Truckshop

MUSIC My name is Justin. Be Today is going to be the tour that One of the t We have all four seasons in one week. Literally it was 60 degrees and sunny the other day. Now we have the snow on the ground, nasty, slushy. It's going to be cold. Never know what's coming the next day. But hopefully the weather is going to break and we can get into spring and some of our trucks are loaded. They got palletized stone on the ready to s We're geared up. We'ready. We're just waiting. But first off, here comes the shop tour. Let's go inside and check it out. So we waited a long time for t Probably 10 to 15 years. Back in 2004 is when we built the steel building. And in 2004, we could get all of our equipment in the shop. And it wasn't long at all until we added more equipment. We got more grinders. It was back when we had the multi-business. So we got a lot more equipment. It wasn't long at all. Just in a few years, we outgrew that shop and we said, hey, we're going to build a new shop in the back at some point. Years go past and we start, And, Never came to fruition. So it was a several year process until we, Here where the shop is sitting is actually where we would have manufactured mulch and parked some of our trucks, things So we had to do some prep work, some site work, get everyt We had to clear out some trees. And it took us a w So t Maybe I'll start off with the size of t And we're coming from the shop that were in was 80 by 115. Obviously it's a bit bigger. T One of the t And there was some pros and cons to both. But one of the things that we didn't really T If you look in the old shop, those big steel beams that go across really So when you're working on a truck, it's nice to have light. And that's what our mechanics really wanted is light. And one of our concerns though with wood is that you can only go so big with a wood structure because of fire. So you have to put a fire suppression system in. We didn't have to do that for the shop because of our size. Were just under the size limit for that. And that's why the building is 80 by 165. If we would want with a steel structure, we definitely could have gotten a bigger structure. But then we would have had the shadows. We would have had everyt Another thing too is when you're building inside a steel structure such as offices And the other the wood structures are insulated so much better than a steel structure. So that's kind of the reasons why went with the wood structure. We have three bays here on t And these are all service bays. Some of these bays might be just a truck or it might be just a trailer. But most times what they'll do is they'll bring in a rig. Usually they're turned around the other way. These are all parked in for Monday morning. But usually they're pulled in the other way. So they have enough room to bring in one of our trucks with a 53-foot drive-in trailer, pull in the whole way, drop the trailer, leave a walking distance between the truck and the trailer, be able to flip the hood and swing the doors on the trailer. So from the door to t So these two bays be So our company ve We will also bring in a semi truck sometimes and if we have longer term work to do with it, we'll do that here. You can see the tire rack. Some of the t We have tire changers, balancers, some of the batteries. So in t My office is actually in the other building yet and some of our accounting department is in that building as well. We have an offsite dispatcher and then we have a dispatcher here in t We're kind of scattered apart but one does more for sentinels and then the other two do Flint Creek dispatch. So all the drivers who get their paperwork from t Be So a lot of our guys have their own tools but we do have some tools that are specialty tools that Flint Creek buys or that we buy here for the guys to use. We want to keep those tools safe and make sure we take good care of them. Those tools are in the room be So there's a pressure tester. There is an AC mac So after we decided that we want to go with a wood structure, I left the guys pretty much lay the shop out how they wanted it. We kind of all agreed on, hey, we're going to have three doors over here and two doors over there. But then as far as the layout of the shop, the way they wanted to service trucks, the way they wanted to run the oil lines, a lot of different things, how they wanted to, Also I pretty much left it up to them and they come up with some really good ideas. So it's always nice to have your oil handy. And that's what t It lets us have our oil very handy. We got our two different engine oils and a hydraulic oil that is here. And then there's lines if you see them go up and they go over and on the other side of the shop. So when they're servicing over there or here, they have access to all those oils. We also have coolant and our fuel treatment here as well in these tubs. We have our airlines are also coming through the wall there and they drop down every, probably every 10 feet. Basically the airline is the big line, big steel line and then it drops down and you can see there's drops every so often. There's plenty of air, plenty of electric and oil pretty much wherever these guys want. All right, this shop is, So that leaves a pretty big gap between each truck. And let me tell you, the guys love the distance between the trucks. You can see the lines and when you're working on a tire, you're changing a tire or you're working on the tarp. And you can see we have a lift down there where they work on the tarps. The next guy's working on somet It's nice to have that space. We definitely could have gotten another bay in here if we wouldn't want it to go with four doors. But the guy said they rather have their space than try to be crowded in. So we can park trucks in here obviously and if we park t It's tight, but we can do it. So that's just tractors obviously. Every shop has to have a parts room and t Pretty much all the basic stuff that we use, we try to keep here in stock and the guys will come in here, grab it and We don't necessarily have an exact inventory of everyt We should try to keep a transmission in stock, axle shafts and then a lot of the small parts. So we have a full line of belts in here. We have all the different wiring, filters, there's lights, all kinds of sensors. There's bearings, AC lines. Pretty much you name it, we have it here. Over here we have our shocks, our brake components. Some of the lube is over there, we use shapers. Here's a lot of our fittings, O-rings, things T We got a lot of good stuff up here, but just more of the big bulkier stuff. There's b Wind s We've got some fenders, mud flaps, so more so the bulky stuff. And we have a door over here