First of all, Mike, let me say that what happened to your teardrop is just heartbreaking. And it was disturbing to see. Was this the Baja Tear? I know how hard you work on your teardrops and how much they mean to you and it must have been so upsetting for you to see that. The only upside is the opportunity for learning that comes from situations like this. Hopefully it will encourage a lot of discussion and ideas and help others prevent this from happening to them. My personal feeling is that it wasn't the epoxy, for a lot of reasons, but I could have faulty thinking on it.
Moisture prevention has been a huge issue for me from the very beginning. I know we're not building boats, but after years of chasing leaks around in my boats, that were caused by water coming down from above, not up from below, I decided I didn't want to be faced with that in my teardrop. Plus, none of my boats had to go 65 miles an hour through the rain, so in my mind, potential leak problems in a tear were actually greater. So, my tear will be completely skinned in fiberglass cloth and epoxy resin and stored in the garage. And I am using Okoume marine grade ply for the skins (ouch, that hurt when it came time to pay....but now, after seeing what happened to you, I'm glad I did it.) I bought factory doors from Frank Bear so I am thinking leaks won't be a problem there. My biggest concern now is whether I will be able to get a good seal on the hatch, and since I am still debating what method I will use, that remains to be be seen. If I find my hatch seal to be less than perfect I am thinking that, while it won't be a problem while it sits in the garage, if it turns out to be a problem when traveling in the rain I will probably take the sissy way out and sew up a nice Sunbrella snap on cover for the back end which it will wear while on the road. (Years of boat canvas work has taught me, if all other methods fail to stop a leak, sew a canvas cover for it.) When camped, the back end will be under the pop-up shelter. There's more than one way to skin a cat. (Or a teardrop.)
All that said, we have kept small boats outdoors for years and our method has been canvas tarps in the summer (either the blue plastic variety or made from Sunbrella type material, with vents sewn into them and poles/props of various kinds to hold them off the boat somewhat for air circulation) and shrink wrap in the winter, again with vents installed in them.
I had toyed with the idea of sewing a custom tarp out of the heaviest plastic tarp material you can get for my teardrop, in the event it needs to spend some time outdoors. I thought I would sew some sleeves inside across the top (I really wish I knew how to use Sketch-Up here) where I could insert some PVC wrapped in foam rubber to hold the tarp off the roof a bit and then sew in a few plastic vents of the type they install in shrink wrap. I never took it to the stage of drawing it up or anything, it was just a passing idea when my husband was talking about using the garage to rebuild his Jeep.
Probably the easiest thing, if you can secure them well, is one of those plastic canvas garages. Pepboys has them on sale several times a year for less than $100, 10x20 size. The only problem with those here in my area is the wind. We bought one to cover our little fishing boat a couple of years ago, and despite our best efforts to secure it to the ground, a good wind took it apart and deposited it all over the yard. It's hard to get all the frame peices to stay together, even when you're assembling them. If you weld a bit, Maybe if you tack welded the frame together, then buried the feet in buckets of concrete and then planted the buckets in the ground or something.
Okay, so I rambled on too much. But now you've got me thinking. Sometimes that's good, sometimes that's bad.
Anyway, spring is coming, things are starting to bloom around here already and yesterday I ordered epoxy and fiberglass cloth from Raka because I am definitely
BEYOND ready to get back outside and get back to work on my teardrop.