IT support people - where do you work from?

[JoyDivision]

I am still trying to find some premises, seen a 156sq foot office come up just walking distance from my home and in the centre of where all my customers are. It has its own car park is just perfect. I am not quite sure an office is the right kind of thing as I would be repairing computers/laptops in it.

So where do you work from?

I am sick of working from home.

[DuaneJackson]

I am sick of working from home.

Why?

Is there another way to address the problem without taking on the expense and long-term commitment of an office?

[JoyDivision]

Because I am working from my bedroom. Tonight is a classic example, start a full write format of a hard drive (e.g write each sector five times) and you can imagine it takes several hours and the noise is doing my head in. I am now allowed to use the dining room any more as it turned into a computer shop. My shed is too small and is now just used to store junk like 486s!

I have found some cheap lockups, location is perfect as is the price but and even though the units are gated off I am still a little worried about security and also not sure if it would be a nice working environment.

I am just sick of not having any structure e.g not meeting the same people everyday too.

[shaunb]

I did work from my bedroom as well, but got a shop premises now, Ive been open around 3-4 months now, Ive got a shop section at the front and a little bit of stock room space out the back as well as a little workshop area for the repairs.

I was the same as you, got sick of working from home, and so far i have no regrets, and have had a big increase in work as well.

Shaun

[Comspec]

I'll be brutally honest and say.... in my opinion it is impossible to grow an IT repair business and work at home, unless you have a converted garage, etc.

I currently have 9 metres of work-bench space, a scary amount of power sockets, and an ethernet network.... just for my basic repairs. I have the ability to lash about 8-10 machines onto the bench at once to work on, with monitors, keyboard, mouse, lan, etc all sitting in place.

I am in the process of moving premises, where I am likely to double my workbench capacity, and I think this will even grow further in the near future. I'm even creating a smal bench separately to handle laptops (the numbers of them needing basic cleanups is increasing dramatically. This additional bench will cater for up to 8 laptops at once.

Figure this... you have 8 laptops in your shop for repair, is it not more cost effective to put all 8 onto the bench at once, and work your way along them, moving to another each time you would normally be waiting on the original completing? The chances are you will only get £30-40 per machine, so it will take all of them to be completed in a shortish period to make this cost effective.
It is impossble to build new Pc's on your bedroom floor, and makes no sense. It is also no good to set a PC running a dosk check, an AV scan, or any other basic longish job and then just sit there twiddling your thumbs.

I sometimes get repairs in where a Pc is on my bench for a day and a half... how do you cover this at home? Do your other jobs have to wait until this one is completed before you start them? At a measerly average of about £40 for one of these daily menial trasks, it takes a shocking number of them at once to get a decent turnover from our trade. Because a PC takes a day to finish all your cleanups, reformats, etc does not mean you can charge accordingly, usually your actual input is minimal for hours on end. To have another machine to move along the bench to, then another etc is the way forward.

If you are serious about your business, get yourself a little workshop somewhere, with somewhere the clients can park outside for collection/dropoff. You can then line all the jobs up along the bench, and perform numerous tasks all at once, therefore making best use of your time, and getting maximum return on your time.

[JoyDivision]

Compsec this is the problem I am having. I have a small workbench in my room which can handle either a laptop or a desktop. That means other systems have to be ran downstairs. It is a real mess and it is causing major problems. Last week I got extremely busy and was working 18 hours a day for three days just to get on top of my back log.

I would have to expand.

Now what property do I look for? I have decided it has to be in the area I work from, as I have so many loyal customers and its a funny area where people support local businesses if I moved out of my town it would not go down well.

Now I currently have two options:-

1) This 156sq office, it is fine for now and they have larger units if I needed to expand.

2) A 250sq lockup in a secure compound, they have electricity in them etc. Rent is cheap and the location is more than perfect. The perfect location is £7k a year which is just too much, I would have to increase my income massively to make that viable.

I also think it is very important that I don't become a shop. Local shops have a very bad reputation as all do they do is format things without fixing the problem. I pride myself in always fixing the problem not hiding it :).

Anything else would cost too much without a loan.

My car has helped my business massively, so the next stage is a workshop :). Do you reckon a secure lockup will do the job for now?

Two concerns:-
Business rates
Business contents insurance.

[stugster]

Have you got the finance in place to actually pay for the units? If so, it's a no brainer - get into a unit.

If you don't, can you put something in place temporarily? I took over a room in my house and set up 4 benches for maintenance. Have you got a garage or something you can do it in?

You could also look at serviced office space as well. Our serviced office space is actually a big room on the outskirts of the open-desk space environment. This makes things much nicer to work away from the noise and distractions of the desks outside.

[Place of design]

We work from home, we are trying to move to a site with a acre of land, where we can drop on some porta cabins (or similar)

[extremedistro]

ive done both... although recommend getting an office / work space away from home

a change of environment does you good

[JoyDivision]

The place I wanted is £100 a month its perfect but it is basicaly a large garage so it will need a gas fire for the winter. Its about 300sq ft. There is a bit of a waiting list though as they are all taken atm.

There is also a 156sq office room in another complex but have no idea how much is that is.