Anybody store their boat in a tandem garage?

My parents just moved into a new house with a tandem garage and I've offered to pay a little rent to use their tandem part to store my 19' boat. It's a lot cheaper than a storage facility. The tandem part is 10' wide, plenty wide enough, but I'm wondering if anybody has advice about using this as a storage solution? Any do's and don't? Thanks.

is it long enough to back straight in or do you need to turn it? my 2 car garage I have to turn my boat sideways taking up the whole thing to fit it. then they couldn't use it to park a car in. also does it have windows or ventilation? cus if you happen to put it up wet will need some sort of air flow with fans or something or the carpet could mildew quick. not sure what all you need just what I happened to think of.

Yes it's long enough to back straight into. From the back of the tandem part to the front it's 36' and the tandem part, as mentioned above, its 10' wide. They only have one car, so they'd likely park on the other side of the garage.

Sounds like a garage I want! Where is this development with a three car garage in this orientation?

Agree with keeping a fan in there, definitely want circulation of air. Be sure to chock the wheels when parked, and a "stop" for the wheel jack would be a good idea. Leave the boat slightly above level at the bow to allow for proper drainage. Take the plug out when storing, and open the rigging compartment when charging batteries. Have a fire extingguisher in the garage "just in case".

I'm jealous.


My garage couldn't fit my boat, unless I removed the motor each time.

When I have another house built, it's gonna have a pull through garage that's 30x30 and heated.

That is what I have. Two deep. Of course mine has a single wide door. That leaves little room to get the trailer in and out. I have stops on the floor and a tape line marking where the trailer tire needs to follow. This makes sure I am still going in and out in line with the door.

Is this with two single doors or one wide door?

I find I drip water from either the hull or the trailer. So be sure there is nothing on the floor that could be affected.

When I park after rain or washing it, I leave a fan blowing across the carpet.

36 ft deep?! That needs to be a standard!

Sounds like a win win to me.

So that's the garage layout, one large door, 36' length. I'll make sure to get a nice fan, and making a tape line is a great idea, I never thought of that! thanks for the info.

that garage... is DOPE.

I have a pre-teen (ik, not your problem) but my first thought was about having to clear out all the stuff that can fill up the space between the door and your boat, between trips. Move all the junk, pull the boat, put all the junk back etc. One more thing to do before getting on the lake. That being said; I wouldn't pass up an inexpensive, covered and secure parking spot.
Setting up some kind of chocks that let you know when to stop backing in, will be most appreciated--a long 2x4 can do the job, though it can easily be moved out of position. I'm sure you can find a way to make it work.
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I have kept bass boats in my garage for decades. Much of that time, I lived in south Florida, where we had frequent rain, so I dealt with the wet boat issue often. Here are tips based on my years of doing it.

1) Make a wheel stop so you don't put the prop into the wall in a moment of distraction. You don't have to screw this to the floor, either. Just make a simple large braced frame box using 2x4 lumber standing on edge. One flat side goes against the back wall. The front cross-bar is set at the right distance out from the wall so that your tires touch before the prop punches the wall. This can be picked up and removed if that's ever needed.

2) Always run the tongue up a good bit so the boat drains well. Put a large low profile pan such as a restaurant buss tub (the gray ones) under the boat's drain to catch the drippings. Want a really dry bilge? Stuff one end of a 15+ inch strip of cotton cloth (old T-shirt) well into the boat's drain to get wet. This will usually wick every drop of water out of that bilge and into the drip tub!

3) If the carpet is wet, open all carpeted lids; they'll drain dry very rapidly that way. The carpet is synthetic so it doesn't want to hold water if you make a drain elevation with the tongue jack. The decks will also drain and dry more quickly with the nose up.

4) I always used a high velocity fan for air circulation when the carpet was wet. I put it on the front deck blowing toward stern. As lids dried, I closed them so the air blew across the flat decks better.

I keep my 19' in my garage. Its a 3 car, but more of a 2 3/4 car. I had a rear storage room where I removed one of the walls to allow it go all the way in straight. Its tight, but it fits. Thank god for a swing away tongue

The layout you described rocked! The blueprint of the layout (picture) you posted stinks. Assuming the garage door is on the front of that picture and the garage is actually 36' deep then depth is no issue but width is going to be a huge issue. Having built my own houses our last two had garages 24' wide with 18' overhead garage door. One half was 22' deep for my wife's car and one half of the garage was 30' for my boat. Perfect size for a car and a full sized bass boat without a bunch of wasted space.

Width is going to be fine for him. The door is at the bottom of the blueprint. It is at least 10' wide, looks to be about 15'-20', because the single cutaway at the back of the tandem side is 10'. There is a full parking space to the left of that tandem area.

I have a 3 car tandem this is my 2nd house with one. They are now building 4 car Tandems. We only found 9 homes in the areas we wanted in our price range that had 3 car tandems. becoming more popular.

We do not park cars in our garage, Our Trucks won't fit anyways. Boat on 1 side, work area for the other.

Guess I'm looking at this plan wrong. It shows 10' wide on the deep "two car" side and scales LESS than that on the shallower one car side. If it was 20' wide(and it does not scale that based on the 10' shown) that would be a very narrow width for a drive on trailer & auto parked side by side inside the garage. Nearly have to climb out the windows ala' NASCAR. Maybe I'm just missing something. Do agree though that these "3 car garages" (tandems) as my sister has in Katy are NOT 3 cars garages at all but 2 car garages with a shop area in back.....or a deep area for a boat....provided its wide enough for the boat.

Most standard 2 car garages are 20' wide? Depends how they are designed not all garages are the same.

U could easily park a car next to my boat, Sure the door may not swing fully open

The garage is to the bottom of the picture, it's it's your standard 16' door or 18', whatever the standard is. It's not the small single car door. The deep 10' part is the tandem part, and the wider front part is 20' wide. The boat would back into the 10' part and take up some of the 20' section. My parents car would be parked on left side of the photo, in the second half of the 20' wide section. Yes it's not to scale.

Good luck getting a 8’5” wide boat into a 10’ hole, especially since you’re going to have to angle it in there.

This setup works well as a buddy of mine has one. The only draw back I see is that it gets tight when you get to the skinnier section in the back. Not much room to get the wheel wells in and you won't be walking around the back side. He had a door in the very back that allowed him access to the back of the boat from the inside of the house. Little tight in my opinion, but it works!!

So I took the boat to the house last night and put it in to see if it works. It does! But you're right, it's easy to get in, but getting around to the back is a little tough, but it's doable. Looking at storage facilities though, most are 10' wide. I was fortunate enough to have one 12' wide, but it came with a little higher price tag.

Great! You're very lucky to have a place to store it. Most pay the ridiculous storage fees.

When mine is in the garage the drivers side is against the wall, so access to that side is impossible. The back is a little tight, but if I need to work in the rear, I just hand pull it out a few feet. I also have a 13X30 storage at Fork so I only bring mine home if I need to do maintenance that requires more tools that I have at the storage facility. My rent is $850 annually at Fork but I have a place there so that is my base camp for all my fishing.

You got that right. A nice storage shed with security gate and concrete floor with electricity is $200-$250 a month around here IF you can find one.