Protecting Your Vehicle in Winter: Tarps and Canopies

Protecting Your Vehicle in Winter: Tarps and Canopies

When it comes to protecting your car, boat, or RV in winter, are you prepared with the right tarp? Instead of spending money constructing a garage, tarps are an economical approach to protecting any everyday or seasonal vehicles from exposure to the elements. Although not a sudden process, damage to your car by water and UV rays occurs over time. When a vehicle is left directly outdoors for several months at a time, UV rays crack or fade the surface and water accumulates on top, often causing mildew, mold, or dry rot to form.

Other options for storing seasonal vehicles are advertised, such as shrink wrapping or storage parks. Both of these approaches, however, are detrimental to your vehicle. Storage parks are often no more than large, gated parking lots, where seasonal vehicles are kept for six months. During this time, the vehicle sits directly in the sunlight and gets rained on. How will your vehicle look when you pick it up for spring?

Shrink wrapping, similarly, offers protection with a significant downside. When a boat is shrink wrapped, the full body is covered with a plastic-like material. This procedure, however, ends up locking in moisture, and during the months in storage, dry rot, mildew, or mold may develop on the surface of your vehicle.

Tarps, on the other hand, are a similar plastic-like material, but there is one key difference between tarps and shrink wrapping: air circulation. When a tarp is draped over a vehicle and secured with clips or bungee cords, air is allowed to circulate under, and the polyethylene material will not lock in moisture.

Generally made out of polyethylene, tarps come in medium- and heavy-duty options. The latter is best for protecting vehicles in winter. The polyethylene is treated to be UV resistant, waterproof, mildew resistant, and rot proof. Additionally, polyethylene tarps do not freeze or crack even in the coldest temperatures.

Although tarps protect on their own, canopy structures, such as carports and portable garages, use them in their construction. A standard portable garage or carport frame is made out of powder-coated or galvanized steel and has a heavy-duty polyethylene tarp attached. The tarp can either cover the top only, giving the canopy a valance style, or can be attached and draped over all sides. These enclosed canopies offer full protection and are ideal shelters for storing a seasonal vehicle for several months at a time.

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