4 Things You Must Do If You’re Using Self Storage Near the Ocean

Living near the ocean can be great. You can walk along the shore, swim, or hit the beach in the evening for a bonfire. However, coastal air isn’t the best for your belongings, and this has to be taken into consideration when looking at storage.

Let’s look at the steps you can take to protect anything you need to put in storage.

Get a Unit With Climate Control

We recommend getting a storage unit with climate control. Living near the ocean, there is an excess of salt and moisture in the air, which has an adverse effect on items in storage.

The climate control in your unit will keep the humidity down, and since salt is carried in water vapor, and most salt damage happens when it’s combined with water, climate control can greatly mitigate this sort of damage.

Use Airtight Plastic Bins

To keep out even more salty moisture, pack most of your belongings in airtight plastic bins. Make sure whatever you’re storing is clean, and only put in items after they’re completely dry. Also, make sure the weather is relatively dry before you pack the bins. You want to keep moisture out, not seal it in.

This, in conjunction with a climate controlled unit, will help keep your things safe from ocean air.

Consider Traffic

It’s pretty common for there to be a lot of beach traffic in oceanside areas, especially during the summer. If you live close enough to the beach, or your storage facility is close by, just know that you may have to contend with beach traffic some days.

Prepare Your Boat for Storage

Ocean-going boats are built to handle salt water and salty air. However, if you live in an area where it snows, you’ll need to store your boat somewhere.

When you have your boat out of the water and propped up, wash it thoroughly with good quality boat cleaning supplies. Clean everywhere and seal the fiberglass anywhere it may have split or cracked. Wax your boat to protect it from the coming cold, dry weather.

You’ll also need to protect the pipes and other interior systems in your boat. For this step, you may want to hire a company that handles vehicle winterization, but you can do it yourself. Check your boat manual for instructions, or see if the manufacturer has instructions online, to make sure you do it correctly.

We can cover the basics. You’ll need to run fresh water through the cooling systems to remove salt and grit. You’ll also want to add antifreeze to the cooling system to protect the pipes and machine parts. Flush out the outboard motors, drain then, and let them dry. We also recommend you fill the fuel tank. This seems counterintuitive, but what it does is keeps interior condensation to a minimum. Add some marine fuel stabilizer to keep the fuel fresh over the cold months. See what sort of boat storage options exist in your area. If any offer climate control as an option, we recommend using it. However, with the instructions above, you will have already gone a long way toward protecting your vehicle, so if climate control isn’t offered, your boat should still be fine.

We hope this helps you keep your important belongings in good condition, from everything you keep in storage to everything you own at home and at work.