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Good morning gents,
Well its October 1 and its starting to get cold. I have no garage to store my car in. I have an Chevy Corvette 2004, Autobody Armor™
But I am looking at buying a shelter to park in for the winter. I have looked at many and I am not sure what would be the best.
I could rent a garage the car at $90 a month, but that would put the car about 30 mins away. I can build the shelter on a stone driveway in my yard with shelter and foundation for about $900.
I have a 04 vert that will set outside for its 4th Winter. To protect the car I have a cover for the top only and a 'zillion' applications of Zaino products.
Personally I'd rather buy than rent. At $90 a month with an average winter lasting maybe 5-6 months, you'd have paid for the shelter in 2 winters time. How long do you plan to keep the car?
What cost do you value your time at to drive 30 mins (one way I'm assuming) in winter weather if you need to get to the car?
The built structure would have other uses all year long to help amortize and justify the cost of building.
Just my opinion and preference, but I offer it as food for thought. Good luck.
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Originally Posted by The Rabbi
With the shelter you'll have a year around garage.
I'd much rather have the structure at home than to rent a garage a distance away. Just be sure the shelter is designed to handle high winds and heavy snow if you get that type of weather.
In our climate, Northern Ontario, Canada, a shelter has a somewhat limited life expectancy. Mine is 3 winters old, has started to develop a few small rips. I expect to have to replace it next year.
As stated above, make sure it is snow and UV rated (so doesn't get affected in summer, unless you will take down). Also, I would recommend mouse/varmint protection of some sort--traps, moth *****, cat, small explosive charges. . .
Up here in North Dakota these canvas structures can not hold up to the kinds of wind that we have. A lot of people end up with damaged vehicles from this kind of shelter.
I'm just trying to get the "its starting to get cold" through my head. I step outside and I am sweating in seconds. I wish I was north of the Mason Dixon.
I've had one of these many years ago, and it stood up well to Mid-Atlantic winters, including a couple of snow-dumping blizzards.
You could also go with a carport type of unit which would be installed by the seller. They would be engineered for your area. But you can't go cheap. It is more expensive to have the metal seams/ribs positioned so the snow slides off the sizes, vs. having the ribs long ways which will hold the snow and you may have to remove it.
With the Tent style, Be sure to secure it down, I had 2 of them and the tie downs I used to secure it to my car trailer came loose during a wind storm and the one tent ended up on top of the other with my boat inside it
Ended up using the sawzall to get them apart and both were destroyed (tents were getting old anyway).
Also in the summer they can get very humid inside.
I just purchased a metal 2 car port for my boat and car trailer and am very happy with it, about $1500 with the added height and length and one closed side. Could easily be had for < 1k.
I've thought about getting a shelter like the one in the OP, but then I started thinking about how long one of these "tent" type shelters would last. I have a full 2 car garage, but since we have no basement, we have so much stuff in the garage that we can only get one vehicle in there at a time. My plan is to add a 10' X 20' shed along side the garage to put all of our stuff in. This will empty out the garage and make enough room for the wifey-poo's van and my C5...
Don't mind at all. I got it on sale, and Shipping was free.
Tip: Pay the extra money to have it delivered to the ground with a lift gate. It was $75 bucks more to do such, and my back wishes that I had done just that. It came in 7 boxes and most were too heavy for 2 men to handle, but we did; and the driver smartly let ME take most of the brunt of it.
Can you build (or have a contractor build) a carport? That way, you would have a much stronger structure that would withstand snow loads and you could use side walls and a back wall for protection. Then you would only need an outdoor car cover.
You could add a storage area behind the car and maybe even add electrical power for lights and an outlet or two. The costs would be higher but a more permanent shelter could be worth it over time.
10-01-2017, 08:27 AM
Garage or shelter
I'd much rather have the structure at home than to rent a garage a distance away. Just be sure the shelter is designed to handle high winds and heavy snow if you get that type of weather.
