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Don Anderson’s
lifelong love of boats and boating fuels the success behind
his business, The Boat House of Madison. Located in Madison,
Wisconsin, Anderson’s boat business serves a wide variety of
boating enthusiasts, from sail boaters to power boaters. A few
years after the business was up and running, Anderson was
looking to make space and appearance improvements to his
operations. With an existing fabric building on his
property used by the previous owner for storage, Anderson
decided that he could grow his business by installing another
fabric building.
"We needed more showroom space and
wanted to improve the look, so we bought a new fabric
building. The deciding factors were the clear span interior,
the interior lighting and we also really liked the existing
fabric very much," says Anderson, who was also pleased with
the installation. "The crews came in, put it up real quick."
"Even with the white
vinyl, the buildings
stay clean."
- Don Anderson
Anderson wanted to
use one of the buildings as a showroom for his boats. "We put
down recycled black top and covered it with carpeting to allow
us to use the building as a showroom and also for storage for
the boats." The height of the fabric covered building was another benefit
for Anderson. "The height of the building is nice. When we put
up sailboats, we can put up the masts and move the boats
around without worrying about hitting the trusses. Installing
large doors also added to the maneuverability of bringing the
boats in and out of the buildings."
Although Anderson
replaced the vinyl on the older fabric building, he says it
wasn’t because it was worn out. "We wanted to match the colors
and to put our advertising on it, but the vinyl was still in
good shape after all those years. Even with the white vinyl,
the buildings stay clean. At night, the buildings do put off a
nice glow."
Reduced
temperature fluctuations, ease of building installation, and
the clear span interior were the main reasons why Anderson
chose the fabric covered building. In addition, Anderson says, "The
biggest thing the customers like is the natural light in the
building. When you walk in, you don’t need to turn the lights
on. Another advantage with having a building with a truss
system is that we have fewer birds. With the round
piping, there are fewer places for the birds to build nests,
so that means less mess on the boats." These benefits,
Anderson feels, made the fabric covered buildings a good choice for
his boats.
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Since 1971, Canadian
Airmotive has provided aviation products and services to the
aviation industry around the world. Its product offering
includes clean air heaters, invented and manufactured by
Canadian Airmotive and sold to militaries in Canada, the
United States, and other militaries abroad.
At its manufacturing
facility located at the Ottawa Airport, Canadian Airmotive is
home to a fabric covered building, originally purchased for cold
air storage. Most recently, the company has decided to have it
insulated, add bi-fold doors, and utilize it year-round as an
aircraft maintenance facility. "We're quite happy with this
facility," says Ron Williams, president, "it's a bright place
to work. We are going to end up with an approximate R-12
insulation factor, and then we'll put some heat in it, some
fans and so forth, so it can be used on a year-round basis."
The 50' by 50'
fabric
building provides Canadian Airmotive with 2500 square feet of
working space. The building includes a small office with all
the necessary operational requirements including fax,
internet, and phone. "We have no objections from the staff
working in this building, they find it bright and cheerful,"
says Williams. "It's cool in the summertime, and it doesn't
get exceedingly hot. Even in January and February, without
insulation, we find that if it's a nice sunny day, the
building is not that cold inside from the radiant heat of the
sun."
Five years ago, when
Canadian Airmotive needed a storage facility, Williams looked
into using a fabric building. "Interestingly enough, I saw
fabric covered buildings start to pop up around the
neighborhood. I pulled in at the Heather Hills Golf Course,
three or four miles from here to ask questions about their
building. Two and a half months later, we had this
facility up and running."
The building size was
carefully selected to maximize storage space for the aircraft.
"We selected this size building because we operate a 3 bladed
rotor system which requires a minimum of a 30 foot door
expansion to get in the building and leave the rotor blades
on," says Williams. "We've had as many as 9 aircraft in here
and still have plenty of room to walk around, maintain and
work on the aircraft, open the accessory doors and so forth."
The building has proved to
be an efficient storage space and its versatility will now
prove to be beneficial as a maintenance facility for Canadian
Airmotive. The features of the fabric building are ideal
for both applications. "Everybody's quite amazed at how bright
and solid it is even in the most windy conditions that we get
here in Ottawa," shares Williams. "And we have not had
condensation in this building accumulate to the amount where
it actually drips. We don't at this time have any extra fans
to evacuate the air in the building. We've had the building
for 5 years now, had absolutely no problems with it, and we're
quite satisfied with its performance."
"Everybody's quite amazed at how bright and solid it is
even in the most windy conditions that we get here in
Ottawa."
- Ron Williams, President, Canadian Airmotive
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