Storing Lego in the Garage

aldredd

Trying to find more places in stash Lego, and fast running out of suitable space!

Does anyone else (in the UK, or in a similar climate) store in the garage without any issues?
It's all sets that have been broken down, sorted into zip-lock packs, and packed into large plastic storage tubs. No boxes / instructions to get damp - just the lego in 'water tight' bags.

They're currently in the conservatory, but with summer on the horizon, it's not a great place for them!

Failing that, it's self-storage! :d

Tufted_duck

Not yet, but will be watching with interest if someone else has

madforLEGO

I would think that if the sets are in somewhat sealed bins they should be OK, just probably should not leave them in open containers as that will attract dust and soot.
I have a lot of my LEGO in a Garage now (though I have an attached garage but no air vents or anything in the garage), most still in their boxes and only in cardboard boxes, and they seem to be in good condition still. But I would say a garage, if you have the space, is going to be maybe a little dirtier if you have a motor vehicle moving in and out, but Im not guessing much different than a storage locker (unless you get an environmentally controlled one) and IMO the garage is better if not because it is cheaper than what most decent size lockers cost to rent.

aldredd

Thanks @madforLEGO, Garage is only used for storage (garden equipment, bikes, tumble drier etc).
I wouldn't keep the boxes in there, as they'd get damp during the winter months, but hoping what's in the tubs will be ok.

Goldfreek

I have most of my  un-opened sets in the garage inside of big U-Haul boxes and I have never had any issues with the condition of the set boxes or the LEGO. Some of these sets have been in the boxes for 3 years as I have not had time to build them yet and they are still just fine. I do park my car in there but the garage is 12 foot tall so the sets hang over the cars on racks away from any moisture on the ground. I do have a thermometer in the garage and while it does get warm especially up high I have not had any issues with the seals on the sets coming unstuck or peeling.

Rainstorm26

^what about the heat impact on stickers?

waynegg

I'll just say this- when collecting anything gets to the point where you start storing your stuff outside your house for lack of space it becomes hoarding. I know that's a particularly ugly word to collectors, and it's also easy enough to get to that point. Lord knows I got there with Hot Wheels. I held onto so many of them that held absolutely no interest just to be complete. I stressed constantly over how and where to store my collection. There was nothing more refreshing and uplifting than the feeling I got from getting rid of 99.9% of it. I no longer had to worry about where or how I kept my collection and actually enjoyed the few castings I kept that much more because they no longer had to be kept in boxes out of sight. 

In answering your question- even in south Texas where temperatures reach 110 often and for long periods in the summer, LEGO is fine if you store it in a garage (the stickers not so much, but the bricks are fine), but why would you want to? What's the point in a collection that's kept in the dark that you probably never even look at?

Tufted_duck

Need to in my case between moving and renovating. Only for a short while but Edinburgh weather tends to be variable so is if some concern. Sorry for piggybacking your question @aldredd!

Bumblepants

Perhaps some silica gel packets in your tubs would help with moisture.

MattsWhat

waynegg said:

I'll just say this- when collecting anything gets to the point where you start storing your stuff outside your house for lack of space it becomes hoarding. 

This might well be the case in the states where inside floor space is a lot cheaper, but in the UK you don't have to have very much lego at all before you run out of space. Particularly if you are collecting in a family household and/or live in London.
To add context to that, having a spare bedroom in London might run you £100,000.

aldredd

Thanks for the comments so far.

As @MattsWhat says, it's not hard to run out of space in the UK - once you've filled the cupboard under the stairs, there are not a lot of places to put it. Especially as I have a wife & kids, and whilst they're more than happy for me to collect Lego, I'm wary of letting it take over the house. So whilst I do have the odd model in some rooms, I do try and keep it all to a minimum.

(Avg UK house size is 85sqM/915sqFt, with an average house price of £282,000/$450,000 = $490/Sqft

US Avg house size is £130,000/ $190,000 for an average size of 200 sqM/2200sqFt = $86/Sqft) 

In my case, heat isn't the main concern (nor is cold really, even in the winter it'll stay reasonable in the garage, especially as we have the freezer & tumble drier in there) but the real concern is moisture / damp.

