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heating workshops?
hey guys, so i just did a partial wrap on a tall transit LWB. 1m of green going diagonally down both sides with stripes either side of the strip, (my biggest job yet). i have learnt one or two things doing this….it is almost impossible with one person and second vinyl rips soooo easily in the cold! My question is how are you guys heating your workshops? i have just built a 10m x 3m office/printer room with a small oil radiator and electric heater but the workshop itself is f r e e z i n g!, i need a low cost solution as it just gets colder and colder! please help!
tom
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60 Replies
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Yes it is possible on your own.
heat is not cheap.
You cant do wraps in the cold as you have just found out.
Gas is generally the most economical way to heat a workshop.Peter
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Hi Tom
The 1m stripe is an easy job for one and by no means ‘impossible’ for one person!
To heat your unit I would get a few convector heaters, £15 from argos, and enjoy the warmth!
Oil filled radiators really don’t tend to heat large spaces.
(sorry if I sound negative mate!)
Matt
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I use to heat my unit with a mobile gas heater, it was a trolley the gas bottle sat on with a radiant heat type head and was great because unlike the space heater I had it did not blow the warm air about so no dust problems. No idea where it came from unfortunately as I swapped a small sign for it.
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quote Martin:I use to heat my unit with a mobile gas heater, it was a trolley the gas bottle sat on with a radiant heat type head and was great because unlike the space heater I had it did not blow the warm air about so no dust problems. No idea where it came from unfortunately as I swapped a small sign for it.
gas bottles are an expensive form of energy, I was talking about piped gas, space heaters and signage are not very compatible, because of the amount of water (condensation) produced.
piped gas generally is through indirect heaters where the flame is not exposed to the space being heated.Peter
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IR heaters work well. Problem with gas bottles also is that some insurance companies won’t let you have them on the premises,
Peter
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quote Peter Mindham:Problem with gas bottles also is that some insurance companies won’t let you have them on the premises,Peter
That’s because traditionally the owners of a failing business would set it alight using a blower gas heater then claim the insurance money by pretending they had left it on overnight by mistake 😕
Hence insurers now insist that you don’t heat the premises using these types of heater…
..but in practice (providing your aren’t planning to burn your place down to claim the insurance money) it’s actually quite an efficient way to heat the place up 😀
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If I had the $$ I’d get one of those overhead radiant heat systems (electric)
Man are they nice.
You can position them in certain areas when installing (such as over a work table) to send the heat just where it’s needed.
I lettered a big-ass dump truck on a 10° day in a garage which had one, and the metal was warm to the touch.
No blowing air either to get dust in paint or under vinyl.
Someday.
I have a huge forced air gas heater in my garage from an old department store. It makes the shop as warm as my living room.
But I can’t afford the gas bill.
Love…..Jill -
Peter, you are right, not sure if Phill’s explanation is true or another one of his stories 😉 but I was only allowed to keep a certain sized gas bottle on the premises, think it was about a 30Kg bottle of propane I had but might have been smaller.
Yes a gas supply to the unit would have been a better option but unfortunately we don’t all have the money to be able to have a gas supply laid in for us.
It isn’t the ideal way to heat the workshop but it does work and does a reasonably good job. It can be an expensive way of doing it but it’s better than nothing and does allow you to get on with some work.
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quote Phill Fenton:quote Peter Mindham:Problem with gas bottles also is that some insurance companies won’t let you have them on the premises,
Peter
That’s because traditionally the owners of a failing business would set it alight using a blower gas heater then claim the insurance money by pretending they had left it on overnight by mistake 😕
Hence insurers now insist that you don’t heat the premises using these types of heater…
..but in practice (providing your aren’t planning to burn your place down to claim the insurance money) it’s actually quite an efficient way to heat the place up 😀
wrong
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What bit is wrong?
The bit about owners of failing businesses buring them down with gas heaters?
or the bit about it being quite an efficient way to heat up a worskshop?:lol1: :lol1: :lol1:
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we actually used a space heater to warm our office block up the other week… they loved it but the condensation watery gassy air was there afterwards…. I also think that our insurance company might not like it
We have two hired-infra-red heaters to test their effectivness, they don’t really warm anything thing up much but if you air it towards you or your object that you are working on, then it’s very comfortable to work in.
Oh I been wearing my coat all day long for the last few months while at work
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quote Dave Rowland:Oh I been wearing my coat all day long for the last few months while at work
Is that the same coat you wear to the 18 rated movies 😕
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18 rated venues 😳
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(1m Wide by 2.5m long i meant) heres the pic…. thanks for the tips guys, i have a solvent printer and heard the condensation from the bottles may mess it up but i do have a gas supply at the unit, just not sure how much it will cost me p/m
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quote Phill Fenton:What bit is wrong?
