Part 2 of four
What a Roof Actually Buys
A structure has to be built, drained, lit and inspected, and none of that is optional. What it buys a driver is real and it is narrower than the word covered suggests.
The four questions
| What this part buys | A car that is dry, out of direct sun, and not under whatever falls out of a tree. In this climate the winter case is the strong one. |
|---|---|
| What makes it move | Whether the cover is a canopy or a deck. A steel canopy over asphalt and a concrete structure with floors above are different buildings with different bills. |
| What to ask when you call | Which of the two it is, and whether the space you are being offered is on a top floor. A top floor of a deck is an open lot with a longer walk. |
| What cannot be promised about it | That the car stays clean, or that anything inside it is any safer than it would be on open ground. Cover is weather, not custody. |
Canopy and deck are not the same product
They are quoted as if they were, and they are not.
- A canopy is a steel frame and a roof over ordinary asphalt. It keeps sun and precipitation off and does nothing else. It is cheap to build and cheap to run, which is why it is the common answer around most fields.
- A deck is a building. It has floors, ramps, drainage, lighting on every level, fire systems, structural inspection and, in this climate, a serious salt problem in its own concrete. It costs a great deal more to stand up and to keep standing.
A quote that says covered without saying which is telling you less than it appears to.
The top floor problem
Every deck has one and somebody parks on it.
The top floor is uncovered by definition. If cover is the reason you are paying for a deck, ask whether the space is on a covered level, and understand that most operators assign on arrival rather than on reservation, so the honest answer is often that nobody knows yet.
This desk passes that answer on rather than smoothing it over. A promise about which floor would be a promise made with somebody else's building.
What cover is worth in this city
More than in most places, for two reasons, and both are winter reasons.
Snow on a car is an inconvenience. Ice on a car after a freezing rain event is forty minutes of work in the dark at five in the morning, and this region gets those. Cover removes that entirely.
The second is road salt, which in a deck is a problem for the building and not for you, and on open ground is a problem for you and not for the building.
What cover is not
Custody. A covered space is weather protection and nothing else, and no page here will say otherwise. Who is actually present on the ground is part three.
Practical
- Ask: canopy or deck.
- Ask: is the level assigned when I book or when I arrive.
- If it is a deck and the answer is on arrival, price it as an open space and treat cover as a bonus.