OT just wondering.

northeastpuller1 · Dec 25, 2020

First off I do understand money does not grow on trees. Second thing if you are renting a place I get it.
There are some very talented people on this sight that year after year work in a dirt floor wagon shed in the bitter cold. O degrees may be different in Montana or Canada then in North East pa less dampness and not as brutal. I dont know never been in those winter climates. I have always looked at well insulated heated shop as a tool that helps me keep things in better shape than if I had to work on stuff in a wagon shed with a tarp for a door taking gloves on and off be cold and miserable a lot of things just would not get addressed and cost more to fix later then if attended to sooner. I am not saying everyone needs one of those 40x100 top shop buildings like on tv but a simple 24 x24 would be way better then a wagon shed. So why is it not a priority to have a tool like a warm shop. It would pay big untold dividends all winter long. What am I missing in this thinking?

johnofnewhaven · Dec 25, 2020

You answered your own question
with the first sentence in your
post.

jm. · Dec 25, 2020

I am like you it really does not get that bad here in Tennessee but I watched last year as sv (I
think) replaced the torque tube in a john deer hitch outside on the snow packed ground. I just could
not work in those kind of conditions, or at least I sure don,t want to. Hot weather I can always
find the shade or set down and get cool but cold weather just kills me.

J Hamilton · Dec 25, 2020

A poor man has poor ways and uses the
resources he has to make due.

Traditional Farmer · Dec 25, 2020

If its all that cold instead of working on tractors,after I get the cows and other stock fed I'll either cut wood or catch up on my reading down by the wood stove.I don't like doing mechanical work in real cold weather anyway.If something comes up that can't be put off I have access to a nice heated shop if needed.
Give me a nice old hot Summer day under an open carport to do mechanical work anytime.

RayP(MI) · Dec 25, 2020

I sure would love to have even a warm
place to work outside. I was thankful we
were able to afford a dirt floor polebarn
big enough to shelter most of our
equipment.

Tom/Idaho · Dec 25, 2020

Johnofnewhaven

I"m with you.
Tom/Idaho

1948CaseVAI · Dec 25, 2020

Everyone does the best they can do to satisfy their priorities within their means. The thing that makes people interesting is that we do not all have the same priorities, means, methods, desires, or goals.

JMOR · Dec 25, 2020

(quoted from post at 10:38:34 12/25/20) If its all that cold instead of working on tractors,after I get the cows and other stock fed I'll either cut wood or catch up on my reading down by the wood stove.I don't like doing mechanical work in real cold weather anyway.If something comes up that can't be put off I have access to a nice heated shop if needed.
Give me a nice old hot Summer day under an open carport to do mechanical work anytime.

'm with jm & TF, give me 95F over 25F for outdoor work any & every day! Texan for life. Anything below 60F & I'm cold. Yes, I do know that people do actually live in those ice cold places. I'm just not going to be one of them. Don't have the fur for it.

warbaby · Dec 25, 2020

The colder the shop, the fewer the "visitors".

As long as youre out of the wind and can warm your hands on a hot exhaust manifold every once and awhile, youve got it made!

Steve@Advance · Dec 25, 2020

I really feel for anyone that finds themselves in that situation.

No way could I survive in a cold climate, thank God I was not born where there is extreme cold! Heat I can handle, or used to, not so much now. Spoiled to an air conditioned shop, but it wasn't always available, spent many years working in the heat, but only on occasion did I have to work in the cold, and that was usually because of a break down or no choice emergency.

And what you "polar bears" experience is nothing I have even been exposed to, I truly don't know how you do it! I hear the humidity makes a big difference, down here cold and wet always seem to go together, a miserable combination for me anyway.

About the only dirt floor work I have had to do was onsite, something that was too big to move or wouldn't fit in the shop. It was misery beyond the threshold of "is it worth it?" Part of my inability to say no. Sure don't want to go back there again!

Stroby · Dec 25, 2020

Well said, very well said.

buzz saw · Dec 25, 2020

Agree with all that was said above. I am a field service mechanic on diesel and heavy equipment, and a lot of what we work on just isn't possible to get inside. Cranes, big excavators and shovels, river tug boats and such. I dread winter, but when it's here it doesn't seem as bad as thinking about it. And sometimes like I tell a customer or co-worker, "You have to live to fight another day".

