Beating the dog days of summer in a metal fabrication shop

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Being in North Carolina has many perks. We have the Crystal Coast as well as the beautiful Blue Ridge Mountains. I’ve lived on both sides of the state and can say the summers in the mountains have a lot of advantages over eastern North Carolina.

For me, the main reason is the role the humidity plays in everyday activities. If you want to see how much of a difference a five-hour drive from the mountains to the coast can make, head on over to Barnes MetalCrafters. Especially the old shop.

There is a lot to say about a “cold shop” and what it can do to the work flow and a worker’s mood. But what about a hot shop? It doesn’t take long for your clothes to melt to your skin on a hot summer day in Wilson, N.C. Now multiply that by adding some grinding dust and the heat of the tools and machines. It gets a little intense. We’ve seen temps in the old shop get up to around 120 degrees F. Get on a step ladder or weld an assembly together on top of your welding table and you could be reaching 140 degrees. No pun intended, but that’s really getting up there!

Our new air-conditioned facility is a lot more pleasant to work in. Everyone seems to have a little more excitement and energy. “Appreciation” is a regularly used word here from the shop’s veterans. They’ve been through the hot struggle at the old shop. Now they truly enjoy working in the air conditioning. The temperature in our new shop is roughly 75 to 78 degrees—a big difference from the old place.

How did we beat the heat in the old crazy conditions? To start, we strategically placed large floor fans around the shop. We also drank a ton of water and used a cool towel wrap around our necks. Some of the guys even came to work at 4 a.m. and left at around 2 p.m. to avoid the peak heat of the midafternoon. We were flexible enough at the time to make that a personal choice. Not everyone did that, but it seemed to work for some.

For the most part, my time usually was spent in the air-conditioned office. On some days I was in and out working on different jobs. When I went back to the small office, anything that wasn’t held down with steel was sticking to my forearms or my shiny noggin. If the guys had a question about anything, they didn’t want to come inside. Instead they tapped on the window like a lost puppy and offered a few choice words about how hot it was. They didn’t want to come into the office to cool down, because going from hot conditions to cooler conditions made them feel tired. I agreed. It seemed like torture at times.

With that said, my dad insisted that we were going to have air conditioning in the new shop. He had a vision that has since proved to be a good one. There is maybe only a 5- to 10-degree difference between the shop and the office. It is truly a nice feeling going to the floor. Getting work done seems much more effortless.

As far as the fans go in the new shop, my dad did not want to see or hear any of them. They are now stored in the utility room for emergencies. I was recently walking around with my friend Marshall Swink, who’s a salesman from Cincinnati Incorporated, and he was commenting on how nice it was in the shop. He said he was still soaking wet with sweat from the last shop he was in a few hours earlier. We’ll take a compliment when we can get it. But it’s always nice to hear how the building is helping everyone stay cool.

I asked some of the guys in our shop what some of the main differences are between the old shop and the new. I got some good answers. For one, we all sweat a lot less. Jason Barnes told me he can think clearer and read dimensions without wiping his safety glasses or eyeglasses. He also said with less sweaty hands, workers’ handprints don’t leave rusty marks on the metal. This was actually a big issue in the old shop. We had to rub oil on some assemblies before we left for the weekend.

The most interesting thing he thought of was that he doesn’t arc out when welding parts together. His gloves used to get so wet from sweat that he would get a little shock if he wasn’t paying attention to how he was propping himself up for the welds.

Unused shop fans sit unused in the Barnes MetalCrafters' old facility. With better air conditioning in its new facility, the North Carolina metal fabrication company has little use for the fans. Photo by Nick Martin

Our secretary and renaissance woman, Angie Upchurch, gave me a solid answer: The guys seem like they are in a much better mood. And nobody is melting.

We still have some stuff in the old shop that we are slowly bringing to the new facility. Every time I go over there, I get a quick unflattering reminder of how thankful I am to be in the new building. But walking into the old unused shop with sticky clothes, as eerie as it may be, does bring back a ton of memories. The one memory I am not having trouble moving on from is the uncomfortable summer conditions.

Fortunately, we are now blessed with cooler conditions and sweat will no longer be an excuse for a missed dimension.