There is one very important question that every potential and current boat owner should ask themselves, “Where am I going to store my boat?” Whether you own a large, 40-foot fishing boat or just a small vessel, having someplace to park it while you’re not using it is essential in preserving your boat’s longevity.
If you are one of those people out there who’s thinking ahead about where to store your boat, you’ve come to the right place. This article will tell you everything you need to know about preserving your boat. Read on to discover the most crucial information regarding covered boat storage.
Why Should I Store My Boat Indoors?
Many people underestimate the overall cost of purchasing a boat. Most people will not take into account storage costs, because they assume that they can leave their boat on a trailer next to the side of the house. However, this is not ideal.
Before you purchase a boat, you want to add up all of the costs—these include indoor storage. Of course, whether or not you choose to store your boat indoors or outdoors is up to you. Keep in mind, however, that storing your boat indoors is significantly more beneficial to the lifespan of your boat rather than leaving it outside.
You may be thinking, “Indoor storage costs way more money.” In some respects, you are correct. In others, this is wrong thinking.
Suppose you purchase an expensive boat that happens to be the boat of your dreams. You may believe that keeping your boat outside will cost less money. In the long run, however, you will end up actually paying much more.
This is because—whether you like it or not—your boat will not last as long outside in the harsh environment. Thus, you will be forced to purchase a new boat when you could have had the same boat for another 10 years.
Does outside storage still sound cheaper?
In essence, storing your boat indoors will allow you to preserve its longevity. This in turn will allow you to save boatloads of money (see what I did there?).
With all this in mind, we also need to examine the different types of indoor storage options for boats.
What Are Some Different Types of Covered Boat Storage?
When the boating season is over and it’s time to say “goodbye” to your boat for now as you decide to store your boat away, you have to choose one of the endless indoor boat storage facilities options out there. This can easily become one of the hardest decisions to make concerning your beloved watercraft.
Because of this, there are two main types of indoor boat storage that we will discuss:
1. Storage unit
This is one of the more common options—partially because they offer both indoor and outdoor boat storage. Remember, however, that we are looking specifically at indoor boat storage options, so we’ll rule out their outdoor option.
A commercial storage unit is great for those who live in apartments and who do not have easy access to their boats. When you rent a storage unit for your boat, you can choose the option to have a yearly lease. This is very beneficial because it will provide you with a place to store your boat both on- and off-season.
Additionally, you can check on your boat and see how it’s doing whenever you want. This means that if you need to repair your boat, you do not have to wait until boating season starts to begin repairing it. You can visit your beloved boat whenever you please.
2. Dry-stack storage
Imagine a bookshelf for boats—that’s basically what dry-stack storage units are. They raise your boat using a forklift and set it along with other boats in a giant facility. There are both pros and cons to this type of indoor boat storage.
Fortunately, your boat is kept tucked away from harsh weather conditions and can sit undisturbed until you need it. Often, you can retrieve your boat within an hour of calling the facility. This type of storage is great for those who generally don’t want to maintain their boats themselves, they only want to either drive or fish in it when the season permits them to.
However, one of the downsides to this type of storage is that you don’t necessarily have quick-and-easy access to your boats like you would with a storage unit. With this type of storage, you would need to plan ahead when you want to use (or fix) your boat. Nevertheless, it’s still a great storage option.
Now that we have discussed two types of indoor boat storage units, there are seven benefits to indoor boat storage in general that need to be recognized and discussed.
1. You Can Be Sure That Nobody Will Steal Your Boat
When you leave your boat outside, there is a high risk of someone potentially stealing your boat—which would be expensive to replace. However, when your boat is kept in some kind of RV and boat storage facility, you can rest assured that your boat is secure and no one will steal it. In this way, you can let your beloved watercraft sit in peace until the next time you bring it out for a spin or fishing trip.
Most indoor storage facilities are secure. With this in mind, however, there have been multiple instances where boats were stolen even while being stored indoors.
Though this is an unfortunate reality, the number of boats stolen while being kept in indoor storage facilities is nowhere near the number of boats stolen that are simply kept outside. According to the National Insurance Crime Bureau (NICB), 4,240 boats were stolen in 2019—and the majority were most likely stored outside. To make matters worse, only about 41% of the boats were recovered.