Perhaps @Bumblepants 's idea is a good one - stick on silica gel packets in some of the the bigger zip bags as a back-up plan.

catwrangler

The other thing about UK houses is that basements/cellars are uncommon, so if you've got a typical three-bedroom semi, and all those bedrooms have people living in them, your indoor storage space is going to be the attic, which may not be a fully-finished room, is limited by being under the eaves, and will generally be at least half-full of luggage, exercise equipment you bought but don't use, out-of-season clothes packed away, and (increasingly, given the housing market) stuff your adult children are storing at your place while they try to move up the housing ladder to a non-shoebox where they'll actually have room to store their possessions. 

We got very lucky when we bought our house in that the attic's a proper room with a fixed staircase (as opposed to a faintly scary folding ladder, like in the house where I grew up). I'm not saying "this house has a Lego room!!" was the first thing to cross my mind when I saw that attic, but it was certainly a close second. Which is a good thing, because the garage leaks and is barely worthy of the name...

CCC

If "sealing" in plastic boxes and you worry about moisture, definitely use silica gel. Those sealed boxes let air in and air contains water.

bandit778

@aldredd
I live in a one bedroom flat and storing sets inside isn't an option so all of my sets are stored in my garage.
The sets I have built are disassembled and stored in varying sizes of plastic Tupperware type containers.
My backlog of sealed sets are also stored out in the garage, the smaller sets are put in 120ltr plastic boxes while the bigger sets are stacked as carefully as possible on top of those plastic boxes. 
I don't keep the boxes for any of my sets once I have built them, so the overall condition of them doesn't bother me. 
The only thing I do make sure to do when building a new set is take the set inside, open the box and leave it for 24 hours or so before building so the bricks have a chance to acclimatise to the room condition as oppose to colder conditions outside.

Tufted_duck

bandit778 said:

The only thing I do make sure to do when building a new set is take the set inside, open the box and leave it for 24 hours or so before building so the bricks have a chance to acclimatise to the room condition as oppose to colder conditions outside.

probably being ignorant here but are the ramifications if you build with the sets without acclimatizing first? 

SumoLego

Bumblepants said:

Perhaps some silica gel packets in your tubs would help with moisture.

Is that what those are for?  I normally eat them.  They are a tasty snack.

MaffyD

I suppose it depends on the garage. Ours is part of the house and I would have no problem storing Lego in there (although off the floor would be a good idea to help ventilation). If it's a separate garage, it depends on how old it is and how protected from the elements it is. I'd certainly be worried about damp affecting boxes. But just Lego on it's own - the plastic is pretty robust isn't it?

bandit778

To be honest, I haven't tried it with Lego, because not long after I moved to my current abode I was fixing something that required the use of a plastic ended mallet, which I kept in the garage.
Usually I bring any tools I need for a job indoors so they are normally at room temperature when I need them, this one time I forgot the mallet, brought it straight in from the garage and used it in it's normal capacity, at which point it shattered the plastic mallet head. 
I know that there are a lot of differences in application between building with Lego and using a mallet and anyone using Lego in this way deserves anything they get as a result. 
My point is that after the mallet problem, anything, not just Lego, that gets brought in from the garage, gets left for a time to warm up because even in the summer the temperature in a dark garage can be a lot colder than you think, so why risk it with your Lego sets for the sake of 24 hours.


Edit: Actually I lied a little bit.... cans of beer from the garage do get used straight away . :)

MattsWhat

^I don't recommend trying with Lego, as it may split under stress (it does anyway for some people), but no way it should be cold enough in your garage to cause a rubber mallet to shatter.  Not even close.  I can only assume this was caused by age rather than cold.
From a purely scientific point of view, being cold does impact on the physical properties of a material, but outside temperatures in the UK are a pretty small change in termperature in the big scheme of things, any material that fails within that temperature range is badly manufactured.  Particularly a rubber mallet that I may well want to use to knock in tent pegs on a cold day.

aldredd

Thanks all!

Our Garage is attached to our house one side, and the neighbour's garage on this other side, so is probably a few degrees warmer than a standalone garage - and is weather proof etc, so sounds like I'll be fine, but have ordered a batch of Silica gels for good measure!

als-1971

I have a brick garage that im planning on converting into a lego room this summer. will be insulated and have heating so don't think I will have any problems. also no windows so don't have to worry about light damage.

piratemania7

I don't think storing in the garage is any worse/better than a shed - the only issue is controlling the environment but it sounds like your garage is a "livable" space - in other words you come and go regularly.  So it should all be OK.

mr_benn

All my Lego - boxed sets, built sets and loose bricks - is in the garage, the back half of which is a relatively liveable space and the door is insulated, it's also integrated into the house so the temperature is cool but stable. I've never noticed any problem with any built sets, even those that have been together for years!

legomental

waynegg said:

I'll just say this- when collecting anything gets to the point where you start storing your stuff outside your house for lack of space it becomes hoarding. 

