Emergency preparedness: Careful how you store your tape

Tape is essential for emergency preparedness. In a hurricane zone, applying a big "x" of tape to exterior windows can reduce flying glass. It can be used to label things, close things, hold things open, hold things closed, you can tape plastic over a window to improve insulation, you can wrap metal tools to simulate an insulated/padded handle - duct tape is essential. Most men believe that anything you can't fix with duct tape, doesn't really need fixing.

But, you have to store it right. The garage seems like a natural place to keep duct tape, but it's one of the worst places to store it. My garage ranges from baking in the summer to freezing in the winter - all that temperature change made the glue on the duct tape glue the roll into a solid block. It's useless now.

More Tape Tips page 3: "If you need to store tape for a long time, keep it in a cool, dry place and turn it over from time to time so that the adhesive doesn’t migrate to one side of the roll."

Put waxed paper between rolls of tape to keep them from sticking together when stacked.