Worried about somebody stealing your precious, new boat? This is just one of the seven reasons discussed in this article why you should not leave your boat outside while not using it. The most logical and wise decision would be to keep your boat in one of the most secure boat storage facilities out there.
With your boat stored inside, you can rest assured every night that your boat—something that you most likely paid a significant amount of money for—will not get stolen.
2. Your Boat Is Protected From the Elements
In addition to being protected from potential thieves, your boat will also be protected from harsh weather conditions and the elements of the outdoors should you choose to store it indoors. For example, if you decided to “go with the flow” and keep your boat outside next to your house because you think you’d be saving money, a tropical storm may come and severely damage your watercraft.
However, had that boat been in some kind of indoor storage facility, the chances of your boat suffering damages related to the environment are significantly reduced. Furthermore, before signing the agreement with the storage facility, you could possibly make sure that a clause is included in the agreement that puts the responsibility of damage to your boat on them.
Why would you choose not to store your boat in a storage facility in light of this?
In fact, we actually do not need to discuss a hypothetical situation like a tropical storm. Something as seemingly harmless as rain can do severe damage to your boat.
You might think that the rain, sleet, and snow only affect the exterior of the vessel—which is an easy fix for most people. However, these environmental conditions actually affect the interior of the boat more so than the exterior.
During days with heavy rain, your boat can act as a giant bowl—collecting large amounts of water that may destroy the engine (not to mention rot the hull as well).
Most people think that they can easily get around this issue by simply putting a large tarp over their vessel during the winter. This reasoning is both illogical and does not take into account the fact that cold weather alone can affect the longevity of your boat. It would be hard to think of an event more depressing than waking up one beautiful spring morning only to realize that you have to cancel your fishing trip because your engine’s shot.
Store your boat indoors so that you can prevent the environment from severely harming your boat.
3. You Will Keep Your Property Looking Neat and Tidy
I have personally seen one too many homes that would be otherwise beautiful had the owners’ large, oversized, dirty-looking boat been stored somewhere other than the front yard. Of course, simply cleaning your boat will alleviate this problem slightly, but it does not change the fact that your home would look significantly better if you decide to store your precious boat elsewhere.
According to The Hull Truth, most neighbors don’t enjoy it when someone decides to keep their boat at home and in their front yard. Though the boat will be on your property and you have every legal right (depends on the state in which you live) to keep your boat on your property at your house, you probably would not make your neighbors too happy.
You might feel the urge to keep your boat at home as a way to show off your beautiful vessel. While this is no moral crime in most people’s opinions, it may only serve in upsetting the residents around you who are trying their best to make the street and neighborhood as beautiful as possible.
As one individual said on The Hull Truth, “…(it) depends on the neighborhood…….where I live it would be very inconsiderate, not illegal, to stick a boat in my driveway…” This is generally the sentiment of most people. Unless they too are boat owners, fishermen, or people who love the outdoors, most neighbors will probably see it as inconsiderate unless you give them a “heads up” beforehand.
Essentially, if you put your boat in storage, you will not only protect it from thieves and the environment, but you will also aid in helping both your yard, property, street, and neighborhood look beautiful and less crowded.
4. Your Boat Will Be Kept Safe From Pests
As you can see, most of the benefits of indoor boat storage build off of one central idea: security for your watercraft. So far, we have discussed security in the sense that your boat will not be stolen by a thief, your boat will be secure from environmental conditions such as heavy rains, and, now, your boat will be secure from pests.
Insects have an annoying habit of infesting many spaces where humans like to go. This undoubtedly includes boats. The last thing you want to happen before you go on your planned fishing trip is you getting stung by multiple wasps at the same time upon your entrance of the boat.
Storing your boat in an indoor storage facility will eliminate any possible insect infestation of your boat. You can ride the waves in a free state of mind knowing that you won’t get bitten by any bugs or insects that stowed away on your vessel.
Insect infestation might sound like a trivial worry when you consider other, larger problems of obtaining indoor boat storage such as the costs of paying for an indoor boat storage facility. However, you’ll think twice about this when an unexpected attacker bites you when you least expect it.
