What’s a carport and who buys these things? Carports are widely popular for protecting your vehicle from the elements by covering it with a metal structure, keeping it out of the direct sun, hail, snow and ice. Metal carports have replaced the old wooden structures because they are lighter, faster to build and last far longer. We took a drive out into the rural farmland of Colorado and found dozens and dozens of homes with metal carports, metal garages and even some very large RV covers. We decided to talk to some of the owners of these metal carports and find out how old their carports were, how much maintenance they had to do to keep them looking good and how often they required painting. These were all very legitimate questions in our minds but the reactions that we got wasn’t what we expected.
Our first stop was at a small roadside store with a carport right next to it. The owner said that he had purchased the metal carport over 20 yrs. ago which was good news to us. When asked how often he painted it, his reaction was well, not expected. “Paint it, who the hell would paint it?” OK, enough said.
Next stop was a house down the road where a woman was out mowing the grass. We interrupted her just to ask here why she chose a metal carport? She about tried to kill us for having her shut down her mower since she said it was near impossible to start up again to finish mowing! Her reply, where else would I park my truck?
One more try, a farm with a long driveway. We headed up that driveway just in time for the cattle to head in. We were suddenly surrounded by mooing, horns and dust! The farmer was pretty irritated with us and came straight at us with a John Deere that had some pointy thing on the front. We couldn’t backup fast enough to get out of there.
The moral of this story is this. Just leave folks alone, don’t interfere with their business, the lives or their living and especially don’t ask stupid questions about carports. It’s simple, these metal carports work, they last and they don’t cost much. They keep your vehicle or anything else protected and they don’t look too bad! Seems that thousands of people have Carports in Colorado so they can’t all be wrong! Go ahead, try one yourself and you’ll be glad you did!
