if I pulled the clean out plugs. My wife was rushing me also, that my other excuse.

 

[RobbieO]

My neighbor keeps his boat in one of these. Seems to hold up very nicely. Any chance they would let you put one up at work? Or just get a autostart for your car. I have 1 and love that thing. Start my car from inside the house and when I get out there the car is nice and toasty.
Storing boat outside in the elements is the last thing I would do.

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I have auto start too, with heated/cooled seats. Great for the summer too, especially if you have black leather like me.

 

[Jim_in_Delaware]

Holy Shit nice catch, no I always remove the handle. Having a different routine messed me up, thanks I was planning on heading to the boat this weekend anyway, I can't remember if I pulled the clean out plugs. My wife was rushing me also, that my other excuse.

It's always the wife's fault, just don't tell her that!

Jim

 

[RobbieO]

Good morning all. Hope the world is treating everyone well this cold/crisp December morning. I had to scrape the windows for the first time this season. It sucks. I'm a tropical person, not a wintery person. I like sunlight and warmth, not so much the cold and dark of winter. We have a good life setup here though, so I'm not moving anytime soon.

Now, I have a garage. It's attached to the house, and would keep the precipitation OFF my car in the winter. There's a problem though. The two bays are currently occupied. One with my wifes car, which shall forever live in the garage unless I want to consider a divorce (I do not), the other with our boat. It's a great boat, we've had it for 5 full seasons now, and it's lived in our garage the whole time. SUPER convenient if I want to work on it, or just go sit in it in the garage and drink a beer to get a break from the shenanigans of having two small boys in the house. I like having the boat close by, however I'm starting to think I might like having my car in the garage more than the boat in the garage. So I'm considering moving the boat to an outdoor storage location.

Now, our previous boat, it was nice too. We really liked it. It was stored "semi-outdoors". It sat in my grandfathers garage with the nose poking out of the front. His garage was built in the 50's and had an atrociously leaky roof. It basically acted like a shade for keeping "most" of the things, and "most" of the sun off the boat. Here's a super grainy old picture to show what that looked like. We lived in a condo, and this spot was on the way to the lake, and gave us a reason to go visit grandad on a regular basis. It worked out well for us.
View attachment 168061

Grandad still has the garage, however there is no way our AR190 could fit in there. Even with the tower down it won't go. The opening is just over 74in high, and our last boat would JUST miss the header as we backed in. HOWEVER, I now work with a company that has some huge space in the back lot. There are a number of people that store boats and trailers back there. Here's what that looks like. I took this a few years ago when I parked the truck/boat back there before we left early on a Friday afternoon. The intent of the picture was to show how large some of our equipment is to friends/family, however it serves to illustrate the conditions for storage I'm consdering.
View attachment 168062

You can see the other trailers over there. There is a 24ft Crownline sitting there now as well. I've been told it's no problem to add mine into the collection, and they'll even furnish me with a "clicker" to get in and out of the gate as I see fit. The place is fairly secure overall. We have a single entrance into/out of the back lot, and it's surrounded with 7ft tall fence with razor wire on the top of it. We also have surveillance cameras on that entrance, as well as each side of the building that covers "most" of the fenceline that could be cut through to access the lot. We're in a relatively mixed business area with some heavy industry, and some commercial. You can barely see the boats/trailers from the road. Here's a street view. Boats and trailers are under the arrow. Even with all the employee cars missing you can barely see back there.
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SO, my big concerns in moving the boat over here are snow loads when I'm not here to brush it off (weekends, etc), and UV protection for the cover. I have good radial tires on it, and I don't think those will care to sit over the winter. I've blown out the engine/water box, and am pretty confident on that as being adequate for winterization in this climate.

• Do I empty all the "stuff" out of the boat for the winter?
• Do I need to be concerned with heat cycling and the condition of the tube/boards/ropes/vests?
• I have the black "premium deluxe" mooring cover for it, and the straps/poles to keep the water out. Do I need to treat those ahead of time?
• What about mice/critters getting into the boat?
  • How can I leave the drain plugs out (in case rain water gets in), and keep pests out?
  • I've heard that Steel Wool in the hole will work. Thoughts?
• Should I support the cover somehow beyond the poles and straps to help with a snow load?
  • I'm in Louisville, KY and we don't get a lot of snow, and it's not very often, however we've had "sudden" storms come up every few years that will dump a foot on us overnight.
  • Maybe leave the tube blown up in the bow?
• Anything I'm missing before I decide to park my prized toy in a gravel lot outdoors?

If we're comfortable with storing it here this winter, we might make it a permanent thing moving forward. It's free storage, and we can use the space in the garage for other stuff beyond my car. Of course if we upgrade we would have to make this decision anyway. For some reason I'm super nervous to put our mostly pristine boat out in a gravel lot and let it sit, despite being here literally 5/7 days a week to check on it.

I bought (4) 2-ton screw jacks at Walmart and got my tires of the ground. Those china bombs love to flatten out. Before next season I'll be getting radials.

 

[TimW451]

+1 on not using the mooring cover for winter, I think the cold and wind would damage it even if the snow didn’t.
Use the poles you have and buy an inexpensive cover from Amazon. I’m on my second season with a $130 cover. Beats paying $600/year to shrink wrap it.
I take everything out, including the removable seat cushions, and keep them at home inside.
2 buckets of damp rid and some chemical from Starbrite that I think releases chlorine to dissuade critters from moving in.

