camlock hooks and baskets Archives

Maintaining the Garage Floor During Winter

February 19, 2019 by Rick Scully

Not only are driveways, walkways and sidewalks of our homes cause for concern, but we can’t help but bring in snow, ice, sand and salt into our garages. From the little feet of young ones running in from school to the vehicles we park inside the garage at night, the garage floor can become littered with salt, sand and snow almost on a daily basis throughout the winter months.

Depending on the type of garage flooring in your garage, there will be slightly different methods of cleaning the garage floors. If you have a bare cement garage floor, the regular collection of snow, salt and sand will likely cause pitting, cracking and other damage. In the spring, consider a garage renovation to get both an effective garage storage solution as well as a long lasting garage floor coating. A polyaspartic garage floor coating will protect the floor and ease the care and maintenance of the garage floor.

Keeping Salt, Snow and Sand Out of the Garage

To be prepared to clean the garage floor in winter, you’ll need some supplies. Here are some things you’ll want to keep hanging on your slatwall and in baskets hanging on your slatwall for the winter season.

It’s always best to look after the snow and salt dragged into the garage immediately after the vehicle has been parked instead of waiting until everything has melted and the run off water washes and spreads particles over the garage floor. Brushing off your vehicle and knocking the snow and salt build up from behind the tires of your vehicle before you even entire the garage or drive minimizes what gets dragged onto the garage floor.

This may not always be possible or you may forget to take this step before driving into the garage. If that’s the case, as soon as you’ve parked your vehicle get the push broom hanging on the slatwall. As you step out of your vehicle, you can knock or brush off excess snow and ice build up and then push it out of the garage with the broom immediately before it has a chance to melt and spread over the garage floor.

Protect a Bare Cement Garage Floor

While the bare cement floor of a garage is not ideal, this winter you may not have a lot of choice. One of the temporary fixes for the winter is to lay down some cardboard on the cement floor. This will help absorb some of the excess water and prevent some of the salt and sand from seeping into the cement. This also helps prevent some of the moisture build up in the cement. Reducing moisture absorption by the cement floor will reduce cracking and pitting of the cement floor.

In the winter, garage floor tiles are something which can be purchased and become a DIY project over a weekend afternoon. It’s a more effective solution to protecting the garage floor in the middle winter as it will cause water and salt to sit on top of the floor whereas wet cardboard will eventually allow moisture to seep into the cement floor below.

2 car garage, stouffville, left rear door, pvc floor tiles, punched aluminum baseboard, slatwall, custom overhead platform, shelves, bike rack, bicycle storage

Floor tiles come in a variety of colours and they are modular so that a variety of floor pattern designs can be created. It’s also easy to replace or repair a section of the garage floor if some damage occurs to the garage floor tile. The grip of the surface makes it safer for family members to walk through the garage without fear of sliding or slipping unlike loose pieces of cardboard or wet slippery smooth cement floors.

Tiles can be mopped to remove any excess moisture from the garage. Removing the moisture from the garage is important so that belongings stored in the garage remain dry and this prolongs the life of any of our family toys or equipment or supplies.

Using a dry / wet vac, any excess melted snow or road salt which you were unable to clean as you parked or as the kids ran into the house can be vacuumed off cement, tiles or polyaspartic garage floor coating. Some people like to use a leaf blower as a dual purpose tool in the winter to blow out light snow which has drifted into the garage. This is possible before things have melted and an alternative to the push broom if that’s not something that you might own.

Keep the Garage Dry during the Winter

With a blower fan, you’ll be able to reduce the moisture level in the garage instead of having melted snow dissolve road salt all over the floor. It will also help prevent cracking of cement floor if there isn’t either a polyaspartic garage floor coating or a protective garage floor tile. If you’re using cardboard as a temporary solution, it will reduce the moisture in the cardboard before it has a chance to reach the cement floor below.

Cleaning a Garage Floor

Garage floors such as garage tiles and polyaspartic garage floor coating can cleaned with vinegar and water. The vinegar does lower the freezing point of the water and with a blower fan running for a while afterwards, it will reduce moisture and prevent freezing of any excess water. Especially, if you’re using this method to clean off a bare cement garage floor, the blower fan will become particularly helpful.

A more thorough cleaning in the spring would be the ideal when the wet floor will be easier to dry with a little bit of warmth and sunshine. In the winter, the main goal is to avoid moisture and salt from further damaging a cement floor.

Getting a Polyaspartic Garage Floor

Ideally, a polyaspartic garage floor coating project by a garage renovation specialist helps protect the foundation of your garage. Each project starts by assuring the moisture level of the cement is adequately low before the application of a polyaspartic floor coating. This step assures that excessive moisture is not somehow locked into the cement. Cement which is too moist will expand and contract excessively during the changing temperatures of the four seasons. In addition to damaging the foundation of the garage, moist cement will also ruin a polyaspartic floor coating application.

