Shelter Logic Garage In A Box Carport Tent Review
When searching for a simple way to store larger items, without having to build a permanent wooden structure, you are bound to come across a Shelter Logic garage in a box carport tent.
On our land in Vermont, we had been storing our quads, dirt bikes, and UTV in a carry on trailer with the riding mower and Kubota left outside due to no room. When we would camp, we pulled everything out, set up cots and air mattresses and that’s where we would sleep for our trip.
Disclaimer: This post contains Affiliate links for Google Ads and Amazon. As an Affiliate Associate, I earn from qualifying purchases and clicks, at no additional cost to the consumer.
Through the years, as our family grew and collection of gas powered machines expanded, this storage method became more of a pain. This year, going up every single weekend it felt like way too much work to constantly be pulling machines in and out, setting up and breaking down all of the bedding just to redo it all again in a few days.
There were other more important buildings and projects that we needed to get done this year, and building a full garage wasn’t in the budget of money or time. We needed a better, fast, simple storage option and right away we knew to turn to ShelterLogic carports. A garage in a box or carport tent sounded like the perfect thing.
Now I will say that Harbor Freight has its own line of garage in a box kits at a much lower price point, so there ARE other carport tent options out there to explore. They have a very limited selection of sizes and dimensions though and we don’t feel the canvas is quite the same quality as the Shelter Logic ones.
Harbor Freight’s line of Garage In A Box and Portable Sheds or Shed In A Box is Coverpro. For what I’ve seen as of right now, they only have 10’x10’ portable sheds and 10’x17’x9’ or 12’x20’x8’ for their garage in a box carport tent.
Shelter Logic Shed In A Box come 8’x8’, 10’x10’, or their XL Shed 12’x12’x9.5’. Shelterlogic Carport Tent Garage In A Box come in about 15 different styles to choose from and sizes range from what I could tell from 12’x16’x8’ all the way up to 20’x99’x16’ (that would be massively awesome!!).
Shelterlogic also has different qualities of canvases up to an “Ultra Duty” for their Wind Tunnel.
Remember when choosing a size to go a bit bigger than what you THINK you need because we all know how quickly spaces could fill up and then you’re left kicking yourself “I should have gone bigger”. While the one we ended up getting is very big, I secretly wish we went bigger because instantly we packed it with no ability to add anything else in.
Needing height for the ability to put a Kubota under it, Troy chose one that was Alpine style which provides more height with a point at the top vs. a curve. We also wanted this style for snow to slide off better since we won’t always be there to clean it off.
We ended up purchasing a ShelterLogic garage in a box 13’x20’x12’ SUV + Full Size Truck All-Season Alpine Style carport tent. With that size we fit in a Polaris UTV, lawnmower, John Deer ride on mower with little trailer it pulls, 4 dirt bikes, 2 quads, and a 3 wheeler. And now that we have a ton of unused space in the height, being that the Kubota didn’t make the cut to get in after all, we are probably going to turn the top into storage space for bins by adding shelves. We’ll see!
Fast arrival. The box is heavy so have a dolly handy to move it from where they drop it at delivery. Easy to put together. With the taller selection, we definitely needed multiple people to help put it up.
We chose to put it on cement blocks to add even more height but that was our own doing and not required at all. Just so you know when looking at our pictures.
One thing to know about, consider, and plan for that we were not happy about is that there are bolts in the frame (front and back walls) where you need to wrap the canvas around. We could only imagine that there would quickly be wear and tear from rubbing.
Sure enough, when we googled it, we found several posts and videos about that very concern. Some people put cut pool noodles in those spots to wrap around just the spot that has the bolt before wrapping the canvas around it. One video showed a guy using piping insulation the same way.
Being that we weren’t prepared for this and didn’t want to run to the store, we used what we had on hand which was thick plastic wire coating and electrical tape (Troy’s an electrician so that’s often our go-to fix).
Overall we, so far, are very happy with our purchase. A bonus is knowing that ShelterLogic products are manufactured in the U.S.A. (though parts our sourced globally), which has been increasingly more and more important to our family these past few years.
About Me
0 Comments