Mark's Off Road Warehouse Fire Thread (4 Viewers)

[65swb45]

Brought three racks home so far. Cut one down to fit inside the container. Not so sure about #2&3. Might have to wait until next week.

 

[65swb45]

BTW, I am out of the office until Monday.

 

[65swb45]

Tried washing the soot off. obviously gonna need more than a rinse

 

[Coolerman]

Just found out about this...
Man, I thought my eye debacle was a difficult thing to deal with! What a sh*t storm you have had to handle! All I can offer is the following encouragement: This too shall pass!

How is the insurance company ever going to determine the value of the destroyed Cruiser parts?

 

[Brandon98]

Mark,

Sorry about your ordeal; I've been through similar situations. I grok it.

Regarding those shelving units. A toilet bowl brush and bucket of strong TSP solution should scrub most of the soot off. Rubber gloves, apron, and splash googles, of course.

Follow it up with gas pressure washer.

The shelving won't be brand spanking new but it won't smell like Smokey the Bear's hat after that.

Check your local paint store or hardware store for some mismatch/bad match discount oil-based enamel colors and hit 'em with the sprayer/brush/roller. Otherwise, Tractor Supply has gallons of ag equipment colors for cheap. That's close enough to Allis-Chalmers orange to be doable.

B

 

[65swb45]

Thanks guys. I might try that. Part of me is tempted to set the largest rack out on the corner of the property and put a water tank on it. The desert rat is slowly taking over the city boy.

 

[cruiseroutfit]

We had to re paint all of our pallet racking and shelving Mark. I ended up with a Sherman Williams paint that is sold in 5 gallon bucket for a reasonable price. The best part is it has a slight texture so it lays down really easy and matches easily. It's tough too, we set up a bunch of saw horses and just cycled all our racking and shelves through. I sold it too myself as a color change.

Been thinking about you and the shop

 

[toyrunner]

Sorry to have seen this happen to you, Mark! Here's to the insurance company making you whole again.

 

[93TucsonCruiser]

Take a look at JONDON.com. There are a number of UNSMOKE products that work well for cleaning soot off surfaces.

 

[65swb45]

Take a look at JONDON.com. There are a number of UNSMOKE products that work well for cleaning soot off surfaces.

Thanks for the tip Steve. It's occurred to me that I have some pallet racking in another storage location I haven't been to for a year, left over from a previous consolidation. I'm gonna try to run over there this weekend and see if I've got usable equipment there.

In the meantime, I finished topping the cedar this morning, so I'm getting closer to being able to set the container on the ground and start filling it. Picking up a gas powered chainsaw from @YOYOKID tomorrow.

 

[65swb45]

We had to re paint all of our pallet racking and shelving Mark. I ended up with a Sherman Williams paint that is sold in 5 gallon bucket for a reasonable price. The best part is it has a slight texture so it lays down really easy and matches easily. It's tough too, we set up a bunch of saw horses and just cycled all our racking and shelves through. I sold it too myself as a color change.

Been thinking about you and the shop

Kurt

I could use a favor. I am basically out of the leaf spring business, but I have these two sets of Ironman springs left over. If you could help me find a home for them, I'd be very grateful.

 

[65swb45]

Just found out about this...
Man, I thought my eye debacle was a difficult thing to deal with! What a sh*t storm you have had to handle! All I can offer is the following encouragement: This too shall pass!

How is the insurance company ever going to determine the value of the destroyed Cruiser parts?

Mark

I had no contents coverage for that location, so I'm just gonna take a write off at cost. It's ok in that respect.

 

[65swb45]

Got over to storage, but no luck finding racks...that I could easily put my hands on! More on that later.

I have six sets of boltless shelving that I plan to repurpose in the container. To get ahold of just one, I had to pull these out. Anyone need a manifold?

 

[65swb45]

Oh, and with the help of @YOYOKID 's chainsaw, I took down the cedar yesterday. After a nap this afternoon, I finished cutting up the logs snd cutting out the stump. Hopefully tomorrow morning I can position the container and set it down before I go in to work.

 

[65swb45]

Container is located! Exterior cosmetic siding and side door to go in this weekend, then some serious loading. I am out of the office until Friday, but have Internet access.

 

[JohnnyC]

So sorry for you to have to deal with all this crap


When I had my house fire my father was in bad health ... It was a low point in my life... Insurance companies are money hungry they nit picked everything even though I lost everything and I should have gotten full value of my contents I found myself scrounging for receipts ... Had lots of cruiser literature and books that burned really well... But had 'no value' as the ins rep said

So basically you lost 1/4 or so of your business?

Did they payout anything? Structure damage?

Support from wife is a great thing ... my wife was my girlfriend at the time ... The loss of everything put things into perspective for me


My regrouping was more of a 'I got to get my s*** together' moment

Take it in stride

I have been referring you to many mudders ... But... Do you have the time to do this just yet? Are you also in a time out mode from the used parts?