The bit about owners of failing businesses buring them down with gas heaters?
or the bit about it being quite an efficient way to heat up a worskshop?:lol1: :lol1: :lol1:
Both
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Okay – I admit it’s not a very efficient way to heat a workshop :lol1:
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It may not be a very efficient way to heat a workshop but what are the alternatives ??
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Burn the place down? 😕
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Not really very efficient though is it Phill, be great on the first day but probably not to good by the end of the week.
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Why is it all you submariners are so scared of fires 😕
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i could burn the place down with me in it….. i could get nice and warm then, don’t think the customer would be too happy though. £15 argos jobbies it is then! until i make a fortune and buy an oil fired heater!
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I’m not scared of fires Phill, been in a few as well 😉
I just don’t think it is really the answer Thomas was looking for :lol1:
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quote Martin:I’m not scared of fires Phill, been in a few as well 😉
woz that after you’d pressed the launch button for the Polaris missile aimed at Moscow..when the solenoid valve that operated the external hatch to deploy the missile failed 😕
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ok so the actual question was heating a workshop, somehow its turned into long range warfare discussion? have i stumbled onto the ‘wrong’ sort of forum? 😮 😉
either way, cheers guys! 😀 -
Thomas.
we do try and help, but occasionally we get a bit carried away, it is after all the festive season.
you are in the best place for help and advice, so sorry if we wondered away from your question,back to business then, proper advice only from now on…
Peter
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lol, im not moaning :lol1:
i’ve just got a cold workshop that isnt kind to vinyl, a seiko printer that has run out of ink and i cant afford to buy anymore yet. so cold workshop + solvent printer with no ink = EXPENSIVE
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Sorry Tom – can I call you Thomas?
Personally – I think the most efficient answer is to emigrate to Florida or Spain 😕
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quote Thomas Peachey:lol, im not moaning :lol1:
i’ve just got a cold workshop that isnt kind to vinyl, a seiko printer that has run out of ink and i cant afford to buy anymore yet. so cold workshop + solvent printer with no ink = EXPENSIVE
Thomas, sorry to hear you cant afford ink or heating, whatever advice we give, you cannot do it without funds, I hope you can recover from your situation, best wishes,
sorry if we sounded a bit flippant.Peter
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lol, my business is in its infancy. i havnt sunk before ive floated (i hope). i find it hard with pricing as do many people, i fear that is why i cant afford the ink!
i need a pro who can ‘sit down with me’ give me some advice and kick me up the backside! ive managed to pay my rent and bills for the past 6months but im just not accumilating anything yet. my last business (a model shop) lasted a year because i was paying huge rent, getting products in selling them, paying the rent and then id end up owing for the products i sold, i am VERY carefull now about overheads and come to realise most internet, phone, electric, heating suppliers just want to rinse you for anything you do have! do i sound like ive got one dirty great chip on my shoulder?! 👿 :lol1: -
Thomas, if you have been in business for 6 months then you really should be making enough money to cover things like ink replacement, the biggest problem you say you have is with pricing. Can I ask how you have set about pricing your work?? Have you done any research to find out what sort of price other sign companies charge for their work??
The price it guide which was talked about on another thread is a good starting point if you have no idea what you should be charging but it is just a guide so you will still need to find out what everyone else local to you is charging.
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Have to agree with the other Martin….The price it guide is a very good start we work out a price then compare it to the guide and its not usually much different except you have to slightly adapt to different situations like time spent doing artwork etc.
The main thing is to keep your overheads as low as possible, don’t buy anything that you really don’t need, and beware of these cold callers offering different advertising methods or changing the phone supplier. Stay clear of them all. -
Hi Tom I know your situation so well.. When it got really cold at the beginning of the month my landlord was kind enough to lend me a small electric fan heater (I already have a big one in the workshop which I use sparingly) I use the large one inside of vehicles to heat them up, this works well.
i sealed up the print/office room and put the small fan heater in there with all my materials and had it on a timer for about 30 mind every 2 hours. When I came in to work the next day the office was roasting…lovely..
However, I got my elec bill from the landlord (he reads the meter and charges me for usage at 12p a unit) and to my horror it was £600 OWCH! when i decided to change the timings on the heater i found out that I had the timing pins around the wrong way and the electric fan in the office had been on for 3 weeks solid… that’s why it was so warm.
So.. this has left me in a bit of a crisis with the business, because that has all come at the end of a month that is down 25% on turnover (which I expected but not the heating bill) also as a result I sorted out the timer and have found that the office loses temp inside 30 mins of being heated..
