Hi there guys
Been hanging around here every now and then. Upgraded from a Fluke 123 to a 4-ch Pico 3 yrs ago, but sadly went out of business only 3 months after that, because I was seeing signs of burnout. After that I was working for another shop, was hired to do diagnostics which I also did, but not with the Pico because this was a true Bosch (and only Bosch) shop. As time went by my jobs got more and more out of what was initially ment to be, I ended up doing no diagnostic jobs at all and got all kinds of work I did not like, and this escalated when the other electrician in the shop did quit.
Tried to discuss this and get things back on track, with no success. Now I'm unemployed at the moment (because I want to). Need some mental rest after previous workplace, I am doing construction work at home ie building a garage to get my workshop emptied (all stuff is still lying there), and will probably go for a new, bigger workshop here in my hometown. Just need to build it first
Actually I'm waiting the city hall to complete a split of a landlot, that would bring me on a visible place which my previous shop didn't have.
By the way, if anyone has got any thoughts about what a decent shop should measure, I will be glad to get comments. My old place was small, 150 square meters and only 3 meters to the roof making if almost impossible working on vans and campers. Didn't even have floor drain, so imagine the wintertime, every car bringing in a pile of snow.. Want to upgrade quite a bit from that, even if I did ok for 10 years in those circumstances.
I contacted a company making workshop designs, they said the optimal thing would be having a width of 21 meters, having a big door in the end, and driving in the middle of the shop and have lifts and floorspace on both left and right side. I think you lose a lot of squares having it that way, and told them so, but they told me floorspace is cheaper to build than having lots of big doors side by side on the lenght of the building. Still I am not comfortable with their suggestion, and want to think of other ways of doing this.
I aim for a shop with room for ~4 mechs with spacious workareas, so that would be at least 4-5 lifts and empty floorspace for cars waiting for parts and so on. All other rooms and areas will be defined by the needs, so only planning the true shop area is my concern. Since starting out from scratch, it would be a pain to notice something SHOULD have been like this or that..