I'm Moving to Florida and Won't Have a Basement.
What Do People Do for Storage?
Keep the belongings you love. Keep room for your car. Add massive storage without adding onto your home.
A customer recently called me about his move to Naples, Florida. He had found ARackAbove online, and we spent about 30 minutes talking about his concerns about moving from a big home in Annapolis, MD, to a smaller Florida home. We talked about the humidity and how it affects shoes and items in a garage. We talked about garages flooding. And yes, many Florida neighborhoods are built on former wetlands or low-lying land. Flooding is a real concern, and garages can take on water during heavy storms. Elevating your storage up off the floor keeps your bins safely out of harm's way if water creeps under the door. We talked about attic heat. Having accumulated "things" in his northern basement, he was facing a common dilemma I hear all of the time: "How do I store all of my belongings without leaving my cars out to bake in 95°F heat?" The answer is simple: when your storage sits overhead above the car hood, your garage floor stays completely clear so both vehicles park inside out of the sun.
If you are relocating from anywhere up north, moving to Florida brings with it storage concerns you won't realize until your things arrive in your new home: less than 1% of homes across Florida are built with basements.
In northern states, almost every home has a full basement where families have stored decades of accumulated belongings—holiday decorations, old furniture, tools, and keepsakes—acting as a massive catch-all zone without cluttering main living spaces.
In Florida, due to groundwater sitting just a few feet below the surface and the lack of deep freeze lines, homes are built on flat concrete slabs instead of excavated basements. When you move here, you instantly lose that entire basement floor of hidden storage space.
So, what do Florida residents actually do with all their extra belongings? Where do people store things when a basement isn't an option?
What Are Most People Doing for Storage Workarounds?
For northern transplants, solving the missing basement problem usually starts with a few common workarounds. Unfortunately, each comes with severe physical drawbacks across your home:
1. The Reality of Off-Site Storage: Randy’s Story
I’ll never forget the call I got a few years ago right before Christmas. A customer named Randy called me out of the blue just to say thank you.
I asked him, "Randy, what are you thanking me for?"
He said, "Because you changed my life."
Before he purchased an ARackAbove system, every holiday season was a logistical nightmare for him and his wife, Lynn. Randy would drive across town to his storage facility, punch in the gate security code, load four Christmas bins into his car, drive home, and hand them off to Lynn. Once she unpacked those four bins, Randy had to drive back across town, enter the security gate again, and swap empty totes for the next set. He did these shuttle runs back and forth across town before Christmas, and then did it all over again after the holidays were over. This went on for years!
Randy told me: "I no longer have to drive across town. I just walk out to the garage, reach up, grab the bins, and bring them straight inside to Lynn."
He also said that shortly after his rack was assembled, he received a notice that his storage unit rent was increasing. Randy was able to empty his storage unit and keep their belongings at home.
Keeping your stuff off-site isn't just an extra bill—it steals your time and turns everyday life into a hassle. When you bring your storage back home into the garage, you get your time back.
2. Storing in the Attic: Thermal Heat & Humidity
- Extreme Thermal Heat: Florida attics regularly reach 130°F to 150°F during peak summer months. High ambient humidity combined with that heat causes plastic totes to warp, candle wax to melt, leather to dry rot, and glue in old photo albums to fail.
- Accessibility Dangers: Most Florida attic openings are accessed using a steep pull-down ladder or a loose step ladder in the garage. Carrying heavy 40-pound bins up a narrow ladder while stepping between open ceiling joists in 130°F heat creates an unnecessary safety hazard.
Learn About Attic Safety After 50 Years Old
- Lightweight Engineered Attic Trusses: Modern Florida homes are framed with engineered 2x4 roof trusses calculated primarily to support ceiling drywall and insulation—not heavy storage loads. Stacking heavy boxes up there risks cracking ceiling drywall or voiding your builder warranty.
3. The Indoor Closet & Laundry Room Squeeze
To pack more homes into a subdivision, production builders shrink interior footprints. Bedroom and hallway closets are often cut first, leaving homes with no front coat closets or dedicated linen nooks. As a result, bulky necessities—hardshell luggage, extra bedding, brooms, mops, dustpans, and bulk paper products from Costco—start cluttering your master bedroom closet and laundry room. You end up fighting household clutter inside your primary living spaces every single day.
4. Stacking on Garage Side Walls
In northern garages, wide side returns gave you plenty of space to line up freestanding shelves and still park comfortably. Florida developers squeeze garage dimensions, often leaving just 10 to 12 inches between the garage door frame and the wall. Putting standard 12- or 18-inch shelving on those tight walls blocks your car doors, forcing you to squeeze through a tiny gap or leave your vehicle parked in the driveway.
Keep your belongings at home and live happily?
See the Garage Rack for Your HomeHow To Actually Solve the Problem: ARackAbove
The solution isn't risking your belongings in a 150°F attic, cluttering your master closet, squeezing past shelves in a narrow garage, or paying endless monthly storage fees. The real answer is reclaiming the single most valuable, underutilized space in your home: the empty overhead space above your parked cars.
When you move into a brand-new home, the last thing you want to do is start drilling anchor holes into your ceiling trusses or risking your builder's structural warranty.
The top 3 reasons ARackAbove is engineered specifically for Florida homes:
- 100% Floor-Supported: Instead of hanging heavy weight from delicate 2x4 roof trusses, ARackAbove transfers stored weight directly to your concrete slab through heavy-duty aluminum legs. Stop trusting your ceiling—trust your floor.
- Zero Structural Drilling Required: There are no anchor holes in your ceiling, no drilling into walls or floors, and no permanent damage. Your builder structural warranty stays 100% intact.
- Heavy-Duty Aluminum Construction (Won't Rust): Florida’s extreme humidity and coastal salt air destroy painted steel over time. ARackAbove is built from high-grade aluminum, meaning it will never rust, corrode, or degrade in your garage.
| Feature | Traditional Ceiling Racks | ARackAbove System |
|---|---|---|
| Weight Support | Rack and stored weight supported by ceiling joists or roof trusses | Stored weight transfers through four aluminum legs directly to the concrete floor |
| Ceiling Contact | Mounting connections carry the overhead load | Ceiling contact stabilizes the legs; it does not support stored weight |
| Drilling Required | Mounting fasteners drilled into overhead framing | No drilling into ceilings, walls, or floors |
| Material Construction | Commonly powder-coated steel | Heavy-duty aluminum |
| Adjustability & Fit | Height adjustment varies by model; mounting locations depend on framing | Adjustable width, depth, and height |
| Weight Capacity | Requires both adequate rack capacity and suitable overhead framing | 1,300–2,000 lbs, depending on model, evenly distributed |
| Moving to Another Home | Can be removed and reinstalled; mounting holes remain | Disassembles and moves with you; no mounting holes to repair |
Trust your floor.
Most ceilings are not designed to support overhead garage storage. Your floor is.
See the Garage Rack for Your Home