My husband and I have been talking and we feel that a 1" deep drain is sufficient for the center channel drain. Yes we are washing the floors every hour but mainly it is for spills and you are not washing the whole floor, just the area that where the mess is. We can make it 2" wide to provide more capacity.
Shipping Container for Olive Mill
- Thread starter rox
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mark, yes we do have to have a smooth cleanable surface inside and I was thinking we could pass with the aluminum backed bubble wrap on the inside. You are really thinking outside the box by putting insualtion on the outside. Huh, never thought of that. The thing is it can be an evolving project. Maybe the first year we don't insualte at all and see how it goes, with vents as Jinman suggests, I think he is right about the vents for the off season. No mill I have visited has forced air fans, they just open a window. What CurlyDave says skip the insulation and just heat the space and suffer the heat loss, it is only used for 6 weeks for 3 years. The project can evolve...
jinman
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Rox, you need to have the word "pond" in your title for Eddie to see it.
He's moved on from shipping containers a long time ago. Maybe a PM might get his attention.I am still thinking about the insulation and humidity issue on the container. I think the external insulation as MarkV suggested would work to a certain degree, but you still will have a huge mass of metal to heat up in the structure of that container. Those cold walls will be like blowing your breath on the windshield of your car on a chilly morning. Just consider how much warm air it takes to clear off your windshield on your car. Now consider your warm/humid environment inside that container and the walls will be dripping. The current mills that exhaust air by opening the windows don't have cold metal walls. Their walls are insulated I am sure, either by conventional methods or by the fact that they are concrete block structures. The humidity is there inside the mill, but it just doesn't condense on the walls/roof like it will inside your container. So, I think you will need a good inside insulation and a waterproof cover for cleaning. The insulation will allow you to quickly warm the space without the thermal lag of all the metal in the container and the wall covering will be a vapor barrier as well. I would suggest that there may be pre-insulated vinyl or plastic panels available to do just what you are talking about. Think about the insides of refrigerated truck trailers. Perhaps that industry has a good product in standard sized panels for you to use.
Also, a dropped ceiling with drop-in panels for the roof might also be a very easy to install and be especially functional for lighting and running electrical power in a protected area. The ceiling would give you probably all the insulation you need for the roof. Also, the support rail matrix for a drop ceiling would probably only need one anchor in the middle of the ceiling, maybe not even that. It might span 8' with no support. Those "T" channels are pretty strong.
Just more ideas for spending your money.
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
Hi Rox.
I just found the thread.
I'm on my third container right now. As you remember, I had two that I put a roof over to create a barn, and then made an apartement off to one side of one of the containers. The one I have now is just for storage, but I'm planning on adding on to it for more storage.
I'm a big fan of containers for the simple reason that you get an instant building that is very secure for a fair price. I don't know the conversion, but it doesn't really matter. You said that you are paying 3,600 euro for your container. The container is 8ft wide and 40ft long, for 320 sq ft. That's 11.25 euro per square foot.
You've mentioned several times how expensive it will be to have a building built, but the difference in price has me wondering if you are comparing apples to apples? You are more then capable of being a General Contractor. Have you broken down each part of building it yourself? To build a shell of a building, which is all that you need, is very simple.
Utilities are a given either way you go. So that figure is set. You need sewer, water and power. Running a sewer line up and into the container is going to be an issue that I'm unsure of how you will accomplish this. There will have to be some tunneling and cutting through the floor. In my containers, the floor was hardwood, but I don't know what's under the wood, or what it takes to get through it. Then building up the floor for the dain can be as simple as pouring a leveling compound, using thinset or something else. The expense to do this isn't going to come close to what a concrete slab will cost, but the slab will be permanent and have the slope with a great big drain built into it. In my experience, that alone is worth whatever it costs.
I don't know what it takes to make olive oil or work the machine, but my fear is that with a very small space to work, you might not be able to do the best possible job. With enough space and a workable layout, you will be more effective and probably produce a better product. The container limits you to such a degree that I question whether it's even practical.
With a concrete slab in place, you can either build a barn or set up a temporary tent. I really like the idea of a tent for now. They are very common here for wedding and events. They can be heated and even cooled. They set up in a day and some will remain for weeks at a time. You could set the mill up on wheels, so it can go from the garage to the slab when you are working, and when you are done, it can be all taken down. If this is feasable, I'd seriously consider it before modifing a container, to only find out it's too small to get anything done.
If the tent idea isn't practical, what about a greenhouse? Here, they build them from pipe and cover them with plastic or a tarp like material. You can buy a kit, or piece it together yourself. I know a guy who build one from PVC pipe that he glued together. A few times a year, I get a catalog from a company that sells the kits to do this. It's a cheap way to get a dry space. Not all of them are greenhouses, but are more barnlike in their purpose. The catalog is all mail order, but I don't know if they ship international.
