Our New "Warehouse"

Well, about a year ago I started this crazy adventure & all be dang if it hasn't taken off like wildfire!

As it's grown (it started w/ a thermometer and a shipping scale), it became evident that the little back room we were storing everything in wasn't going to suffice.

The wife has this thing about one day being able to use the Bedroom for what it was meant for (you know, to house people--not biodiesel stuff).

As the business grew, I started having stuff pile up all over the house & spilling out into the garage. Well, I got tired of the mess (and so did the wife) and so we decided we needed to do something.

Our first step was to get a storage shed to house extra inventory in. That did well & all, but man, it was a pain to drive out to the thing to get extra stuff in a pinch, so then the garage got a set of shelves and I got a bunch of shelves for the back bedroom.

Not good enough.

So.....I finally broke down & bought a shed.

Not just ANY shed, but a monstrous 10X20 shed!
It's the biggest structure I can have on my property without needing a building permit (yippee!), otherwise I probably would've gone bigger.

I called several companies, visited several different sheds (Home Depot & Lowes rock for that sort of thing!) and finally decided on a company called A-Shed.

$3500 and whole day spent by two guy's in my back yard and, whoala! I had a new shed!

You can check out the pictures of the thing being built here.
http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com/photos/webshed/

The thing is MASSIVE in relation to the whimpy sheds built in my neighbors yard (I'm the envy of the block now!) and hey, less lawn to mow, right?

So, after I got the thing built, I began the ardous task of figuring out how the heck I was going to make the best use of the place.

I measured, drew up a diagram, and headed to Home Depot, Lowes, & Sams Club to check out shelving. Turns out Sams Club has these killer shelves called Gorilla Rack that are inexpensive, nearly 7 feet tall, 48 inches wide, and come w/ seven shelves (Cha ching!) So I loaded up the cart w/ 10 of them (do you know how much 10 packs of those shelves weigh? A LOT!!! I looked like a goon trying to push the cart...sucker was HEAVY!!!!), drug them to the front of the store w/ everyone gawking at me (the stupid cart made this nasty noise from one of the wheels--I don't think it was built to handle all that weight) and paid for my new toys and took em outside.

Next came the task of loading them into my truck. Luckily, I'd helped a guy out in the store move his shelves to his cart & he returned the favor by helping me load 10 sets of shelves into my old rickety Isuzu (he seriosly asked me if the truck could handle it--to which I proudly said, "Heck ya! It's a diesel!").

Drove home, used a hand cart to haul the shelves out to the shed & started bangin' away at the frames.

Well, over the past couple of weeks I spent a little time here & there working on the project when I was able and today I finally got it all organized.



Today I loaded all the inventory into the shed, labelled everything w/ stickers (to make it easier to pull orders) and tried it out.

I was in sheer heaven! Now I could not only pull orders but it took 1/3 of the time to do it. I was absolutely thrilled!

So, now as the orders come in I can really be efficient at getting them out the door on time. As the business grows I'm sure one day I'll have to eventually move out of the shed & into something bigger, but now the garage is back to housing cars, the bedroom is almost ready for occupants again, and the wife's happier.

And as they say, "Happy Wife, Happy Life!"

You can see more of our cool new warehouse here:http://www.utahbiodieselsupply.com/photos/newwarehouse/

So let those orders flow! Now I'm ready for them!

-Graydon
The Rabid Biodiesel Nut
(and new shed owner ;0)