gun storage

Mrs. Maineboy and I are moving. We're in the process of buying a place on a lake and if all goes well, will be in by the first of June. This is a huge downsize for us, going from a 4 bedroom home with a full basement to a 2 bedroom place without one. There is a 1 1/2 car garage on the property that will become my workshop-reloading room and that's where my gun safes will have to be located. The garage is unheated at this time, and until we can sell our current home, it will remain so. While the air is generally dry up here, we do have our rainy humid days, and the temperature will vary from 40 below to 90 above over the course of a year. I would like to know if anyone else has to keep their guns in similar conditions and what they do to protect them. I was wondering if building an air tight closet around the safes is a good idea, or if I should let the air circulate around the safes naturally. Ideas please.

MaineBoy,
I feel your pain. Year and a half ago I moved here to a decent enough place but no out buildings or storage of any kind. Unacceptable to a reloader. I dithered around a couple of months trying to figure a way around the legal restrictions to get a garage big enough to handle the pickup AND my other needs. Finally a contractor suggested a garage AND another building for my workshop. Brilliant! That's what I ended up with, a 20 x 22 foot garage and a nice 11 x 22 foot workshop. Without out a doubt the best arrangement I've ever had. But. After we were nearly done, the contractor told me we could have made the workshop as big as the garage for just a few hundred more. He didn't think of it when we were planning. I also should have made the garage bigger, I could have made it 25 x 24 feet. As it is my long pickup doesn't have enough spare room for me to walk around it. In driving around and seeing how other people did things, I've concluded that one of the large steel buildings, say 30 x 50 feet would have solved my problem easier. Another thing I've seen here is people using the truck containers for storage. They are 8 x 8 feet by 20 or 40 feet long, water tight, lock up very securely. Your guns would be safe in one of these, and your powder and primers should store well also. A couple of 150 watt bulbs burning all the time should eliminate moisture and keep the temperature above freezing. They can be had for $1500 or less. Bonus is you can move in it and have the trucker place it right where you want. I kicked around that idea when I was organizing my move up here. Wish I'd done it, it would have been cheaper, and I'd have the container for storage. You CANNOT have too much storage. I've seen a few people here take two containers, set them up parallel about 25 feet apart, build a wall across the back with concrete blocks, and throw a cover on it- semi-enclosed carport with attached storage, or put doors on the front for a real garage. Why didn't I know all this before? Maybe in my next life I'll be smart... One last suggestion: If you build a barn, garage, addition onto your house, what ever, consider building in a "safe room" for your guns instead of your safes. Walk in size, steel reinforced hardened concrete, with a half inch thick steel door. You might even be able to 'hide' it, camouflage the door so it looks like a wall or dish cabinet or something...

Maineboy Consider a Golden Rod, or a small light bulb,(15-25watts) inside the safe , for air circulation. also I use a desicant box,with a moisture guage, (store bought), in conjuction with wal-mart kitty litter,in severalcloth bags. the white kitty litter is just silica gel in a cheap box. When the store bought desicant says it is saturated I throw every thing except the cardboard box in the oven, on low for an hour or so, and start over.My safe is in a very moist location, and I have no problems.

Maineboy, Others have addressed your gun storage concerns thoroughly. In moving to a downsized house, be sure to add a second bathroom if you don't already have one. This will prevent hearing from SWMBO, "I just love our little house, but I sure wish it had a second bathroom." This is from one who recently made the same move in the opposite direction, and heard those feminine words of wisdom weekly.

