Underground car park

[CJG in WOB]

I have an underground car parking space available at my apartment complex. Unfortunately, it sometimes gets a little humid down there (up to 70% relative humidity). Would you keep a Lotus down there, or is it likely to cause blistering? Alternatively, I can rent drier parking some 30km away in the next town…

[supraholic]

I'll be curious what you decide. From what I've read, 50% is about the ideal, a compromise though between condensation and rust on metal parts vs. not overly drying out all of the organic parts such as leathers and rubbers. I'd been doing some research on the topic of storage as I am at my limit (5 inside plus 2 under a carport with car covers) but I want more cars and can't force myself sell any to make room. I'm considering constructing a large metal building on rural property about 20 to 30 miles outside of the city. My father built what's called a barndominium when he retired 30 years ago, but his was in the middle of nowhere (he drove 50 miles to go grocery shopping). I thought if I built a barndominium much larger than my own needs (and not so far away), I could rent the extra spaces, make it pay for itself and have a nice little retirement business to keep me active. Here in town, I've found classic car storage at anywhere from $175 to $400 a month (US dollars of course) and the price goes way up from there for climate-controlled space. I've talked to quite a few people at car shows who say they're in the same boat, wishing they could buy another classic car, could afford the purchase, may even be able to get the wife's permission, but can't justify spending $300 a month for storage in perpetuity (especially if the car is not going to appreciate anywhere near that quickly).

Your question is pretty much the same as I'm wrestling with, how far would people be willing to travel to store their classic car for a discount. I'd have to get quite a few miles outside of town to build at a monthly rate low enough people would consider to be justifiable, which I figure is sub <$200/month. The typical situation I would imagine is you'd drive your everyday car out to the storage facility on Friday evening, leave it there and take your Lotus (or whatever) back home to enjoy over the weekend, returning it to storage on Sunday evening. Maybe just drive it around for an hour of fun and put it back. Or maybe you have two or more classic cars and cycle through them, keeping one at your home at all times and the others in remote storage. Obviously, people would go farther to save money on a long-term, non-op situation but how far would they go to actually use their classic car? You mentioned 30 kilometers away. How much cheaper is that than the nearest storage? Or is that the closest you've found?

Here in North Texas, humidity is much less of an issue than where you are as we sort of average around 60% throughout the year and its pretty easy to keep indoor temps high enough to prevent condensation on bare metal. High temperature here is our enemy and so I'd just have to put in a radiant barrier and a lot of roof insulation like I've already done in my current all-too-tiny building. But that adds cost and there are a lot of other considerations for remote storage too. For example, if you have a nice paint finish, you don't want to put your car cover on a dusty car after driving it 30+ kilometers. It needs to have facilities (or a service) to wash it first (by hand of course) and then put it away properly. Then of course it has to be rodent-proof and have pretty good security against theft and vandalism, all of which adds cost. Seems like a pretty cool idea, but not sure whether its financially feasible or if I just need to retire way out in the desert like dad did where it'd be cheap enough to just store ten or so of my own cars.

[DavidOliver]

Hi CJG. I wonder where your location is, temperature variation, salty?
I imagine a simple lightweight cover, (parachute material) will reduce humidity levels, you might find humidity measurement capsules on Google.
Also for extra protection you could get a second sheet of cover material and cover the underside by zipping to the upper cover..
Alll this makes it easy to remove the cover and store in the boot or rear seat, thus enjoying taking the car out without major operations to undress the car.

I assume you have a waterproof car, no ponding in the footwells, it would not help if you trap ponds inside the cabin by covering the car.
Ther are some of us who have installed extra seals on the top of the window frames and extra sealing around door hinges to avoid water ingress, also when power washing is carried out.
There are details on this Forum somewhere, several years ago.

Dave the cog.