Again sorry for this misfortune to hit ya

 

[lostmarbles]

Damn...Very sorry to hear about this Mark

July was bad month alright!! Especially towards the end of it...

 

[65swb45]

So sorry for you to have to deal with all this crap


When I had my house fire my father was in bad health ... It was a low point in my life... Insurance companies are money hungry they nit picked everything even though I lost everything and I should have gotten full value of my contents I found myself scrounging for receipts ... Had lots of cruiser literature and books that burned really well... But had 'no value' as the ins rep said

So basically you lost 1/4 or so of your business?

Did they payout anything? Structure damage?

Support from wife is a great thing ... my wife was my girlfriend at the time ... The loss of everything put things into perspective for me


My regrouping was more of a 'I got to get my s*** together' moment

Take it in stride

I have been referring you to many mudders ... But... Do you have the time to do this just yet? Are you also in a time out mode from the used parts?

Again sorry for this misfortune to hit ya

Thank you for your kind words Johnny. I have fielded enough confused phone calls that I guess some clarification is in order. I have my parts spread across four locations: my shop, the warehouse, a remote storage building in LA and my house. It was the warehouse that caught fire. My shop is still the same over-stuffed time capsule it has always been.

The warehouse was my father's factory when he was alive, and became mostly storage for my mother and myself after he passed. We had one rental unit on the property that covered expenses up until the fire. The fire department broke down the security gates and the doors on the rental unit, cut the power, and cut a hole in the roof of that unit, even though there was no fire there "just to be safe." This instantly put our tenants in constructive eviction, and I spent the first two weeks after the fire torn between three simultaneous and monumental tasks: shutting down my shop, starting cleanup on the warehouse, and trying to get the tenants out as peacefully as possible so they wouldn't sue my mother. I have also been running non-stop interference for my 81 year old mother from all the permutations of disaster opportunists, as well as the insurance company.

Thru it all, I've tried to hang on to the mail order side of the business, because I had no permanent plans to stop operations. Unfortunately, more people elected to give me a 'time out' than I would have liked, so parts sales suffered too.

Though I still have two or three months worth of work to do to settle up with the insurance company for my mother's losses (none of my inventory was covered) and hopefully get the property sold, my business has mostly returned to normal. I can't thank enough all those members of the MUD community who have supported me during this time. A few expected disappointments in the form of flaky customers, but only one real disappointment. I just don't have a thick enough skin when it comes to dealing with fair-weather friends. Part of me hopes I never do.

I feel a kindred connection to what @lostmarbles is going thru right now after the loss of his 40. (To be continued)

 

[65swb45]

Now that things are settling into some new version of 'normal' I'm having an opportunity to reflect on where I have been in my life, and why I reacted in the ways I did after the fire.

I brag about my father a lot. He never made it to high school, yet I consider him to be one of the smartest people I ever met. He was my best friend, so much so that he was also my best man at my wedding 33 years ago. But it wasn't always so.

When I was 18 we couldn't have been further apart. I was a very typical teenager, rebelling against money and perceived arrogance. I left home with nothing more than $90 in my pocket and my conviction that anything would be better than staying under that man's roof. What changed? Looking back at it now, if there was one thing that symbolized the catalyst, I would have to say it was that warehouse. (To be continued)

 

[65swb45]

I had had a near-death bicycle crash that hospitalized me with traumatic pancreatitis. Even in this weakened state I left home. But as fate would have it, I relapsed, and my parents came to collect the 128lbs that was left of me from a hospital in San Fransico. I suppose the point had been made.

My father purchased the warehouse two months later with the intention of building a factory to recover precious metals from waste byproducts of jewelery making (polishing rouge, filings, spent centrifugal crucibles, etc) He had a few general ideas of what he wanted to see built, and where, but no idea of how to get there. I on the other hand had self-started a construction business at 17 and already had a scrapbook of completed projects I had built for strangers. So I took on the task of building his factory for him, and in doing so set the stage for the man I have become.

You see, in contrast with the condescension I had previously labored under at home, there were only two ground rules on this project. One: it didn't matter how long anything took, as long as I gave it my best effort. And more importantly: I had to work alone. People get funny when you mention the word gold.

So he turned me loose, gave me my space, and the opportunity to prove myself building something that he would have to find merit in. There was no oversight. He'd come by every two or three weeks to see how things were going. I showed up every day, did my work, and went home again, self disciplined.

I made magic for him. I made mention in a thread in chat a couple of months ago about the esteem feedback loop that is part and parcel of having manual competence. Building that factory was the breakthrough we both needed. Once he respected the fact that I could do for him things he could not do himself, he started to treat me as an equal, and our friendship blossomed. Proving yourself to your parents is something every child strives for. And that's what I achieved there and then in that warehouse.