Maineboy;
It is too late, but no educated contractor would make any garage less than 24' wide, 28' is better, just pull two, 2 door cars up side by side , open both doors on both and measure the spread, add at least 1 foot for framing and you will be surprised at the width required.
The shipping containers are really nice if they are insulated and sheet rocked, I had 2 for jobsite offices and they worked well with the mods.
Nothing will do well unless it is insulated and sealed, all the way around.
Here, the biggest problem is heat and humidity, in other areas it is cold and either moisture or lack of moisture.
Follow good building practices and either do it yourself or hire a contractor who is careful and does not mind explaining what he is doing and why.
Don

I believe I would put a dehumidifier in that garage. I can't see how living by a lake wouldn't be very humid. I live in the mts and theres a mtn stream that runs through my place and it's plenty humid in the cove that I'm in. I have a golden rod heater in my safe, which is in the basement and so far so good. No rust. We don't get much sunlight either as we're surrounded by a mountain ridge that runs like a horseshoe and we're in that pocket of the shoe.

Joe

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Originally Posted by StarMetal

I believe I would put a dehumidifier in that garage. I can't see how living by a lake wouldn't be very humid. I live in the mts and theres a mtn stream that runs through my place and it's plenty humid in the cove that I'm in. I have a golden rod heater in my safe, which is in the basement and so far so good. No rust. We don't get much sunlight either as we're surrounded by a mountain ridge that runs like a horseshoe and we're in that pocket of the shoe.

Joe

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Joe, we already knew you was in the dark about a lot of things...

Come over to the Dark Side Art Skywalker!!!!

Joe

..............Maineboy, I'd sure take a good hard look at Scrounger's suggestion of a 'Gunroom' type construction job addition to the garage. I came to the same conclusion myself not too long after we moved to town. At first the idea I had was to fab up a big steel box (to put in basicly) of 3/16" steel. I had it all drawn up with a bill of materials and cuts needed for the steel vendor. I would have had swing away racks to hold rifles in 4 tiers.

Yet once things started getting put in the garage the shear size of it, and room needed to open the door soon had the idea being a non starter. What I have decided to do is to pour a 4x8 slab 6" deep and frame it up off the back of the garage with a door opening into the garage through the back wall.

...............Buckshot

Thanks guys, you've given me lots of good ideas. We are a little cash strapped until we can sell our present house so I need to be frugal. D. Mack's suggestion will probably be the way I go until that happens. The garage we have on the new property already has it's own 100 amp electrical panel. It will eventually get a heating source and insulation to become a proper woodworking shop with my gun storage-reloading-casting area divided off from that. We will be building a 2 car garage behind the present garage as well.

One of the great features of this place is it's remoteness. The place is located on the only road in the immediate vicinity, and is about 4 miles from the nearest pavement, yet it's only 18 miles from work. I can walk out the door with rifle or shotgun in hand, cross the road, and start hunting. The fishing in the lake could be better, but there are plenty of good trout streams nearby. This place will be hog heaven.

My safe is in the basement and I got a golden rod dehumidifier through Mid South; pricing was WAY cheaper than Midway at the time.

I faced the same problem when I retired last year. I bought a smaller house with a small, attached garage. I knew I'd have to have more room, so I had a seperate shop build. The new shop is 24' X 40', and 12' of the far end is my loading room. I have two gun safes and all my tons of components, casting, and reloading equipment there. I sheeted and insulated the loading room on all four walls and the ceiling. I installed a 200 amp electric service and wired the whole building myself. The loading room is heated electrically, and has surprized me how inexpensively that can be done. I don't heat it all the time, but on an "as needed" basis. Even in Montana's cold winters, it's rare to see the temperature below freezing in the loading room. I was worried about condensation and rust, but it has not been a problem. In my opinion, it's the temperature changes that cause a problem. I usually plan my activities in the loading room around a multi day schedule to avoid a lot of temperature variations, and just heating my lead melting pots keeps it comfortable in the loading room.

I was amused to see some of these suggestions, relative to life in northern Maine. The idea that you could keep a container box above freezing with a few light bulbs was pretty good. BD

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Originally Posted by BD

I was amused to see some of these suggestions, relative to life in northern Maine. The idea that you could keep a container box above freezing with a few light bulbs was pretty good. BD

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Always happy to amuse... You're right, I really don't know, but I thought that was more watts than a Golden Rod pulled. You'd need over 2500 BTUs to raise the temperature from 32 degrees to 33 degrees.