Looking at your pictures, I'm wondering if you could add on to your garage? What would it take to build three walls and a roof in front of one of the roll up doors? I there a slab or concrete in place? Could you take off the roll up door and re-use it if you added on there? I would make that part of the plan if it was me.
Consider that you are willing to try and make a container that is 8ft wide work for a building for your mill. If you had four more feet, for 12 feet of space, how much better would that be? A shed or building that is 12 feet wide doesn't take any skill to put a roof on. It's easy to just lay 2x6's across the top of the walls and then cut and install two more for the pitch of the roof. This is the most simple type of truss and one that will easily span 12 ft. Every roof is a triangle. For small buildings, that's all you need. If you went 16 ft, you'd have to add a bit more to it for the truss to work, but it's still something that's easily enough. Then it's just a matter of what type of roof you want.
Before committing to the container, break down what it would cost to build a building that's big enough to do the job. You've said that labor is fairly cheap, but materials are expensive. My question is to what detail did you price the materials? There isn't very much in materials to building a small barn.
As you can see, I'm not for the container option. Not even as a last resort. They are excellent for storage, but terrible to work in. The modifications that you want to do to it will cost allot, and even when it's fully modified for your needs, it's still a very small space. Planning for just using it for three years and then building what you want is always a good idea, but in my experience, it never works out that way. There are so many things that change, it's hard to know what you will need, or where you'll need it in three years. If the mill proves to be profitable, will you want to build a new building, or invest in other aspects of milling olives? It's like the guys who want to build a barn and add living quarters to it while they are building their homes. Everybody expects to be there a year or two, but allot end up living there for allot longer. It's too hard to predict the future and trying to plan for it will sometimes just mean throughing money away on something that you will never need. Wheels and moving the container around after you have modified it to your needs sounds like good planning, but it also sounds like a way to spend money that you may never actualy get any return on.
Hope this makes sence, I sort of rambled on.... LOL
Eddie
FallbrookFarmer
Platinum Member
Hi Rox,
My 2 Euro worth. I have to agree with the gist of most of the discussion here is that you would be better off to start with a more permanent structure to begin with.
If you were to start with a metal/pole type building, you could later add a stone facing or some other type of covering to make it more attractive.
BTW, We once spent a week in Salon, after being unable to find a room in Aix, Great little town. I remember they had a parade with farm animals dressed up. Cool.
My 2 Euro worth. I have to agree with the gist of most of the discussion here is that you would be better off to start with a more permanent structure to begin with.
If you were to start with a metal/pole type building, you could later add a stone facing or some other type of covering to make it more attractive.
BTW, We once spent a week in Salon, after being unable to find a room in Aix, Great little town. I remember they had a parade with farm animals dressed up. Cool.
CurlyDave
Elite Member
rox:
1. I think you might need more concrete than 6Sunset6's calculates. We hadn't gotten to how deep the central channel needs to be when he did that. There is an interaction between the number of places you put outflow drains and the depth of the channel. While you can decide on on a depth arbitrarily, you are far better off to go back to the mill you currently use and measure their channel depth.
2. Ventilation. You certainly need ventilation. Right now I see two reasons, and don't know which one will have the higher requirement. One is water vapor as we have already noted. The second is volatile organics released from the olive processing (think smell & possibly other stuff).
You have more than enough electricity to do put in a forced draft vent (fan). We can leave the details until later when we know requirements. One thing you will definitely need is what is called make-up air. Essentially for every cubic meter of air you exhaust out, you need to let a cubic meter in somewhere. Nothing fancy, just screened openings low on the walls, near the floor, but don't forget them.
3. Insulation: the more ventilation you have the less good insulation does you. In addition to the heat losses through the walls, you have to heat the incoming air to whatever temperature you maintain inside.
I agree that insulation outside the container might be better than inside, but there is a cost. Not only do you need to install the insulation, you also need to make it weather proof. You may end up building a wood or metal structure that costs as much as the garage I was talking about. I think you need to get further along and then tell us the cost of electricity for radiant heaters and the installed cost of insulation. I can calculate how long it will take to for the insulation to pay off, and you can decide.
I see Eddie has found the thread.
I had considered tents before I suggested the metal garage. In the US, a tent would cost about the same as the least expensive metal garage and last for a much shorter time.
But, I am still in agreement that a container is not the best for your purpose.
Again, I will still make suggestions on it, but think about what we are saying. I was trained as a chemical engineer, and I have designed more than a few chemical processing plants. Never an olive mill, but I did do a sugar mill once.
1. I think you might need more concrete than 6Sunset6's calculates. We hadn't gotten to how deep the central channel needs to be when he did that. There is an interaction between the number of places you put outflow drains and the depth of the channel. While you can decide on on a depth arbitrarily, you are far better off to go back to the mill you currently use and measure their channel depth.
