Storing gear in garage?

[Bratface]

If it's out of sunlight it will be fine, heat or no heat. Inside a suitcase won't have any higher ambient temperature than the rest of the garage so there's no "extra heat" to be had by storing it where it will remain clean and easily kept together.

I'm really amazed at all the fuss people make about their gear. The purpose is to get it wet, it's not going to melt in the rain or even in the heat. UV and chemicals are about the only thing that's going to damage gear being stored. It will last a lifetime if you protect it from those two things.

I have to disagree with fjpatrum. When you have spent several thousand dollars on gear there is a big fuss to be made about storing/caring for gear. I dive in salt water and want to keep the bladder of my BC rinsed as well as rinsing my gear thoroughly. I want to dry it so that it won't mildew or smell, and I want to keep it serviced regularly so that it will not fail me.

Personally, I keep some stuff at the house and some at the dive shop where I am a regular and I service my regulator annually and protect my mask from damage by keeping it in the box when it's not in use.

 

[rhwestfall]

If it's out of sunlight it will be fine, heat or no heat. Inside a suitcase won't have any higher ambient temperature than the rest of the garage so there's no "extra heat" to be had by storing it where it will remain clean and easily kept together.

I'm really amazed at all the fuss people make about their gear. The purpose is to get it wet, it's not going to melt in the rain or even in the heat. UV and chemicals are about the only thing that's going to damage gear being stored. It will last a lifetime if you protect it from those two things.

With only a year of experience with diving gear (per your bio) - sorry, you really aren't the one to be commenting. I'd rather believe my 20+ years of doing this. Some of the gear I have was new back then, and some was even old then - ands its still kicking....

 

[rhwestfall]

I'm not allowed so much space...



4 sets of gear plus extras (tanks and a wet suits elsewhere)

I'm jealous......

 

[JEC11718]

You know those "space bags"--well you can put your gear in those and suck out the air...no ozone, clean and dry..last long time... as for heat--well my gear supports my life underwater..so in the a/c conditioned clothes closet in the house! including my tanks. I have gear that is 20+ yrs old still looks and works great! just my 2cents!! josh

 

[Blue Sparkle]

Kat, where are you located? Climate can make a big difference. When I lived up north, a garage was a great storage space, and, presuming it was critter free, it was not hard on gear. In the mid-Atlantic, conversely, it can be a hot, humid space that is very hard on many things (plastics, batteries, and more). Mildew can grow very easily, especially on items that are not bone dry to begin with.

I don't see where you are, so I can't tell if you have a benign northern garage, or an evilly hot and humid southern one, or something in between.

Does your garage house a furnace, cars, etc.?

I see you say "it gets hot," but that can be relative. Some northerners consider 75ºF a heat wave Can you give a temperature range?

In other words, can you give us more info so that we can give you better advice?

 

[Peter_C]

Got a link to what kind of fan you installed? I might be interested in doing that just .

Attic fans are great and can extend the life of a homes roof, let alone cool a house or garage down substantially. Solar powered makes it free to run. Buying it from Costco/Sam's Club insures it has a great warranty.

This is the unit I bought. Although I vented it thru an upper roof vent it can mount as a gable end fan. Super easy install with only basic tools. Just hope you don't mind spiders.
Costco - Solar Powered All Purpose Ventilator

They have a more expensive unit with some nice features.
Costco - Solar Powered Attic Fan

Of course if you electric bill is over about $120 you should be looking at a solar system to power the entire house

FWIW there isn't any more room in my garage for dive gear. Our compressor system and tanks are in the garage, but everything else is in a spare bedroom stored in the blue rubber maid containers shown above. OF course our gear is currently hanging in the spare bathroom still drying.

 

[stairman]

I made room in a house closet for my gear but only have 4 tanks and the rest fits in a Rubbermade tub beside them. Tanks in a garage wouldnt be a problem for me but the rest after drying stays indoors. More secure as well. Dive gear is a big lure to thieves.

 

[JahJahwarrior]

Storing of dive gear depends on a lot of factors
-How often you dive. I dive two or three times a month, so you won't find me messing around with sucking the air out of the gear storage bags or using giant ziploc bags

-Where you live, geographically. This changes the heat and the humidity, and the chance that gear will be stolen from your garage I'm in south florida, and all of my gear except the camera and batteries stays in the garage. Yes, it gets hot. Yes, it'll probably kill my gear a little faster, but diving every two or three weekends, doing technical cave dives, I'm more likely to wear it out before my garage does. The fraying wings are a result of no mount cave dives, not the heat in the garage...

-Where you live, house wise. Not only do I not have a good spot to store four sets of doubles, and six single bottles, the four rubbermaid totes and four milk crates and the hundred pound scooter inside the house, but there is no way I'm carrying all that stuff up multiple flights of stairs several times a month. That would mean touching up the paint on the walls several times a month, and a greater likelihood of ME wearing out earlier

Stuff that I don't want getting hot, such as nimh and lithium batteries, and camera equipment, has a space inside. Drysuits also eventually make it inside. Everything else stays in the garage. Most of the gear was used when I got it, and is still working fine, despite my ingearmane treatment, and like I said, the bits that are wearing out aren't because the plasticizers leaked (which I'm sure they do. Drysuit seals wear out much faster in the heat, and old car plastic just looks terrible), but rather because of the diving I do....or silly stuff like dropping it.

I had a really nice mask get scratched because I ran into a rock while doing a lost line drill during cave training, and another mask destroyed when a vulture grabbed it while I wasn't looking. The current mask does just fine floating around the gear box.

 

[mike_s]

Attic fans are great and can extend the life of a homes roof, let alone cool a house or garage down substantially. Solar powered makes it free to run. Buying it from Costco/Sam's Club insures it has a great warranty.
.

I agree 100%. cooling down the attic will greatly cool down the roof and help keep the house cooler.

I've got 2 thermostat controlled attic vents on now. (120volt). The idea of putting solar ones in does appeal to me. They keep the attic from being at 120-140f during the summer heat down to 95-100f. MUCH cooler that you can actually stand to be in there.

I'm going to look at the solar ones. Thanks for the links.

-Where you live, house wise. Not only do I not have a good spot to store four sets of doubles, and six single bottles, the four rubbermaid totes and four milk crates and the hundred pound scooter inside the house, but there is no way I'm carrying all that stuff up multiple flights of stairs several times a month. That would mean touching up the paint on the walls several times a month, and a greater likelihood of ME wearing out earlier
.

good point. I used to run into that problem in an apartment when I used to whitewater kayak every weekend.

Ideally a storage unit would have been great to store my kayak(s) and gear in (but of course those cost money, which as you know is tight for college students and right after college). So for lacking a better place to store it, my kayaks sat in the middle of my apartment living room floor, almost as a "coffee table".

oh well... it worked.

 

[lv2dive]

Drysuits also eventually make it inside.

Thanks for your post it validated what I'm doing . With one exception - I've been storing my drysuits in the garage. I'm primarily a weekend diver so they do dry out but it didn't occur to me to bring them in after they dried off. is that what others do too?