Things You Shouldn’t Store in Your Garage!
Who doesn’t love a big roomy garage? What a great place to store lawn and garden equipment, sports gear, and vehicles. And while it seems like the perfect place to store things like leftover paint and stain, bird seed and pet food, it’s truly the last place to store all of those items. Check out this list of things you should never store in the garage unless you want spoilage, vermin infestations and potential explosions!
Food for Man nor Beast
The effect of high heat (like your garage in the summer) on non-perishable food will cause it to break down faster, changing the food’s appearance and flavor and nutrition. At worst, some foods — like many types of canned goods — contain bacteria which only multiplies in temperatures above 100 degrees. The U.S. Food and Drug Administration recommends that foods be kept at below 85 degrees and most experts bring that ideal temp to below 70 degrees.
HGTV names 13 things you shouldn’t store in your garage and gives decluttering tips, to boot!
Watch this video of Dicky’s Garage as he measures the temperature of his garage at a height of about seven feet, just above his head. His infra-red gizmo read 130 degrees when the temperature outside wasn’t anywhere near that. Dicky insulated his garage to beat the heat – and on a budget — with insulation and a portable A/C unit.
That’s the hot side of things. The cold side is just as problematic!
Half-Full and Full Paint Cans
All that unused paint will get ruined by extreme temperatures – the color, the consistency, and the life span of what’s in the cans! The experts say the ideal temperature is somewhere between 50 and 80 degrees, because freezing temperatures can do this to stored paint – basically, turn it into curdled paste — not the ideal consistency to be putting on your walls!
Want to see how the pros do it? Home & Garden for Mere Mortals – featuring Chris Berry, the hunky, tatted Idaho Painter – will show you how to store and label paint like a pro.
Vintage Photos and Important Papers
Again, your garage might seem like the perfect place to store family photos, but pollutants, moisture and heat will quickly destroy the images. This is true mainly for old school photographs and slides. Digitizing all of your treasured pics is important if you want to keep all those vintage memories in the family!
You’ll want to store any books, magazines, and other paper goods inside. Changes in humidity will make paper expand and contract — pages will curl, and spines will warp. And books are especially inviting for silverfish, spiders and rodents when left in the garage.
If you want to scan and save papers and pics digitally, Lifewire rates the nine best scanners for photos and documents – from the most compact to the easiest and fastest, to the best overall. They range in price from $89 to $800 and you can survey which one is right for you. Or you can ship your photos off to ScanCafe and for .37 each, you’ll get a digital download that you can transfer to an external drive or save to your computer.
What About an Extra Fridge?
This may be the worst news of all. Since refrigerators work best in a temperature of 67 to 77 degrees, a hot garage will make it work way too hard to keep your food cool and spike your energy bill! It’s also not a great idea during the winter, according to Rodale’s Organic Life. Refrigerators operate less efficiently at temperatures below 50 degrees, so unless your garage is climate controlled, keep your extra fridge in the basement, or just buy enough food to keep chilled in your kitchen fridge!
Great Garages in Crystal Valley!
The brand new garages in the master-planned community of Crystal Valley are like the brand new houses – clean, pristine and ready for your cars, sports equipment and lawn gear! . Come and explore the new homes surrounded by nature and only minutes from the town of Castle Rock. With a variety of beautiful models from Richmond American Homes, Kauffman Homes, Century Communities and D.R. Horton to choose from, these ranch or two-story models – are priced from the $400s.
