Boat storage questions

First time boat owner - we live in Pennsylvania. We are putting the boat in a heated storage facility. Looking for suggestions/tips from others who do this.
Do you use moth balls, dryer sheets, etc?
Do you drain the gas thats left in the tank or use a stabilizer?
Do you unhook the batteries?
Anything else we should or shouldn't do....thank you in advance.

BishFamilyBoating said:

First time boat owner - we live in Pennsylvania. We are putting the boat in a heated storage facility. Looking for suggestions/tips from others who do this.
Do you use moth balls, dryer sheets, etc?
Do you drain the gas thats left in the tank or use a stabilizer?
Do you unhook the batteries?
Anything else we should or shouldn't do....thank you in advance.

Click to expand...

When we had Sundecks in heated. I would drain the water tanks and used compressed air to blow out the water lines....just so no water went stagnant. I left batteries in but unhooked them so they didnt slowly drain from radio or anything else hooked up direct. I still drained the block, Stabilize fuel, I never worried about fuel level in heated, changed oil and outdrive lube. We always removed carpets...washed and stored at the house. Depending on your heated facility I would put a plastic sheet loose over the canvas just to keep dust and bird crap off the canvas. That was about it

I put my drive down so I'm not stressing the bellows all winter. I then pull the batteries and take them home to spend the winter on trickle chargers. (I'm in cold storage) Stabilizer - yes. Mouse repellant - yes.

It will probably be dusty. When you put your boat into service wash the zippers before you open them. If you do not you may damage them.

As others have mentioned, it depends. We drain the water system but do not winterize anything. Our storage facilities in Grand Haven are very clean, dry and rodent free. Some of them even have kitchens and private bathrooms so you can party on your boats with neighbors. We always put our boat away washed and dried, and waxed it in the winter. It came out of storage ready to put in the water and looking like a brand new boat. Should probably mention that loss of utilities is not a problem where we store so there are no concerns about power outages.

There are a lot of things people claim you just got to do all kind of things but lets face it for the boating season that how it is a few month sitting really isn't going to hurt anything as long as you keep freezing out of the picture. One of the things that does make sense is some type of stabilizer in the fuel then run it through the fuel system. Most storage facilities request fuel tank no more the 75% full.

Our indoor facility loosely drapes large polyethene sheets over the entire boat for the winter, still airflow, but keeps all the dust off the boat. We have an outlet to leave the batteries on trickle charge. Clean strainers on engine, genset, A/C. Check things like coolers and heat exchangers, drain water system, put treatment in empty (as much as we can empty) blackwater tank, do all the fluid and filter changes in fall before storage, including flushing engines with neutra salt, stabilizing fuel tanks, running engines on winter mix before final shutdown. Drain the engines, refill with nontox. Change transmission fluid. Run neutra salt through genset. Flush out the A/C system , head, and bilge pumps. When going through everything, making punch list for spring of belts/hoses/fuel lines/whatever that need replacement before spring commissioning. Over the winter, we usually have our canvas guy remove all our canvas and glass, and clean it at his facility, also lubricating all the snaps and zippers, and doing any repairs or replacement of anything that's borderline.

If I didn't have a winter off-season, I'm not sure when I'd do all this stuff, because during the season I just want to be out there on the water!

What stabilizer do you guys use?

Stabil plus we buy treated marine gas at our local marinas. No filling station fuels.

The red or the blue?

I use blue after every fill during the season. I use the red for storage. Might be overkill but it's never failed me so I keep doing it. I do use filling station gas but it's always ethanol free and a mid range or higher octane rating.