Boat Storage Design Opinions

[AllianceBJJ]

I would agree with you. It's $180/mo this yr., seems to have gone up $5 every year with no improvement in service or facility. The courtesy dock was a dilapidated disaster all last year and the restaurant hs gone so far downhill we dont hang out there much anymore.

Plenty of room to allow for backing these beasts in and I would consider possibly a taller door myself to allow for RVs and for people with G23s that dont want to put the tower down

I get my G this coming weekend. Give me a shoutnwhen you all are ready to start the season.

[SkiTower]

I would definitely plan on nobody having to fold towers or tongues or removing platforms. If I was paying for storage that would be a must.

Put motion sensor lights for night actions and then outlets within 50 ft of the stalls. Are you going to heat it or is it just dry storage? Are you going to offer seasonal or just year-round?

[cedarcreek216]

We are in Texas so heating is not a huge issue, but boats do need to get winterized. We typically do a year contract around here for storage, so it would be year-round. I like the sensor light idea and think the shared electrical outlet is the way to go.

[Chexi]

Make sure the units seal reasonably well. The only complaint I had with where I used to store my boat was that every darn cricket and spider in the county nested in my unit. Every time I would go to get my boat there would be 50+ dead crickets in my unit. I know you can't control 100% for all of that, but the fact that these units had easy access for bugs was annoying for sure.

Other than that, they had concrete floors (nice) and electric and a light in each stall. The light was on a timer that you could set (up to an hour), and so too was the electric for a time, but eventually electric was taken off the timer so we could use chargers.

[pSchwade]

Thanks for all the suggestions, it's a lot to digest. I am struggling with at what point is big enough big enough. with the direction the new boats are going in 10 years all stalls are going to need to be 15'x35' to fit anything. I thought 12'x30' was big, bigger than most anyhting around here. I think ours is in a 12'x28' right now and it fits easily and the doors are only 10'-0" clear in width. We do have a header issue with the doors so we have to fold the tower down. The problem with adding just two feet to each stall is the price goes up quickly and it starts to reduce the number of stalls we can fit on the property. I know, having more stalls that are more felxible would be better than having more less desirable stalls, but reality sets in at some point. I do think the 12'-0" door height is a must now that it's been brought up. If tenants did not have to put their towers down to store they would be happy to overlook a lot of other things. Keep the ideas coming, we are getting ready to talk to the city about zoning and permitting requirements so I'm hoping things get moving quickly.

We found a site in The Colony that is priced right and small enough to give us the opportunity to see if we can succeed with out throwing everything we have at it. Pier 121 does not have any fully enclosed do they? The front is not solid correct? We have ours stored at Bills boat hotel on Business 121 and 121 but if it was closer it sure would make it easier to go out for an hour or so then throw it back in storage.

you dont have to make all your units the same size - just charge a little more for the larger ones. one really nice feature to have is two doors so you can pull through, but this might not be feasible depending on the layout that you have (it takes a lot of space to maneuver a boat and trailer. it would also be nice to have units that are large enough to have a boat and truck in them at the same time so you dont have to unhook the trailer every time if you have a dedicated tow vehicle. as for the door width, you will need a lot more room if there are any obstructions within 100' of the door - so the trailer would only need 8' but you might need a 12' wide door to accommodate for the approach angle.

+2 for having something with a small wheelbase to assist with putting the trailers in the units - it will save you a lot of damage from people backing their trailers into the walls inside the units that you probably wont find out about until they are long gone.