2. Ventilation. You certainly need ventilation. Right now I see two reasons, and don't know which one will have the higher requirement. One is water vapor as we have already noted. The second is volatile organics released from the olive processing (think smell & possibly other stuff).
You have more than enough electricity to do put in a forced draft vent (fan). We can leave the details until later when we know requirements. One thing you will definitely need is what is called make-up air. Essentially for every cubic meter of air you exhaust out, you need to let a cubic meter in somewhere. Nothing fancy, just screened openings low on the walls, near the floor, but don't forget them.
3. Insulation: the more ventilation you have the less good insulation does you. In addition to the heat losses through the walls, you have to heat the incoming air to whatever temperature you maintain inside.
I agree that insulation outside the container might be better than inside, but there is a cost. Not only do you need to install the insulation, you also need to make it weather proof. You may end up building a wood or metal structure that costs as much as the garage I was talking about. I think you need to get further along and then tell us the cost of electricity for radiant heaters and the installed cost of insulation. I can calculate how long it will take to for the insulation to pay off, and you can decide.
I see Eddie has found the thread.
I had considered tents before I suggested the metal garage. In the US, a tent would cost about the same as the least expensive metal garage and last for a much shorter time.
But, I am still in agreement that a container is not the best for your purpose.
Again, I will still make suggestions on it, but think about what we are saying. I was trained as a chemical engineer, and I have designed more than a few chemical processing plants. Never an olive mill, but I did do a sugar mill once.
EdC
Gold Member
Hi Rox
don't have the technical or practical expertise of Curly Dave or Eddie Walker, not even close. I do have some recent experience with containers that may be a little help so here goes:
1. The strength of the container is mainly in the perimeter frame so there should be no problem cutting large openings if needed.
2. The shiny aluminum bubble insulation, it is called something like Refletix in the states, works pretty well and does have an easily cleaned surface. The "R" value is low but it reflects a lot of the radiant heat back into a building and that helps a lot. The Reflectix and a small 1500 watt radiant heater made my unheated garage in Great Falls MT habitable in the winter when it was -10C and below outside. Admittedly I was active but it does help. It also is very thin so would not take away any of that 8 foot width.
3. I don't recommend concrete for the floor, I don't think the container would handle it without being greatly reinforced. How about marine grade plywood over sloped joists and then painted with a non-skid epoxy?
4. Definitely coat the floor with something like a non-skid paint. The floors are very very slick when wet.
don't have the technical or practical expertise of Curly Dave or Eddie Walker, not even close. I do have some recent experience with containers that may be a little help so here goes:
1. The strength of the container is mainly in the perimeter frame so there should be no problem cutting large openings if needed.
2. The shiny aluminum bubble insulation, it is called something like Refletix in the states, works pretty well and does have an easily cleaned surface. The "R" value is low but it reflects a lot of the radiant heat back into a building and that helps a lot. The Reflectix and a small 1500 watt radiant heater made my unheated garage in Great Falls MT habitable in the winter when it was -10C and below outside. Admittedly I was active but it does help. It also is very thin so would not take away any of that 8 foot width.
3. I don't recommend concrete for the floor, I don't think the container would handle it without being greatly reinforced. How about marine grade plywood over sloped joists and then painted with a non-skid epoxy?
4. Definitely coat the floor with something like a non-skid paint. The floors are very very slick when wet.
EddieWalker
Epic Contributor
What's in the barn or behind those garage doors?
Could you remove whatever is in there and store it somewhere else and use that space for the mill? Could you put what's in there in the container?
On what Dave said about circulating the air, the smaller the space, the harder it is to keep the air clean. Will the mill get hot while operating? In a container, that heat might become opressive. Is it loud? If so, it's going to be allot worse in the container.
Eddie
Could you remove whatever is in there and store it somewhere else and use that space for the mill? Could you put what's in there in the container?
On what Dave said about circulating the air, the smaller the space, the harder it is to keep the air clean. Will the mill get hot while operating? In a container, that heat might become opressive. Is it loud? If so, it's going to be allot worse in the container.
Eddie
I know nothing about olive mills, but I have a few comments. First, I have a container I use for storage, and condensation is a big problem. Water drips off the ceiling every moring when the sun hits it. If the inside was heated, the problem may be reduced. Venting will definataly be needed. Secondly, if you can, I would build a building now,as opossed to doing it in three years. I can see your point in trying to reduce start up costs, but sometimes the cheapest way ends up costing more in the long run. Even if it meant going into debt, I would go with a building, and if you need storage, use the container as your warehouse. As far as a heat source, whether you use a container or a new building, have you considered floor heat? If you are using the container, and pouring a concrete floor, put in some pipes for floor heat. Just my ideas, Greg