When you store your boat in a secure facility, you will not have to worry about unwanted pests making their home in your pleasure vehicle. For example, there is very little chance that a swarm of wasps will camp out in your watercraft while it’s being stored in a storage unit.
As you can see, there are many reasons related to security why you should store your boat in an indoor facility. These mentioned are not the only ones. We will examine more of them later in this article.
5. You Have Easy Access to Repair Your Boat
Imagine this scenario.
On what you say is the last boating trip of the year before the cold season starts, your engine breaks down. Luckily, you got all the time you wanted to go boating and fishing that season before the engine broke down. However, now you have to wait with the boat sitting out in the cold for spring—when you are going to have to contend with that problem and fix your engine before you’re able to enjoy the spring season.
However, had you put your boat storage covers winter on your boat and it’s kept inside an indoor storage facility, you could have all winter to comfortably visit your precious boat and conduct the necessary repairs. This is another benefit of indoor storage. While you’re waiting for the winter season to pass, you can repair your boat, maintain it, and make sure it’s ready to go when spring arrives.
There may be a problem if you choose to dry-stack your boat while you’re waiting for winter to pass though. Even though your boat would still be in a safe, secure indoor storage facility, you won’t have easy access to your boat because it will essentially be kept on a shelf with many other boats. You would either have to call an employee of the facility and ask if they are willing to help you retrieve your boat, or you’ll have to wait for spring to arrive.
If you need to conduct repairs to your boat during the cold season, the best option would be to rent an individual boat storage unit.
6. You Have More Space in Your Yard
This ties in with benefit three in this article. Besides upsetting your neighbors and making your yard look trashy, letting your boat sit outside unused during the winter will also take up a significant amount of room that you could have used to either park your car (assuming the boat is on the driveway), set up a picnic table outside, or do something else to improve your yard.
Storage units for boats are great if you’re the type of person who likes to have more space on your property.
If you indeed do decide to park your boat in your driveway, you’ll have to contend with—most likely every morning—trying to maneuver around the boat to get your car out to drive to work. Do those sound like an ideal winter season? Instead, you could pay to have your boat stored in a secure indoor facility and not have to worry about you not having limited space on your property to do the things that you want to do.
This can also be a psychological thing to make you feel like you have a bigger property. With more and more people moving into cities, neighborhoods are feeling congested. This adds to the want that many people have for more property and personal space—putting your boat in storage will do just that.
7. It Will Make You Excited for the Spring
The final benefit of indoor boat storage on this list is that storing your boat in an indoor storage facility will keep you excited for spring to arrive. You might ask, “How does this work?” Let me explain.
When you keep your boat outside and next to your house, it will obviously be subject to much wear and tear that will make your boat dirty and, quite frankly, somewhat ugly. As we have explained earlier, there might be water in the boat, there might be pests who have made their home in the cabin, and the engine might have numerous problems.
These issues will all combine to actually make you dread the spring because you know that you will have to fix all of these issues before you can enjoy your boat out on the water. However, had you paid the extra cash to keep your boat in an indoor storage unit, you can rest knowing that your boat is ready to go as soon as the weather warms up—this is what I mean by “excited.”
By putting your boat in an indoor storage unit, you will not have to worry about serious maintenance when spring arrives.
How Do I Decide Where to Store My Boat Indoors?
Now, hopefully, you have decided to go with the indoor storage option for your boat. After all, as we have discussed, there are so many benefits to this decision. The last question remains, “Where is the best place to store my boat during the winter?”
We can tell you, with absolute certainty, that Kingston Ideal Storage is the best place to store your boat. Their services range from boat storage to RV storage—just to name a couple. Their prices are reasonable and their services are unrivaled.
Whether you have just a boat that needs to be stored or multiple vehicles that you need to store somewhere, Kinston Ideal Storage has got you covered.
Check Out Kingston Ideal Storage Today
Well, what are you waiting for? Now that you have heard all the benefits of indoor boat storage as well as where the best place to store your boat is, head on over to Kingston Ideal Storage today and get ready to experience the best-covered boat storage out there. You won’t be disappointed!
For more helpful information, check out their blog as well where you can learn more about boat, car, and RV storage as well as helpful maintenance tips.