Now I have 2 dilemmas, one I’m in a financial sticky situation (I had everything covered until I got that bill) and two I have a workshop that is in essence un manageable due to heating problems. So much so that I’m seriously considering building a annexe on my home to move the business into to save myself £1k a month when only 4 weeks ago I was actually looking at moving to a larger premises….
I can get over the temporary financial hump (like you I’m only 6 months old too) but in 3 months time that problem is going to be back again to bite my arse.
the only solution I can see here is to insulate really well and use the cheapest most cost effective means to heat it. If you scavenge around enough you can get timber for wall liners almost for nothing and go to building or demolition sites to see if you can get any insulation from old roofs being thrown away… A friend of mine actually got an old display model conservatory from a double glazing company that was going under for free. He put it in his workshop (only a 8×10 one) and put insulation on top of the roof, he now has his printers and materials inside it with some low cost heaters that keep the room at about 18 degrees permanently. He then does what i do and bungs his industrial fan heater on full blast inside the vehicles in his shop for 30 mins before working on them…
I know it’s probably not going to be much help as heating seems to be the one thing we all need really badly but no one has a low cost effective solution.. the man who does could probably make a mint here. I hope some of the ideas may spark something in you to find a way of dealing with it..
Good luck
BigMo
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mm wondering what my bill will be – in my print room an oil filled rad has been on constant min 10deg 24/7 since the cold snap beginning Dec – oh well 😮
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Mo, bit off topic but surely a move to an extension built on to the house would be a step backward, you are already looking for extra space so I can’t see the extension being bigger than the unit you already have.
Thought I read in one of the threads about the snow that you were coining it in with online sales, what happened there??
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My opinion on this, which I know can’t work in all instances would be build an extension. If someone expects their business to remain relatively small scale, doesn’t feel that they would loose significant amounts of work due to not having a unit, and they have a house that isn’t suitable to work from in it’s present form, but would take a decent size extension, it’d be my route.
In 4yrs expenses would be up to £48000 having the unit, £48000 would comfortably build a nice attached or free standing double garage with an office/guest accommodation above. I know the unit would be tax deductible in full, not sure on the extension. It defiantly wouldn’t be tax deductible on the shell, but may be from second fix.
Now to spend £48000 on an extension sounds excessive, but spending £1000 a month on a unit sounds like the norm.
There’s obviously the added bonus of once it’s paid for that’s the end of it, the house will be nicer to live in, and it’s worth best part of what you’ve spent extra when you sell it. Also should you stop trading for whatever reason after 4yrs or so, no matter how things went you’d always have at least something to show for it.
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Bob, sort of going a bit off topic here but in a previous post Mo was looking at a bigger unit because he felt he didn’t have the space he needed where he was and was looking to expand. Not sure how big his unit is but I would have thought you would need a fair bit of land to build an extension that was as big if not bigger.
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Martin……..Happy New Year mate…Lets put this one to bed…Getting a bit boring…
😀 😀 😀
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Matty, you don’t have to read it, Happy new year to you. Don’t worry you won’t have to put up with me next year as I probably won’t be around. All the best in the future.
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Happy new year Martin. Strange statement you just put, please don’t make me think to hard about it. I’ll give you my email if I can help.
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Ditto.
Strange one Martin…..
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thanks guys for all the help, means a lot that some people take the time to help!
Big mo….it sounds bad but im glad someone else is in the same situation! thanks for the tips, i’ve taken it on board, ive studded and plasterboarded my office but i think insulation is the way to go in there.
Martin… with regards to pricing, i scan the internet to look at prices, my first couple of jobs i charged way under what the local competition were charging, sold a sign for £150 and the woman said hey thats way cheaper than the other guy, asked how much he charged and she said £280! i was a little gutted but i gained the experiance, for Van signwriting i started charging £120 for my first job then brought the price up and up and now its sitting about right i think, its just printing wise, if only i knew how much 1m/1m costs me in ink (roughly) then id know how to mark up to.
I have been doing jobs for a local display company and they were being charged £12p/sq.m + VAT +postage. I’m charging the same but with no VAT or postage and im SURE i am too cheap but cant put the price up cos they may as well go to them!HAPPY NEW YEAR TO YOU ALL AND LETS HOPE IT WILL BE A PROFITABLE AND EXCITING 2011!
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Hi Tom, the rip software i use for my printer tells me how many cc’s of ink I use on each job I do, so I have a chart of prices based on cc’s of ink for example I know that xcc’s of ink costs me .09p per cc or whatever price it is from my chart, that way I can effectively price jobs based on my time and material costs.
