Are you a family active in sports year round? Soccer practices and games, baseball, football, basketball, tennis, pickleball, volleyball, golf, you name it! If Mom and Dad and all the kids are participating in sports activities, that means a lot of equipment around the house. And, perhaps Mom and Dad coach a team and have all the equipment for their squad or manage a league that involves storing equipment, trophies, and other items. Where do you put all your equipment that just seems to be growing by the week?
As the equipment piles up in your home or garage, it just might be time to consider a climate- controlled self-storage unit. This is an ideal solution for keeping all your equipment secure, organized, and out of the way when not in season. Climate-controlled storage units maintained within a set temperature range and are an ideal environment for storing items to help preserve the integrity of each item. This is especially beneficial for sports equipment such as high-end carbon-fiber bikes, leather baseball gloves, wooden tennis rackets, and golf clubs and bags.
From bikes and skateboards to balls, helmets, bats, golf bags, shoes, and countless accessories, these ideas help you maximize space, improve accessibility, and keep everything tidy all year round. Ideally, you will want to put your equipment, shoes, special sports clothing, and other items in storage bins or trunks and place in your storage unit.
Using a storage unit for sports equipment helps clear out valuable space in your home and provides a safe and secure place for your equipment.
Here are some helpful tips for storing sports equipment in a self-storage unit:
Clean Your Equipment
It is recommended to clean your sports equipment before packing into storage bins or placing on shelves in a storage unit. Be sure that all equipment is completely dry before put into storage bins.
Use Sturdy Shelving
It is a good idea to purchase sturdy upright shelving and place inside your storage unit. This helps keep your sports equipment off the ground and organized. Don’t skimp here. Make sure the shelving units are adjustable and heavy-duty with rating of 500+ pounds per shelf, if possible.
The advantage of putting these kinds of shelving units in your storage area is they allow for you to stack storage bins, put helmets and other equipment on upper shelves, hang bikes vertically or horizontally to free up more space on the floor of the unit.
Another option would be heavy-duty rolling carts on wheels with multiple shelves and side hooks that allow you to wheel everything in and out of the unit for your games or practices. When not in use or in season, the carts tuck nicely in the corner of the storage unit.
Wrap Large Items With A Tarp
If items are too large to put in a storage bin or on shelving, another option is to wrap or cover the sports item with a tarp or other covering to diminish the amount of dust collecting but still allow the item to “breathe.”
Deflate Balls
If you are gong to store things like soccer balls, footballs, basketballs, and volleyballs for a long period of time, it is recommended to deflate the balls. This releases the pressure on the seams and protects the longevity of the balls.
Label Boxes
If items are placed in storage bins, be sure to label the boxes to help organize and identify the contents. Make sure all the sportwear, jerseys, practice gear and other apparel are clean when placing in the storage bins.
Organize Shoes by Sport
These can be the biggest space use offenders! Every sport has its own specific pair of recommended shoes, and you may own multiple pairs. Store these on your unit shelves and organize by sports.
Organize Equipment By Sport
It can be very helpful to organize by sport the items you are moving into the storage unit. This will make it very convenient to retrieve when the next season comes along.
- Separate by family member. It will be much easier to grab your son or daughter’s
gear if their name is on the storage bin and you are running late to that first
practice! - If you are using sports equipment regularly and the returning back to the storage unit, you might want to keep those frequently used items near the front of the unit and on a shelf that is eye-level and easy to retrieve and replace.
- Put each sports equipment in a clear storage container to make it easy to identifyby sport or place easy to read printed labels on the bins.
HOW TO PROPERLY STORE SPORTING EQUIPMENT CONCLUSION
You don’t have to spend a lot of money on shelving and storage bins for your unit. There are budget friendly ways to get set up sufficiently to store your sports equipment. Be on the lookout for special holiday or seasonal sales going on where shelving, bins, baskets, and other storage items are on sale – many times at a 30-50% reduced price.
Big-box retailers and online warehouses many times offer package deals with a kit that might include shelves, containers, and all the accessories you might need to create a great storage setup.