 

[mwalker4]

If you store uncovered outdoors remember tires will need some extra attention. Maybe swap them a year or two earlier.

 

[zipper]

+1 on not using the mooring cover for winter, I think the cold and wind would damage it even if the snow didn’t.
Use the poles you have and buy an inexpensive cover from Amazon. I’m on my second season with a $130 cover. Beats paying $600/year to shrink wrap it.
I take everything out, including the removable seat cushions, and keep them at home inside.
2 buckets of damp rid and some chemical from Starbrite that I think releases chlorine to dissuade critters from moving in.

Shrinkwrap around here was $10 - $20 per foot installed, depending on the type (sail/motor) of boat and size of boat. I just looked at the prices at the marina we were at a few years ago and they have gone up since we last shrinkwrapped with them. They did do a great job though. I was able to do a lot of refit work under that cover. The price on the access door is why I am using the same one now that they put on the cover 3 years ago. I just cut it out and re tape it 5he next season.

 

[adrianp89]

Looks like you have the room to make the garage bigger. Might be a project to consider when it warms up.

Also what type of Audi? 2k seems absurd... I did remote starts for years, most expensive we ever did was still under 1k.

 

[Sean R]

Just a FYI, a buddy from work double covered his beautiful 27ft Colbalt two years ago and when he unwrapped it in the spring he had a lot of mildew on his seats. 99% did come of but he really struggled cleaning it. When I say double covered he had the snap cover on and then a big blue tarp over that. Maybe a few damprid buckets would of solved the issue, just giving my fellow jetboaters a heads up.

 

[HangOutdoors]

I check and cycle damp rid if needed in the middle of the winter. Around end of January I checked on them last year and threw 2 fresh new ones in and removed the old.

 

[2kwik4u]

Looks like you have the room to make the garage bigger. Might be a project to consider when it warms up.

Also what type of Audi? 2k seems absurd... I did remote starts for years, most expensive we ever did was still under 1k.

House is really close to the property line in the back corner. Would have to add a garage forward and to the left, and would like wildly out of place in the neighborhood. We are looking 2-3 years down the road at a new house, and the neighborhood we have our eyes on all have 3 car garages, and the builders will happily make one a "toy" garage with a 10ft door and 30ft depth. That would be idea.

It's a 2017 Audi Q7. I found a few modules online, but they were all stupid expensive and required carrying a separate key fob. 12Volt Solutions has a setup, but it requires leaving one key in the car all the time, and I'm not really a fan of that, and it's still like $900. Add in I'm super nervous to cut into the wiring on such an advanced vehicle. There's enough electronics in here I can only imagine the havoc a stray current would create.

 

[adrianp89]

Do you have push to start key and is it an automatic?

 

[adrianp89]

Not too bad of an install for PTS Auto - You need both keys, and will have to sacrifice one. So I would suggest buying a third off ebay and getting it programmed. Not 100% but sometimes you can program your self. With key and parts you can probably get away under $400.

Anyways you need the following pieces and it is just plug and play. This will give you remote start on the factory key fob. (Press Lock button 3 times)

idatalink:
CMVWXA0

t-harness:
ADS-THR-AU1

Install guide (ignore the wiring guide since you would use t-harness):

https://images.idatalink.com/vehicle-install-guides/Guides/722/341/21938/EN/RSD-AUD1-[CMHCXA0]-(Audi_Q7_2017_21938)-EN_20210923_202230.pdf

EDIT: There is a different option without needing a 3rd key. PM me if interested further.

 

[seanmclean]

Shrinkwrap around here was $10 - $20 per foot installed, depending on the type (sail/motor) of boat and size of boat. I just looked at the prices at the marina we were at a few years ago and they have gone up since we last shrinkwrapped with them. They did do a great job though. I was able to do a lot of refit work under that cover. The price on the access door is why I am using the same one now that they put on the cover 3 years ago. I just cut it out and re tape it 5he next season.

View attachment 168100

My wife thought I was crazy when she saw me cutting the door out of the wrap. Stupid thing was $50, better believe i'm reusing it.

 

[zipper]

@2kwik4u How are you today? Hope you guys are ok.

 

[2kwik4u]

@2kwik4u How are you today? Hope you guys are ok.

We survived the night OK. Honestly wasn't bad for us, we've had worse winds from just normal showers and thunderstorms.

Mayfield, KY (about an hour south of us) got hit pretty hard.

Wifes family is in Benton, MO (South of Cape Girardeau, near MO/IL/KY/TN intersection), and they went to a friends house to shelter in a basement overnight. We've been texting and calling all morning, with no response. Finally heard from them a few moments ago. They're OK. Haven't been home to see if it's damaged yet or not though.

Thoughts are with those affected nearby. Gov. Bershears press conference around 5am this morning had a one of the response coordinators estimating this to be worse than the 1974 Tornado outbreak in Louisville that killed many and destroyed a lot of property. Weather sucks.

 

[zipper]

My wife thought I was crazy when she saw me cutting the door out of the wrap. Stupid thing was $50, better believe i'm reusing it.

Keep reusing it as long as the zipper holds out. Prices are higher here for a door now. $75 now here.

 

[zipper]

So what if all of it won't fit in the garage. Most of it will.