Hasty Treat - Backyard Offices

the entire thing. By doing that, I didn't have to have any sort of external venting and mounted that somewhere between the house and here. And that gives us actually really good Wi Fi and, one of the, like, the valves where you hook it up was dented.

because it was a 100% sealed. If you use that, like, batting insulation, then you do need to have some sort of venting. Otherwise, you can have issues with moisture and mold and things like that. Yeah.

is to insulate it. So I ended up getting the entire thing spray foamed, which is just someone comes apparently, in in Europe, they don't have this. People have been warp asking me, like, what is that? It's just somebody comes with a gun and So I contacted them, and I said, hey. Can you send me another clip? I'll fix it. And, they're like, okay. Let me check. And they're like, no. There's no parts available for this, What else? Heating. So how to heat it was Wes a big one. So I started I got a, And I was like, sprays this foam on all of the joists those tape deck to auxiliary things were Oh, no. That's is so fascinating. Tape deck to auxiliary. Oh, man. How did you remember when you got your 1st car and you wanted to pluck you wanted to plug your iPhone in or your your Discman? Hear him. You had to get that, like, tape deck with the cord. Yeah. It's like a fake fake tape. I always felt bad for the the tape player when I put that thing in. I'm like, you know this is fake. We all know this is fake, That's, and, and air conditioning. Oh, that mini split also heats. I should tell you. It's a heat pump, which does the opposite of air conditioning, but it just sprays the hot air into the room instead of outside the room.

where I am, it gets very, very cold and how they all work exactly the same because they're all taking

and sort of seals up the entire, it on a Wi Fi plug, but it was a in the entire property, which is which is awesome.

1500 watt little oil heater.

that is it.

do all the flooring, all the paneling, So, even right now, I'm just, like, super hot because I can't turn any of those on. Yeah. That is the problem with recording.

€2.56.

So €25100 in terms of efficiency. There's a really good article on or not really good YouTube video from Technology Connections Mhmm. On space heaters for me to to get it all wired up, which JS much more than I was expecting, but I I don't really know much about how much plugs cost. So if you have something existing, it's usually grandfathered in. But if it's if you don't have something that's existing, usually, the rules are, like, it has to be 5 feet from all fences, which is really hard for most people's backyards, or So definitely and have a meeting where your neighbors can come and things like that. I don't think it's super easy. Yeah. Also popular are just these, like, drop in offices. So almost like a tiny little shipping container.

building this thing and having my own space in my backyard. And now I wish that my place at home, I could build a a backyard office as well. You know what? Also, if you own a business, the business can pay for a portion of that. So and both the construction and, you know, tax, whatever. So and a complex situation. So as somebody who's built their own home office in their backyard,

show.

I know. Little, like, palm tree over the top. In it. That looks unreal. I know. Yeah. Yeah. Yep.

just keep that in mind. Luckily,

to their employees for something like a chair or whatever.

So that is it. If you have your own little backyard office, I'd love to to see what you've built. They're such cool little cozy places, and they're different all around the world.

for a full archive of all of our shows, and don't forget to subscribe in your podcast player or drop a review if you like this

I can get rid of my little space heater now because the the mini split will also heat it in the winter, which is is pretty cool. So about $4 Canadian, which is or unfortunately for me, I can't because it's not our primary residence. Oh, so primary residence. Well, interesting.

something that you personally own with business funds, it gets a little bit murky. But if it was your primary residence, I think that you probably could definitely check with an accountant, though. Yeah. As as with anything, check with the accountant or your lawyer. Yeah.

Head on over to syntax.fm

TJ in on that one. TJ in a hard TJ over here.

have enjoyed So he's got, like, a pool outside,

So when I wanted to get air conditioner, it was the pandemic, and everybody was buying air conditioners. So I got one of the last little office Wes, luckily, it was already watertight,

luckily, one thing happened with the air conditioning is it showed up with a tiny little clip that holds the air intake hose on, and that clip was broken.

high thought of Node. That's a bummer too. I was really I was really upset. I, definitely upset about it. I'm looking for alternatives now just because it's like, do I wanna yeah. Sure. I'll have them fix the one to ship it back. But, like, I don't know. I'll only go with somebody else.

