How to Prepare your Vinyl Records for Long-Term Storage

It is important that you correctly prepare your vinyl records for long-term storage or they could warp, become scratched or crack. Here’s a guide that tells you how.

Vinyl record collections are seen by many as a priceless long-term investment and a sentimental possession. If you want to keep your vinyl records safe, you need to store them in a secure location. Also…

Clean the Records before You Pack Them

Before you pack your vinyl records, you need to ensure that they are clean. To clean them, you should rub a soft, lint-free cloth that has been dipped in distilled water over them in a circular motion. This will remove the dust from the surface of the record. If you have a very large collection, you should look at investing in a vacuum cleaner that has been designed specifically for cleaning these records.

Package Them in the Proper Sleeve and Cover

Before packing your records, you need to ensure that they are packaged correctly. The paper sleeves and outer covers that the records come in are designed to protect them from warping and scratching. If you have not saved all of the paper sleeves for your collection, you should be able to get more from your local music store. There are also some storage material suppliers that will have these sleeves. If you want to go the extra mile you can also purchase some thicker plastic sleeves to protect the paper sleeve.

Get the Right Boxes

The boxes that you use to store your record collection in are very important. Vinyl records will need to be stored in an upright position to ensure that they are not damaged. The best boxes for this would be milk crates or a small box with similar dimensions. These boxes are approximately the same size as the records, which ensures that they do not move around too much or are not packed too tightly.

Your record collection will need to be held securely in the box, but should not be held too tightly. You should also avoid stacking your records; this is due to the fact that the weight of the records could cause them to warp or lead to cracks appearing on the surface.

Have the Right Storage Unit

The long-term storage unit that you are going to be using has to be carefully considered. It is best to store your record collection in a climate-controlled storage unit. The unit should allow you to keep the temperature at standard room temperature or slightly lower. The unit should never become too hot as this can cause warping and other problems.

The storage unit should also be free of moisture and humidity. Both humidity and moisture could damage your record collection as you store it. The goal is to have a storage unit that keeps the collection in an environment with a consistent temperature which is completely dry.

Store the Records on Proper Shelving

It is important that you store the boxes holding your records on metal shelving. Metal shelving is important because wood shelving could absorb moisture, which could lead to the moisture affecting your records. Metal will also never expand or contract when there are temperature fluctuations in the storage unit. This means that your records will be held on a more secure shelf.

If you cannot use metal shelving, plastic pallets can be used instead. It is important to note that you should not stack the record boxes if they are made of cardboard. This is due to the fact that cardboard will weaken over time and the records on the top could start to crush the records at the bottom. This will lead to cracks and warping which you will not know about until you open the boxes.

If you are thinking about renting a self-storage unit and would like some more tips or research, our friends at Aabsolute Self Storage have more content like this over on their website.