<VV> Portable Garages (No direct Corvair)

[Bill Elliott]

Just received the new Harbor Freight catalog and it prompted me to post an update on how my portable 
garages fared over the winter.

As a reminder, I purchased two 8'x16.75' garages (including top, sides, back wall, and front zippered 
door) from Harbor Freight last fall for $199 each delivered. I put them end to end, giving me single 
8'x33.5' garage. Assembly took a morning with two people. 

Only design modifications I made was to tie the frames together with rope from one end to the other as I 
saw if they were allowed to move outwards at each end, the would separate. In the middle, I used no 
door or back wall and overlapped the top fabric about 6". This gave me about 6" overlap at each end. 
Since the tie-down stakes were rather useless in my dirt floor, I used 2x6 boards lying across the frame 
at several places with the car parked on some and the tractor and other heavy objects parked on others.

The garages came through the winter like a champ. The only real weaknesses were that the door design 
was very poor (though it held together well even when the support rod would work its way loose) and the 
heavier snowfalls pulled on the top fabric enough to pull it off the frames at either end (and by the end of 
the winter in the middle as well) But even with these openings, the stuff inside was still mostly protected 
from the sun and general rain/snow/wind. Had I done a better job of keeping snow off the top or had I 
retighened the fabric on warm days, I think these shortcomings would have been avoided.

Though I'm using them again for next winter, I've elected to leave them up over the summer to see how 
they do, mainly using them as semi-dry storage for my lawn mower and tiller.  Mods for next winter will be 
a re-engineering of the door support and trying to more tightly pull the fabric to keep it from coming loose 
(or shortening the overall garage by a foot or so to give me more overhang) and buying some of those 
portable building anchors from Home Depot to mopre tightly tie down the frame (though absolutely no 
movement was seen over the winter in the frame itself). I used another tarp under the car to serve as a 
floor... I'll also better install that to drain quicker in the event of any leaks (had a little pooling under the 
car following the middle section pulling out)

The new catalog has these garages for $169.99 (you pick up at the store.) I really think that's a great 
deal for more garage space, if only to get the garden stuff out of the real garage to leave more room.  
Other notable buys include a 2000# winch for $50 (I have one of these as well and it's every bit as strong 
as my much more expensive 2000# Superwinch that I previously had), a multimeter for $3, a 1500 lb ATV 
lift for $60, a 3000# alunimum jack for $80 and a self-darkening welding helmet for $50. All of these 
prices are equal or better than those at Spring Carlisle for similar items.

Bill Elliott
Urbana, MD

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