Why don’t you drop me a PM seeing as we are in the same situation perhaps we could swap ideas on forwarding our businesses seeing as we are bnoth at the same stage. Most of my trade is done on line, as yet i havn’t been able to break into the local market too effectively.
Would love to share my ideas
Regards
BigMo
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Mo
just a quick response, price on vinyl meterage used not ink consumption if you print a 1m2 full colour picture its £x to the customer if you print 1m2 of 2 colour text labels its the same cost but you have a slightly higher profit. Ink & material used is a minimal cost to what the customer should be paying. All the best for 2011Kev
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Thanks Kev, but some of the products I do is based on margins so I have to account for ink consumption, but I suppose I could just price the full colour meterage up would have the same effect… thanks for the tip
BigMo
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quote Thomas Peachey:I have been doing jobs for a local display company and they were being charged £12p/sq.m + VAT +postage. I’m charging the same but with no VAT or postage and im SURE i am too cheap but cant put the price up cos they may as well go to them!!
thats why you have no ink for your Sekio. it’ll cost you nearly 12/m2 to print it.
calculate your own print costs. Make a note for 1 month of all the prints you do. calculate all the ink used in that month. take an average of Media coverage ie. 65% ink coverage as average. make sure and put HP x 2 into your equation. no point having a machine if it only pays for it self , it need to pay for the replacement as well. plus all the hours you spend not just printing, but profiling, loading media, etc etc. simple maths but count everything. i bet your coats will work out at £25 – £30 m2 at least.
only a very efficient place could print for £12
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mo
bit short sighted that method of pricing a printing job.
look back and see how much you have taken in the last 6 months on jobs from the printer.
add up what you have spent in materials and ink with maintenance etc.
you will then have a better idea this will inc. cleaning cock ups etc.
lot better than the software guessing at how many billions of droplets from variable droplet size technology.just my take on it
and yes i am working today
😳
ian was typing at the same time
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😳
sorry off topic
diesel flame thrower the ins say’s it must be 9ft away from anything
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I had a look at my ink costs and yeah ouch! If i had the machine running just say 3hours a day for a month then it would pay for itself and its replacement, I rekon i can only get away with charging these prices if i was flat out all the time. The company that does the job cheap is trade only and must do it all day everyday, Judging by the equipment they’ve got.
Mo.. :police: Please take a moment to look over our Board Rules.
drop me an e-mail and i’ll send you my business e-mail address cos i doubt i am allowed to put it on here(?) cant PM, do you have to be a paid up member?I heated the office up lovely. I put the heater on and played my drum kit, that soon heated things up! now i am baking hot. Whats the best way to cool the room down again??!! (kidding)!
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Thomas – you need to increase your prices otherwise your business will fail.
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I know this is going to sound grumpy Thomas 😀 but a little tip would be to hand the finished van back to the client fully cleaned, not just clean where you have worked. It will look a bit more professional. 😉
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yeah fair do’s!
I usually request customers to clean the van first or i will do it for a fee, but they said just clean what i need to to get the job done. 🙄
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Back to the topic of heating the workshop. I have seen this done over here. The workshop was large but they only needed to heat the area where the van is. They use a large Pavillon like the one on this web site http://www.hagebau.de/Garten-und-Freize … 2sp5543826 ( with the sides covered)
They stood two patio heaters inside and were plenty warm enough to do the job. When a taller van came in they stood the whole thing on height extenders to make it taller. Theyve also thrown some loft insulation over the top to keep the heat in.
Earl. -
These look interesting
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcUwJbUO … playnext=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIokcTZZ … 2&index=26
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quote Harry Cleary:These look interestinghttp://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gcUwJbUO … playnext=2
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EIokcTZZ … 2&index=26
those are awesome, not sure about painting in them, won’t there be a slow build up of paint in them?
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Not sure Warren…all about getting extraction and airflow right …I’ve been in some fairly clean spray rooms in my time. I like the retractable one.
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that carcoon has just put a whole new perspective on what I’m about to do with my business….. amazing!
Thanks for that…..
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Before you get to exited mo, you will still need to heat it, and as it has no insulation, will cost a fortune to keep warm, you Will still need somewhere for your printer and stock though, so maybe not the ideal solution?
Peter
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thats ok pete, I still have my workshop, with that I wont need a bigger unit, I can use it on an add hoc basis, it will save me renting extra space.
I have a large carpark and will just heat it as I need it for each vehicle… lovely, no rates no rent…. sooperdoooper
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Mo, the carcoon is specifically for spraying so unless you need the filters, there are quite a few inflatable buildings around, and probably a bit cheaper.
for instancehttp://www.tents4work.co.uk/industrial_ … dings.html
Peter
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Peter… excellent…. now that would be 2k well spent…perfecto thanks very much
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