Bruce from Can. · Dec 25, 2020

I don’t have a nice place to work on equipment, and
keep my most important farm equipment updated
and new. My toys can get fooled with in warm part
of the year. I intend to convert our double car
garage into a place to play with old tractors during
winter. Just haven’t got there yet. My Scandinavian
blood makes me much more cold tolerant, and I
don’t mind making minor repairs on a bench in the
shed during the winter. I really don’t like to be trying
to work outside when it gets hotter than 80F . I’ll
take a few months of winter

moresmoke · Dec 25, 2020

I have a nice heated shop, but find it is
always full of half finished projects when
something else comes up that needs to be
worked on so still end up outside. At
least my tools start off warm.

OregonAaron · Dec 25, 2020

Wish I had a dirt floor shed to work in. I dont have a shop, my tractors live outside with canvas tarps on em in the winter. Any unnecessary repairs wait for warmer weather.

Case Nutty 1660 · Dec 25, 2020

Plowing snow a couple winters ago for my cousin, it was -27F air temp and a 20 mph wind,, cool day for sure
cnt

I have always taken the cold better than humidity and heat

Love to have a 100-200K shed,, but no funds to build one so i use what I have

Fordy20 · Dec 25, 2020

What you're missing is that everyone has their number 1s, 2s, and 3s. A warm shop isn't everyones number 1.

retired farmer · Dec 25, 2020

Because the boss is too cheap to put a heater in a thirty by sixty shop with a concrete floor.

Al Baker(pumpman) · Dec 25, 2020

The first 10 years I worked outside in the rain and snow. Many days it was snowing so hard that if you set a tool down it was
missing in action until it melted off. Lake effect snows can come down very hard with very large flakes. You learn to carry
every thing you are using in a plastic bucket so you dont loose them. Always set it under the unit if possible, or cover it. I
have had to throw a tarp over me in rain and sleet. I do have a very nice warm shop now, but the farm could never have paid for
it. Being a mechanic paid the bill. The ability to purchase equipment, or buildings is different across our country. Here we
dont get any where close to the yields on crops, or have as nice of growing season as farmers only a couple hours south of us.
In most cases their soil is also more fertile. So if I plant 100 acres of corn it takes me just as much time to plant and
harvest, same cost for seed and spray, but I get sometimes half the return. I cant profit as much as the BTOs, so making a
purchase like a farm shop is sometimes hard, if not impossible. Some of those multi generation guys from the corn belt just make
it look easy. How can anyone ever appreciate a nice shop unless you have done without?? Al

lenray · Dec 25, 2020

I DROVE TO LUDINGTON from Clare 10 PLUS years 5 days a week with a Co. CALLED Purolator Courier......It can REALLY Snow up there in your area.....

John in Mich · Dec 25, 2020

Wow. You have dredged up some old memories and thinking/planning mistakes.
In 1983 we bought 6 acres, about 10 miles away, for a future home. In 1984, we (my 2 sons and I) built
a 36x48 pole barn about 500 feet from the road on our new 6 acres. My PLAN was, I (we) are going to
build the house. The barn was to store tools, equipment and materials. It was just a shell with a dirt
floor, one 8N with a Wagner loader and some implements.
We brought in the electric, water, natural gas and installed a septic system. We bought a used 2
bedroom mobile home to put on sight and sold our home. HA! Naive.
Looking back, it was fortunate that, in April, 1984, my career changed and I began traveling every week,
Monday through Friday. There was just absolutely no way that I could build and coordinate construction
of a new house. Also, my oldest son had enlisted in the USMC and was due to depart in September. We
hired a builder. The house build was delayed until the fall of 1985.
Over the years, I did some of my car-truck-tractor work on the dirt floor barn or sometimes in the 2 car
cement floor attached garage. The Ford tractor disease had attacked and I was up to 3.
We poured an 18x24 floor one corner of the barn and I enclosed it. It had a 7'high-8'wide overhead door
and the entry door. I ran 100amp underground for electric. I had also buried a 6 pair telephone cable
(never been used).
Again, naive, once all of my tools, boxes, parts etc. were in the "shop", no space to work.
15 years ago (about) I built an addition 12x48 with a cement floor. Boy, was I going to be able to work
on "stuff". Relapse on the disease, up to "umteen" Fords and 11 Jake built lawn tractors. No room at
the in, so to speak. (BTW, "umteen" is to keep mama confused. More than 10, less than 20)
I have reduced the fleet now and am clearing some messes. I will have a work space with heat next
month.
As for temperatures, for me, outside? 45 to 80 degrees.