Starting with an adequately dry cement base means the finished polyaspartic floor coating will have a beautiful and long lasting life in the garage. The beautiful colours of a polyaspartic floor coating are UV protected from sun and other weather elements means it is one of the best garage floor investments for any home.

This spring, consider either a full garage storage solution or just upgrading your garage floor with a polyaspartic garage floor coating.

Fall Gardening Prepares Our Yards for Spring

September 20, 2017 by Rick Scully

Even in late summer or early fall, avid gardeners are still keen on having slatwall organization systems installed in a typical garage renovation because they understand the value of fall gardening and the need to access garden tools well into November in the GTA. In fact, slatwall storage with its wide array of Camlock hooks, baskets and shelves make for the ideal way to make tools readily accessible and easy to swap out when the seasons demand it.

Taking our hint from Mother Nature, we see that she has many of its trees, shrubs and perennials shed leaves and drop seeds in the fall in order to facilitate a successful spring growth. Following the natural life cycle of these plants, fall gardeners will do several things throughout the fall months of September, October and November to ensure the best results in the following year.

Keep those Garden Tools on Your Slatwall Hooks

Fall is one of the best times to prepare the garden for the best results in spring. In fact, far greater success in the growing season comes from the things we do to prepare the yard during the fall. So, the question is what to do and what will we need to do a good job of preparing the yard and garden.

So, keep your tools on the garage wall organization system or if you don’t have one, then consult with one of our garage renovation specialists. Having a slatwall organization system allows people to adopt a strategy of swapping out tools between the seasons to maximize garage space. In this case, you might want to hang onto the garden tools just a little longer and wait a little longer to swap them out for snow removal type tools.

Fall is a Time to Seed the Garden

So, nature’s natural cycles means that many shrubs, trees and perennials drop seeds during the fall to incubate throughout the winter to develop into seedlings with the more welcoming spring conditions. Taking our hint from nature, here’s what we should consider seeding this fall:

Daylily, Hemerocallis spp.
Hosta, Hosta spp.
Daisy, Leucanthemum spp.
Lily, Lilium cvs.
Crabapple, Malus spp.
Peony and others, Paeonia lactiflora
Spruce, Picea spp.
Pine, Pinus spp.
Hawthorn, Crataegus spp.
Pinks, Dianthus spp.
Ash, Fraxinus spp.

So, spend some time planning your next garden starting this fall instead of waiting until spring. Prepare a list of plants you would like to see in the yard. Then, choose seeds which benefit from a fall planting.

Prepare your Fall Garden by Planting Seeds and Bulbs

Start this in September so there is time for seeds and bulbs for flowers which blossom in spring. Do it early to allow them to take hold before the frosts in November. Then they’ll be prepared to weather the winter and provide great blossoms and spring growth.

Also, if you have young trees or shrubs that need a new spot in the yard or garden, fall is the time to move them to their new location. Keep watering trees and shrubs until the ground freezes. Strong fall development means they’ll be hardy throughout the winter and into spring.

Clean the Garden and Yard

The best thing about fall gardening is that we can prepare the garden so that the ground is in much better shape in early spring. Here is a few things to do.

Fertilizing the lawn in fall helps to significantly reduce weeds. Also, pull out any existing weeds now before they seed. Doing these two activities in the fall will give your lawn a hefty head start in spring.

There’s debate as to raking leaves. Mother nature intended them to stay on the forest floors to provide protection to young seeds and plants throughout the winter. However, raking them, mulching them and then adding them back to your garden, compost and lawn are also good alternatives to feeding the lawn as well as the garden.

Adding compost or manure to the garden beds helps settle the mineral balance of the soil in time for a spring planting. If you have any annuals left from the current year, remove and compost them. Then, return the compost back to the garden beds. If there were any diseased plants trim the dying or disease sections. You’ll want to throw them out instead of putting these clippings back into the compost.

Take a look at perennials and the foliage. Cut back on excess foliage so there is less of a plant for your perennial to sustain over the winter. They’ll come back stronger in spring and less foliage means fewer pests will be hiding amongst the foliage during winter. Also, cut grass along the edges of your home so you don’t leave a place for rodents to build a home or nest beside or even inside your home.

For a more comprehensive list of things you can do to prepare your home during fall, consult the Landscape Ontario checklist.

