Florida Investment Network


Recent Blogs


Pitching Help Desk


Testimonials

"Our small, early-stage company recently signed up for your service. We got numerous inquiries, several of which we are pursuing, and hopefully will find an investor partner as a result. It is almost impossible for young companies to attract investment capital in the current financial climate, but you managed to bring a number of qualified and interested parties to the table. I would recommend your service to any early-stage company seeking capital. Bruce Jones, CFO "
Bruce Jones


 BLOG >> Recent

Garage Mini-Winery: Part 2 [Design
Posted on October 6, 2016 @ 06:19:00 AM by Paul Meagher

I reached another milestone in my garage mini-winery project (see part 1). It is now framed in and ready to be covered in. My son and I got a couple of hours in last night framing the long wall and installing a used door I got for the project. Still tweaking the door.

One unique problem you may encounter in taking over the space in your garage for some serious hobby is that you may already have alot of stuff in your garage that you have to deal with while you are building your space. The stuff in my garage has created alot of clutter in our workspace and involves extra work taking stuff out to work on the project, then putting it back in the garage at night when you are done. Project can turn into decluttering and relocation subprojects.

This project has reminded me of the Permaculture principle of highest use wherein we are supposed to ask what the highest use is of some design element so that our design is especially geared to that use. Another Permaculture principle is the principle of multiple uses wherein we are supposed to ask what are all the uses that some design element can have so that our design also takes into account as many of the most important uses as possible.

In the case of a garage we can ask what is the highest use that a garage can have? To store cars? To store accumulated family belongings? To fix and repair automotive and house hold items? To build stuff? A place to hang out and some beer or wine? A mini-winery?

I would say the highest use for my garage right now is to perform the role of being a mini-winery for my grapes this fall. Almost as high a use is to store stuff. Fixing, repairing, and building is another use. The use profile of the garage has changed because I introduced a new highest use to the structure and demoted other uses. The space has a new plan.

The next blog on this project should be when it is all enclosed at which point I can start testing its thermal efficiency at colder temps. I picked up an Inkbird thermostat as a device to potentially regulate the ambient temperature of the winery. The device cost approx. $50 and is used by alot of home beer and wine makers. This video provides an excellent educational review of the device and how to practically set it for controlling temperature.

I have a similar Inkbird controller for relative humidity (expressed as a percentage) but I'll be addressing temperature control first while monitoring the relative humidity of the mini-winery space.

An important design constraint for the wall sheathing is that I be able to remove each piece of plywood easily if I have to get back into the wall. I had to set the depth gauge on my circular saw to remove parts of the installed plywood ceiling because the partition walls would have overlapped it. Wore ski googles to keep the dust out of my eyes and drilled holes at the end of the cut to finish it. Not the best way to get your ceiling panels cut to size but it worked.

I will be putting in two maintenance hatches in case I need to bring power from adjacent plugins or run water lines. Here is one of the hatches located at the bottom to the right. It is close to another electrical outlet on the other side of the wall in case I want more plugins.

Permalink 

 Archive 
 

Archive


 November 2023 [1]
 June 2023 [1]
 May 2023 [1]
 April 2023 [1]
 March 2023 [6]
 February 2023 [1]
 November 2022 [2]
 October 2022 [2]
 August 2022 [2]
 May 2022 [2]
 April 2022 [4]
 March 2022 [1]
 February 2022 [1]
 January 2022 [2]
 December 2021 [1]
 November 2021 [2]
 October 2021 [1]
 July 2021 [1]
 June 2021 [1]
 May 2021 [3]
 April 2021 [3]
 March 2021 [4]
 February 2021 [1]
 January 2021 [1]
 December 2020 [2]
 November 2020 [1]
 August 2020 [1]
 June 2020 [4]
 May 2020 [1]
 April 2020 [2]
 March 2020 [2]
 February 2020 [1]
 January 2020 [2]
 December 2019 [1]
 November 2019 [2]
 October 2019 [2]
 September 2019 [1]
 July 2019 [1]
 June 2019 [2]
 May 2019 [3]
 April 2019 [5]
 March 2019 [4]
 February 2019 [3]
 January 2019 [3]
 December 2018 [4]
 November 2018 [2]
 September 2018 [2]
 August 2018 [1]
 July 2018 [1]
 June 2018 [1]
 May 2018 [5]
 April 2018 [4]
 March 2018 [2]
 February 2018 [4]
 January 2018 [4]
 December 2017 [2]
 November 2017 [6]
 October 2017 [6]
 September 2017 [6]
 August 2017 [2]
 July 2017 [2]
 June 2017 [5]
 May 2017 [7]
 April 2017 [6]
 March 2017 [8]
 February 2017 [7]
 January 2017 [9]
 December 2016 [7]
 November 2016 [7]
 October 2016 [5]
 September 2016 [5]
 August 2016 [4]
 July 2016 [6]
 June 2016 [5]
 May 2016 [10]
 April 2016 [12]
 March 2016 [10]
 February 2016 [11]
 January 2016 [12]
 December 2015 [6]
 November 2015 [8]
 October 2015 [12]
 September 2015 [10]
 August 2015 [14]
 July 2015 [9]
 June 2015 [9]
 May 2015 [10]
 April 2015 [9]
 March 2015 [8]
 February 2015 [8]
 January 2015 [5]
 December 2014 [11]
 November 2014 [10]
 October 2014 [10]
 September 2014 [8]
 August 2014 [7]
 July 2014 [5]
 June 2014 [7]
 May 2014 [6]
 April 2014 [3]
 March 2014 [8]
 February 2014 [6]
 January 2014 [5]
 December 2013 [5]
 November 2013 [3]
 October 2013 [4]
 September 2013 [11]
 August 2013 [4]
 July 2013 [8]
 June 2013 [10]
 May 2013 [14]
 April 2013 [12]
 March 2013 [11]
 February 2013 [19]
 January 2013 [20]
 December 2012 [5]
 November 2012 [1]
 October 2012 [3]
 September 2012 [1]
 August 2012 [1]
 July 2012 [1]
 June 2012 [2]


Categories


 Agriculture [77]
 Bayesian Inference [14]
 Books [18]
 Business Models [24]
 Causal Inference [2]
 Creativity [7]
 Decision Making [17]
 Decision Trees [8]
 Definitions [1]
 Design [38]
 Eco-Green [4]
 Economics [14]
 Education [10]
 Energy [0]
 Entrepreneurship [74]
 Events [7]
 Farming [21]
 Finance [30]
 Future [15]
 Growth [19]
 Investing [25]
 Lean Startup [10]
 Leisure [5]
 Lens Model [9]
 Making [1]
 Management [12]
 Motivation [3]
 Nature [22]
 Patents & Trademarks [1]
 Permaculture [36]
 Psychology [2]
 Real Estate [5]
 Robots [1]
 Selling [12]
 Site News [17]
 Startups [12]
 Statistics [3]
 Systems Thinking [3]
 Trends [11]
 Useful Links [3]
 Valuation [1]
 Venture Capital [5]
 Video [2]
 Writing [2]