When it comes to your home life, the old adage that time is money isn’t necessarily the case, but it’s always true that you’d rather be spending time with your family and your hobbies than messing around with household chores like shovelling the snow off your car or keeping the garage tidy. Fortunately, there is a way to reduce the household chores as well as giving you extra space for your outdoor gear – a carport.
What is a Carport?
A carport is a quick and simple addition to the outside of your home. It’s usually a very simple post and beam structure with a solid roof. In the winter, it’ll keep the worst of the snow and ice off your car, and during the rest of the year it helps to keep your car free from debris from the Calgary winds. They can attach to the side of your house if you have space, or can stand alone on your driveway, and you can make them as large or as small as you need to for the number of cars that you want to protect.
How Does a Carport Save You Time?
Carports are relatively quick and easy to install, often taking less than a couple of days from start to finish. It’s also a budget-friendly option compared to building a whole new garage addition to your home. While you can never truly balance the books on time, the initial time investment is recouped in a number of ways, including:
- No more ice scraping – there is nothing worse than waking up on cold Calgary mornings and knowing that you have to spend time before your day even begins scraping and clearing the ice from your windscreen. Even if you have an automatic car starter, you have to remember to turn the heating on the night before, and it wastes gas. A carport automatically keeps the worst of the winter off your car meaning you can snag some extra time for yourself in the morning.
- Easy storage – during the summer months, you want ready access to your gardening tools, and it can be a pain trying to manoeuvre the larger tools around the cars in your garage. A carport offers you plenty of additional storage space and the lack of walls actually works in your favour as you’ll be able to access each tool when you need it. This can be especially useful when winter comes back round again and you need your ice and snow clearing tools at hand just outside your door.
- Less shovelling – finally, back in snow mode, a carport dramatically reduces the overall square footage of your driveway that needs to be shoveled. If you build a large, two-car carport, you’ll be amazed at how much less shovelling or snow blowing you need to undertake, which in turn gives you extra time each day to actually enjoy the winter months.
Adding Year Round Protection
While a Calgary carport really shines when it comes to protecting your vehicle from snow and ice during the long winter months, it also helps throughout the rest of the season too. Your carport will add an extra layer of protection from sun damage, tree sap, falling branches or wind-blown debris, and in particular will save your car from bird droppings. All of these seasonal problems require cleaning and detailing, and can even lead to minor damage to your car. A carport provides year round shelter, which saves you from wasting your time washing your car and clearing off the debris.
A Faster Alternative To A Garage
If you’re looking at adding some outdoor storage and vehicle protection, your thoughts will immediately have gone to installing a full garage. A garage install is an expensive and time consuming undertaking, and while you get more protection and covered space, the whole process will take up a huge amount of time, as well as causing a fair amount of disruption as the foundations are being dug and the building is being installed. The simplistic structure of the carport means that it’s a quick and easy install, and it’s definitely doable without the need for digging a single hole, meaning that your vehicle will be covered in next to no time.
Adapt Your Carport To Your Needs
A garage is a permanent fixture on your property. Once you’ve built it, it’s hard to change or upgrade it, which means that whatever design you choose, you have to be sure that it’s going to be one that meets your needs and saves you time over the years to come. A carport has a greater degree of flexibility in that it’s possible to extend and add to your carport as you increase the number of vehicles in your household, or simply want a little more protection and outdoor storage space. A carport saves you time and hassle in the long run by being able to adapt and grow with your family over the years.
An Addition To Your Garage
If you’ve already got a garage installed, you’ll be surprised at the advice that you should still be thinking about installing a carport (instead of tearing down your garage and starting fresh!). By installing a carport in addition to your garage, you free up that garage space as an additional space for other desirable home projects. Whether you turn your garage into a functional workshop for your home improvement projects, a home gym to save you time and money on expensive memberships, or just an extra space to store your belongings and finally declutter your home, you’ll be amazed at how quickly you find a use for your new space. Adding a carport to your property is a short investment that keeps your car protected throughout the year, while giving you a whole new space to work with, not only saving you time but breathing some fresh air throughout your entire home.