 LEGO is fine if you store it in a garage (the stickers not so much, but the bricks are fine), but why would you want to? What's the point in a collection that's kept in the dark that you probably never even look at?

It's not hoarding if you have a small house. We keep a lot of our stuff outside in the shed and rotate it round including clothes, shoes and toys. We have 1 bedroom upstairs and 2 rooms downstairs plus a bathroom do not much space for 4 of us. We really would look like hoarders with it all piled up if we had all our belongings in the house at once. I have a choice of either only owning 3 sets of lego or store some 'in the dark' and move them round regularly.  Sadly the luxury of a lego room is a distant dream on my 'bucket' list. 

And in answer to the original question I keep some of  lego in a shed and have done for over 10 years and it's fine  I keep boxes too. All are well wrapped and in plastic containers but all look fine. Even when it went to minus 18 degrees it was all ok and none has cracked since

ryjay

Heck yes they are in the garage.....they are also built in the garage, displayed in the garage and they stay in the garage.  We live in California, what else are we going to do with a garage, it's not like we are going to put a car in it or something. 

SumoLego

^ Also true in WNY during non-snow months.

ryjay

...the only difference between the house and the garage is, with the garage I get to push a button to open a these big wall size doors, where as in the house, I have to manually open all the doors.

waynegg

aldredd said:

Thanks for the comments so far.

As @MattsWhat says, it's not hard to run out of space in the UK - once you've filled the cupboard under the stairs, there are not a lot of places to put it. Especially as I have a wife & kids, and whilst they're more than happy for me to collect Lego, I'm wary of letting it take over the house. So whilst I do have the odd model in some rooms, I do try and keep it all to a minimum.

(Avg UK house size is 85sqM/915sqFt, with an average house price of £282,000/$450,000 = $490/Sqft

US Avg house size is £130,000/ $190,000 for an average size of 200 sqM/2200sqFt = $86/Sqft) 

In my case, heat isn't the main concern (nor is cold really, even in the winter it'll stay reasonable in the garage, especially as we have the freezer & tumble drier in there) but the real concern is moisture / damp.

Perhaps @Bumblepants 's idea is a good one - stick on silica gel packets in some of the the bigger zip bags as a back-up plan.

That's mind boggling! And puts it in a bit of a different light. Living in my "average" house I couldn't imagine it being so different in UK (I mean all the homes on Privet Drive seemed roomy enough, right?). A food saver (or if you wanted to go all out, a restaurant quality vacuum sealer) would completely eliminate any concern for moisture. 

legomental

Haha @waynegg great Harry potter referencing. Having been to America and seen a lot of the lovely homes you have there you have a lot more space and a lot more timber to build with. It's pricier here and not so much 'bang for your buck' sadly. I suspect you get a lot better weather in Texas too!

Not sure why we don't all emigrate (I would for a lego room!)

MattsWhat

^Erm... how do we answer the why we don't all emigrate without starting a political debate... erm... well.. in a word, Trump.

bluedragon

But don't come to NYC- I used to think housing was expensive when I lived in London... then I moved here. I definitely have less space for more money.

waynegg

legomental said:

 I suspect you get a lot better weather in Texas too!

Eh...if heavy flooding, hurricanes, summer drought, 95+% humidity, temperatures that top 110 F every summer, and so many mosquitos you literally breathe them is better then hell yeah!

legomental

waynegg said:

legomental said:

 I suspect you get a lot better weather in Texas too!

Eh...if heavy flooding, hurricanes, summer drought, 95+% humidity, temperatures that top 110 F every summer, and so many mosquitos you literally breathe them is better then hell yeah!

Its ok you can keep the mosquitos. We go from 9 months of almost solid rain and heavy flooding to 2 nice days then frozen again. Just waiting the hosepipe ban next as a winter of constant rain will no doubt have failed to fill the reservoirs (only the Brits get my irony here as we seem to fail on water management ) Think a lot of us would like to see 110F here even for a day or two though. 

I'd still swap you for a lego room!