Garage Renovations for All Seasons Landscaping

So, keep the hoe, rakes, trowels, clippers and garden gloves out and handy. If you’ve got one of our slatwall systems, you know you can even hang a lawn mower or a lawn fertilizer spreader. And, it won’t take long to swap out the various garden tools for the shovels, salt and snow blowers.

Just before the first frost hits the ground, you can be ready and organized quickly. If you’re interested in understanding how the slatwall storage systems we offer can help you stay organized and effective, ask for a complimentary in-home consultation today.

Prepare Your Garage for a Snowy Winter

January 12, 2017 by Rick Scully

Winter storms bring snow, ice, powerful winds or a combination. Roads and walkways become very dangerous. A little planning will help the whole family to get going on the morning of a snow flurry or winter storm. Having a few emergency supplies on-hand can save everyone a lot of discomfort and trouble when the storm hits.

During the many activities of summer, it’s easy for the garage to become a family dumping ground. Maybe you’ve even resorted to parking your vehicles outside, rather than vying for the parking space inside the garage over the multitudes of family belongings. Before winter arrives, here are some ways to prepare your garage and car.

Organize for Winter

When the seasons change, how we use our garage storage space often does as well. Gardening tools, golf clubs, and bicycles take a back seat to sleds and skis once the air turns crisp and cold. The lawn mower makes way for the snow blower, shovels and walkway salt.

Take a few minutes at the change of the season to reorganize your garage so that seasonal items are easily accessible. The last thing you want to do is wake up to a snowy drive, only to realize that you must first dig out the snow blower or shovels.

Switching winter tools to the front of the garage while moving summer sports equipment and gardening tools to the back of the garage or into overhead storage areas is one of the steps to preparing for winter. Using PVC slatwall which is durable and resistant to the changing temperatures and moisture of the four seasons is important to slatwall storage systems. Using slatwall with camlock hooks and baskets secures the shovels, sleds, winter tools, sports equipment, recycling bins and even lawn mowers and some snowblowers. A variety of home tools with a hole in the handle including those which seem bulkier, awkward and or even slightly weightier like lawn mowers and some snow blowers can often be placed on camlock hooks and removed just as easily from the slatwall hooks reliably and safely.

The beauty of slatwall is you can add or change the amount of storage you have over time by changing the shelving, basket and hook options. The flexibility of slatwall organization systems allow it to change with your family’s growing needs.

Prevent Ice and Snow from Collecting in Gutters and Downspouts

Snow and ice can wreak havoc on our homes and make getting out in the morning difficult. Some basics to protect the garage and home include a regular cleaning of gutters and downspouts. Removing debris from rain gutters is easy enough to do or get done, but if overlooked, it can result in severe water damage and ice damming in the winter. Pooled water can penetrate the edge of roofs, interior walls and ceilings of your home or garage, causing serious damage to the garage or house.

When the layer of snow on the roof melts due to the heat rising in the attic of your home, water pools along the edge of the roof, where the temperature is much cooler. There, it refreezes, causing ice dams—a mound of ice that starts along the eaves of the roof and spreads upward. This formation of ice, which often traps pools of water underneath it, can cause substantial damage to the exterior and interior of your home.

Protect Your Car from the Snowy Winter

The first step to protecting your car from winter’s blustery affects is parking your car in the garage. Not only will you be able to get out quickly in the morning, you won’t have to clean a mountain of snow off the windshield each morning before work. Parking the vehicle inside the garage not only protects the car from the elements but it also prevents vandalism as well as theft. It won’t take as long to start the car in the morning. By saving time each morning, you won’t be rushed during your commute, making travel safer for you and your loved ones.

By keeping a bag of sand or gravel in the trunk plus a shovel, you’ll be ready for all sorts of winter driving situations. In addition, it’s ideal to use winter tires on snowy roads. With the softer rubber used in winter tires, they provide better traction on snow and ice than the typical all season tires. To swap out all season tires for safer winter tires, you’ll need to store tires. A variety of tire storage racks and overhead storage options are available for use in the garage to store winter tires during the summer months and alternatively, the all-season tires in the winter.

To get the vehicle starting sooner in the mornings, a lot of people use an engine block heater. Park the vehicle in the garage on brutally cold days where there is access to an electrical outlet. Especially, if you get hit with a snow storm and need to get your child to school, a block heater helps make the morning routine run smoothly with less stress. It keeps the engine warm and ready to start while preventing damage to engine components that can occur when starting a cold engine at below freezing temperatures.

Ready for Winter Snow & Cold?

Preparation is key to protecting your garage and car from the winter elements. After looking after some of these basics, we seldom think about the garage floor. However, this important surface undergoes constant abuse. In the next blog, I’ll show you the importance of having a good garage floor, especially in the winter months.

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