pete 23 · Dec 25, 2020

Lot of real nice shops on farms around here now. Sixty years ago I don't think
you could find one . Alley of a double corn crib worked best if crib was full
of corn to break the wind. West central Minn.

funky_g00 · Dec 25, 2020

"Money does not grow on trees" pretty much sums me up. Eventually I want to build a 48 X 48 shed. However I have a shoe string budget, I know my already sky high taxes will double once built and I live in a potentially high development area where most likely the house and buildings will probably be demolished if/when I should ever move, because they do not match the other McMansions that are going up near me. Therefore I can not justify going further in debt to build the shed I want right now, knowing full well it will probably only stand as long as I own it.

gtractorfan · Dec 25, 2020

You reminded me of a thought I've had. When I graduated from high school in '62 there was a separate building built in the '50's
for shop and ag. classes. Within a decade a new school was built outside of town (now ALL the kids needed transportation) and the
nice shop building was torn down along with the school. That building was paid for by taxpayers, now there's just an empty lot.
Why couldn't a nice building like that be saved and used for locals, maybe with membership required and yearly maintenance fee?

SVcummins · Dec 25, 2020

Just need to toughen up. Ranch needs lots Of improvements
before a shop ever thinks about getting built and I highly
doubt one ever will be built

moresmoke · Dec 25, 2020

Local school spent a million dollars on a new gym. Couple years later, the district folded. Local farmer bought the facility, tore down the school and turned the gym into a shop.

wilson ind · Dec 25, 2020

were you the fellow who bought the m m hydro in lyons ind last summer?

504 · Dec 25, 2020

When dad started farming he owned a repair shop in town,1 mile from the house. The shop wasn't
needed,after he sold the garage there just wasn't a need I guess ,anything we did we did outside. I
have a shop if I can bring myself to sell some stuff, I might be able to get two tractors in my
40x60x16.

grandpa Love · Dec 25, 2020

jm, I agree. Give me hot weather. Much easier to cool off than to warm up. Couple bottles of water and sit in front of a fan in the shade and you can cool off quick. Get me cold and I'm done for the day. Today I don't think we made it above freezing.....aint been outside much! Too cold in Alabama

showcrop · Dec 25, 2020

I am fortunate that I have a nice shop with heat and AC and flexible enough floor space to be able to bring in a long road tractor if I needed to. But it wasn't always that way. When Jimmy Carter was pushing his WIN! buttons the manager of the branch where I worked was all over it! No raises for anybody!! I had a two year old and my wife was working and money was so tight that I was thinking of taking my snow shovel and walking down the road looking for snow shoveling jobs. Instead I made plans to leave and start my own business which I did and eventually made enough money to build my shop. Many people just never get close to enough.

karlinpa · Dec 25, 2020

AS A TRAILER MECHANIC WORK KEEPS ME OUTDOORS MOST OF TIME A I GET OLDER I FIND I CANT TAKE COLD MUCH FINGERS HURT 5 DAYS
A WEEK LUCKLY MY TRACTORS ARE NOW PARKED IN TRAILER BODIES I BROUGHT HOME AND DROPPED TO GROUND EVEN MY CAB TRACTOR FITS
PLANS ARE TO PUT ROOF BETWEEN 2 OF THEM AND CLOSE IN OPENING FOR WORK AREA NEXT SUMMER EVEN RIDING SNOWMOBILE ISNT FUN
ANYMORE GETTING SOFT IN MY OLD AGE

John in Mich · Dec 25, 2020

No. I have been looking at auctions and Craigslist for the Jake builts, but really, I don't need to buy any more.

OT just wondering.

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