Property out of town - Haul your tractor, or build storage - opinions?

[Snowback]

Here's a picture of my little Swiss Army knife...
View attachment 469157

Very nice! Handy looking unit. I'm gonna start a new thread on "Swiss Army Knife" setups. :thumbsup:

 

[bspeedy]

I have been living with a similar situation for 7+ years, my property is 50 miles from where I live. Driving 100 miles round trip is a pain made worse by having to pull a tractor, I leave mine at the property. Buy an inland marine policy to cover your tractor and attachments and don't worry about it. Statistically I image you would be taking more risk with both the tractor and yourself towing it all the time as opposed to it being stolen. You're going to want a storage shed at some point anyway so might as well get it done.

Good Luck with your decision.

^^THIS. I left my tractor and equipment at my property which was 30 miles from my home for about a year. Entrance was gated, equipment was out of sight. I carried an inland marine policy which I purchased from my car / home insurance provider. It was about 250 bucks per year. Covered trailer, tractor, equipment.

My take on this is - people are protected with security measures and no expense is too much or too much trouble to keep my family safe. Things are just... things. They are easily replaceable. If things get stolen, they get replaced with the proceeds from insurance. Kind of a pain, but really no emotion attached to that.

Minor theft and vandalism are probably your bigger risks. Damage / theft in the 200 to 1000 dollar realm. This is too small to turn into insurance but big enough to make a dent in the monthly budget (and aggravating).

Get an enclosed building or container and an inland marine policy. And get some buddies out there to shoot clays about once per quarter. All those booms can be a good deterrent IMO.

 

[Sumner Sapough]

My father and I have had this some what same situation. They have their main home in Ga and Farm in NC. The newest and most reliable tractor is a JD 3005 and a finishing mower and 4ft rotary mower to accompany it. The main issue is moving the equipment and trailering from GA to NC which is not the most convenient trip. At the current moment my father and I just let the equipment that we are not constantly using (Case IH 495, 5ft rotary mower, and some other pto equipment) just sitting at the farm. I understand this isn't the best set up however our neighbor is good about watching our stuff and calling if any thing is up. However all of this is about to change. I saw where you said permanent location is out of the question, however in our case the design is already set up or barns, outbuilding, etc. So within about 3 weeks we hope to build a barn that will relinquish our neighbor of watch and we will be able to lock up the implements and all the 13 tractors. So I guess that I am saying all of this that having a shipping container or 2 will be great since they are movable, lockable, and can store a lot of things especially if organized efficiently. Either way...good luck in your endeavors.

 

[kthompson]

Just realize tractor in a barn can still be stolen...

If you must store a tractor away from you do install a simple switch they will not find easy or understand it is wired to prevent it cranking. Most people want to drive them off the land and not have to winch them onto a trailer or such.

 

[MossRoad]

When I would leave our IH2500b on our property, I'd always take the battery with me and I'd also take the distributor from under the cap. One night the county police called me to tell me the people across the street from the property called the police to report my tractor's lights were on late at night and maybe I was dead under the tractor, please check. So the police went out there and there were no lights on and no battery in the tractor. Hmmm..... best guess was there was a vehicle parked next to the tractor with someone trying to steal it and they left before the police came.

 

[WoodChuckDad]

I live 115 miles from my land. The tractor stays there. I have had pictures from multiple game cams on the land and along the drive that showed strangers checking out the tractor, even 400 yds from the road, thru heavy woods. Right now, logging is taking place, and there gate is down..and the trees are cut along the road, so getting onto the property would be easy. I have insurance....I would still blow a gasket if someone messed with my tractor or excavator, but it is a better option than nothing. I have insurance on my implements as well. There are a dozen hand tools up there that are not insured, as well as a canoe, etc. Some things, you just have to take a risk with. I don't have a trailor, and if I had one stout enough to haul my tractor, I'd need a new truck to do it. I do have multiple game cameras up there and have been thinking about installing one that has 3G wireless. Leaving the goodies out of sight and reach is not easy to do.

 

[jrm21]

Sometimes hard to get any type of insurance on stuff if it's on property that you don't live on. There has been at least one discussion on this forum about a guy that used a on site container to store his tractor, but I don't know what it was under. I remember something about him putting in a shelf type storage above his FEL bucket to give him more room for his other stuff...

Good point about the insurance, but it works both ways.

I have a second home about 200 miles from my "main" home. I also have a few machines that I only use at the second home. My "home" has a garage. My 2nd home only had a shed. While the shed door has a lock, it is far less secure than my (occupied) main residence garage.

I spoke with my insurance agent, figuring it would be much less expensive to insure things if they were locked in my main home's garage. It involved my having to trailer things back and forth all the time, which I wasn't happy about.

Good thing I asked. Leaving an ATV or tractor in a shed at the unattended 2nd home was about 25% of the cost. I kept telling the agent "but no one is there." Didn't matter.

YMMV depending on location and other factors. The point is to ask the agent - you may find that the counter-intuitive option is much less expensive.