that garage door will go up and we can let set pallets up here. It's pretty slick for getting parts up and down. Here's where the heat is. Here in Upstate New York, it gets cold, so we have heat. We have heat in the floor, there's heat pipes circulating throughout the floor. There's little red heat pipes. Here's the red PEX tubing that goes in the floor. Down here there's two big boilers, they're natural gas boilers that heat the floor. And basically it's just hot water circulating in those pipes, keeping the floor nice and warm. Be We're not quite done in here yet, we still have to put a little dike around t Working progress is coming. The p It just pushes it right through. Perfect. So also this room, because this is our oil room, this is actually We had to keep our oil, some of our tires and some of those t So there's a firewall in here. This wall is a firewall, just it's drywall that's been double layered, extra insulation, things So our tires we actually keep outside in a trailer. It just wasn't, it didn't make sense to keep them inside just because you would need a sprinkler system and the whole nine yards. We can keep some inside but there's a limit to how many we can keep inside. So we have a dock and t We have some of our tires in. We also have some of our parts and some of the other trailers, just a storage trailer. We're basically cleaning a lot of them out and because we didn't have room in our other shops, we're cleaning some of them out and we're putting a lot of that stuff away inside, kind of sorting through it. And we're going to be getting rid of a lot of kind of the old parts and stuff that we don't need anymore. So the dock we built, it actually works out pretty good because if we do have to bring a trailer in that needs, we have to swap or cross dock a load, w And hence the garage door going inside. We can also unload trucks that can bring stuff right inside the shop. So we can go into t So I talked a little bit about the heat in the floor. We have two different types of heat actually here. So heat in the floor, what I'm standing on, there's heat pipes circling all through here and what is really nice with that is when a truck pulls in, some of these rigs they just pulled in, you can see there's water on the floor. So you get here on a Monday morning, it is dried up. Even in a few hours it will start drying up. So because of the heat in the floor, it dries t When you go to pick up your tools, it's nice and warm, it's not freezing cold. So we really That was definitely a must when we built our new shop. The other type of heat that we have is waste oil. So we burn a lot of our own waste oil and that is up there. That's really nice for when they pull a truck in. Let'say they have a door open or first t And the air gets cold in here. So that waste oil burner warms up the air really quick. And that's the bad t It takes a w So these al That waste oil burner does a great job of just warming up the air, warming up the trailers, and getting the temperature where it's comfortable to work in. And we have lots and lots of waste oil, so it's perfect. W Heat goes up, right? And up above me is a big fan. So in our old shop, we had some mezzanines in there here as well we do, and you go upstairs to get parts or something So that fan has got 9 foot blades, so 18 foot span, excellent at moving air in the shop in the winter time. So it pushes that warm air down, just makes it more even heat. The other thing that is really nice is in the so one of the things when you have a shop I say small. Be I'll show you. But weren't sure where to put those things and the best place for them, the guys kind of, It's not that big of a shop. Some of these tools that we have are pretty cool. And in one of the next videos, I'll show you how some of these tools work. So when we built the shop, one of the t We got quite a few of them. This cart right here is when they got to go change a filter, a fuel filter or something They come over, they got their fuel, they got their coolant, they got fuel treatment, winds They got all their liquids right there. T So they got to change a tire. They just pull t So in our old shop, we had a pit. The cool t And the guys could use these lifts and they could also use the pit. And the guys said they would There's pros and cons of both, but there's definitely a liability that comes with the pit. A pit, what I'm talking about a pit is basically a trench in the floor about three and a half, four foot deep, and a truck will drive over top of it. If you've seen some of my other videos, you'll see the pit and some of the guys don'that. These lifts be They're one of my favorite tools and I'll get into them a little bit more. But what it lets you do is if you're a mechanic here and let'say you got a pull transmission out, you lift the truck up. And if you want, you can get the stands. There'stands right over here, right in here. There'stands that they can set the truck up on and then they can roll their toolbox right under. They can also take the transmission right out. We have a special transmission jack that goes underneath the truck and it's on wheels. They wheel it. They wheel that old transmission right out. They get the forklift, swap out the transmissions, wheel that new transmission right up on there. So gray, these gray lifts were our first gray purchase and ever since all of our lifts, all of our jacks are now gray. These gray lifts have been fantastic and they're 19,000 pounds each. So each post can lift 19,000 pounds. So with those lifts, we can actually lift up a trailer or we can lift up a truck. How we lift up a trailer is with t And then you have the other two posts at the back lifting up on the wheels. Some of our other just are small jacks. T So that one can slide underneath the forklift and lift it up. T Again, on wheels, roll around. It does a perfect job and the guys absolutely love it before they were changing transmissions in the pit and that was a mess. So you may have a question of Justin, is t Now that you're in it, Is it not big enough or there any things you don't And unfortunately here we maxed out our size, but there's really not a lot I would do different. These guys did a great job in setting it up. And the way I kind of built the shop was to be able to more so just service trucks. And so we can service a lot of trucks. We could add quite a few to our fleet and still just maintain, So there's really not a lot of t But if I had one option, I would go bigger. All right, guys, that is pretty much wraps it up with our shop. If Every shop's got to have a luncheon, right? Let's go check t All right, guys, thanks so much for watc We'll see you in the next one. Peace out.