Storing Your Vinyl Records

I recently thought about everything my records have endured over the years. I’ve always done my best to take care of them, but there’s been misinformation along the way, especially before the internet and Google ever existed. Record enthusiasts like me relied on magazine articles, friends, and the occasional tip from a clerk at a record store. Some of what I did with good intentions makes me cringe, and I’m surprised I didn’t ruin many of them. The hope to rectify some of that fueled my recent decision to re-clean them all.  

There’s a saying when it comes to cleaning a record, new or old, that comes into your possession – “You don’t know where that record has been.” In my case, I do. I know where they’ve all been through the years. There was a time in the ’90s when I collected CDs and stored my vinyl away in sturdy crates in the basement of a house I used to own. It was a dry basement, but still… it was a New England basement with many seasonal changes and humidity levels. Luckily, mold was avoided, and I thought about these things as I began my new cleaning routine. There are things I wish I could share with my 90s self about storing records I hadn’t known then.

Since that’s impossible at the moment (make that time machine already!), I’ll share them with you.

This One’s Too Hot, and That One’s Too Cold

I’ve touched upon how hot it needs to get to warp a record here, so in brief, your record won’t warp until it’s reached 140 degrees Fahrenheit (all temps I state will be Fahrenheit, so I’ll avoid typing it each time). So avoid storing your records in a car and direct sunlight. The optimum temperature is in a dry place between 60 to 75 degrees. Regarding humidity, it should be between 45% and 50% at most. The humidity itself won’t damage your record, but the cover will suffer, and when it does, there’s the chance of mold, and you definitely don’t want that in the groove of your record. I said this in my previous post, and I’ll say it again, if you’re comfortable in the room, then your records are. Keep them dry, and the thermostat or air conditioner set between 60-75 degrees.  

This goes without saying, but you never know… please don’t stick them in a shed where the temperatures are prone to drop into subzero temps in cold climates or seasons. It won’t cause them to shatter instantly, but they will become brittle and can shatter if you toss one around like a frisbee (perish the thought!).

Let’s Get Vertical

This one feels like a no-brainer. I never saw records stored in any way except vertically. If you stack them on top of each other, imagine what a pain it would be to flip through them to locate the copy of Alice Cooper’s Welcome to My Nightmarespending you want to listen to. Trying to find it would be the nightmare. Imagine the shock and horror of finding it distorted or cracked after having spent years under the weight of 50 records. Think of it this way – a record weighs around 5 ounces. The record at the bottom of a stack of 50 has at least 15 pounds on top of it. It’s a weird, counter-intuitive way to store records, so please don’t do it. Plus, they shift around. If they are stored in paper sleeves, there’s a good chance they’ll be scuffed and scratched beneath all that weight.  

And speaking of paper sleeves. This leads me to…

Inner Sleeves are Like Underwear

Imagine wearing sandpaper underwear?  

Ok. Remove that image from your thoughts and stop cringing. The point is that storing your records in proper inner sleeves will both protect and prolong their life (records can last for over a century if cared for). For some undisclosed reason, my dad used to toss away some of the inner sleeves of his records and store them without them. I inherited those records, and, yeah, it shows. I don’t know what he was thinking, and it’s too late to ask him. The thing is, he loved music. It’s where I get it from. Thankfully, I didn’t get his storage acumen (if you want to call it that) from him, too.

I personally don’t like paper sleeves or cheap plastic sleeves, so I throw them aside and use the inner sleeves I buy from the folks at InvestInVinyl. It’s well worth the investment. You can purchase a pack of fifty for half the price of a new record.  

Ok – back to cleaning!