Yeah. It's it's frustrating. So,

My my that's how kind of stuff always happens to me. So my wife is like, of course, that happened while. You buy 1 air conditioner. Wes, my my CalDigit just died, and they're just like, yeah, you'll have to pay us to get a new one. Yeah. Really? Ship it back. Yeah.

And I don't I don't know if if the one that is dented is broken or not. I'm gonna have to test it. You're not allowed to sell it because they make you sign something, but it's it's kinda funny that I follow these air conditionings now. That is that is very lucky in a in a awesome way.

Really? I I tried Scott talking him, and Node I I like I like Wes trying to trying to do a little talking to see if I could at least get them to cover the cost to ship it. And,

Oh. Node, did you? I have such a high the first one showed up broken again.

gives a very rustic, cottage y feel. Yeah. It's nice. And then I put converted a shed in his backyard to, like, the ultimate for running, like, Ethernet or running fiber, I believe And there's all kinds of different heaters out there. But at the end of the day, they're all exactly the same Once you have your structure, I Scott think about electrical. So that's something that I had to do JS likely, there is no electrical being run to your your office, so you have to get, a couple hours to to actually heat up, or some sort of building on your property, there's likely some bylaws

which is just a fancy word for vinyl that Scott spins on when he does his break Peace.

and then there's a Node, and then there's a indoor unit that goes above, like, a door. It's, like like, 1 foot high by, like, 3 feet wide.

And I could I could keep it? They're like, yeah. We don't, like, we don't want you to ship it back. It's broken. I was like, well, okay. Like, I guess so. And I, like, I bet I if I open it up, I'll find the the broken clip, and I could just glue it back on. So they let me keep it, and it was $600.

and and Node he's like,

Oh.

to to do it, Cool. Alright. That's it. Thanks so much for tuning in, and we will catch you on Wednesday.

And I, I I took a picture and sent it to Wayfair and said, hey. This is broken. Can I return it? And they said, sure. We'll send you another one,

And it works great. It cools it down super fast, but the there's a problem with it and that it's super loud and that I can't record and I don't have that. And I couldn't find anybody Inside, I ended up, paneling the whole thing with pine wood, which a two forty unit, which in in North America, we run on, like, 115, 110 or, sorry, 120.

a lot of people told me to do this. Luxury vinyl plank,

Cooling. So then, We went up to our cottage, and I didn't have, like, a good spot to work. And I had always thought about turning one of these sheds into an office, and then it brought in and all the outlets and everything like that. I think it was about $2 that's $3 If you were to, like like, I don't know, pour a little concrete pad and slap Node of those on that, that would actually make for a pretty affordable And a way to sort of combat both of those and then don't return the other one. So now I have 3 air conditionings, and I paid for 1.

if if our if our standards or if our process does not work for you, I'm I'm just going to cancel the RMA. I'm canceling it. And this JS, like, I had to be, like, wait wait wait wait. Like, he he he made me, like, apologize, essentially, for asking for them to pay for the shipping.

and I ended up just saying, you know what? I'll wait till next year. I still got this broken one. And and even further, in your area that will allow not allow you to to do that. Because, our very own Wes Bos. How's it going, Wes? Hey. Good. Good. Yeah. This is it's kinda something cool because I set off at the about 6 months ago at the beginning of this pandemic.

portable that is sometimes approved. So that JS an option in some cases, but then you have to, like I think you gotta post one of those big billboards There's lots of companies out there that will drop these, like, matte black, really sleek little boxes in your backyard that have, like, a big door glass door built into them, and you just pop those in, which is pretty cool. And then the last thing, which I think is probably, like, the most affordable depending on where you live, is that at Costco, they have these, like, huge rubber Node sheds Yarn part about that is if you wanna erect some sort of shed but it did. So what I ended up doing is I put it on a Wi Fi plug and turned it on okay.

And,

we we had plans to turn that what is now the gym into my office, and it just could not work out because of zoning, man. Zoning, zoning kill you. Yeah. I I have a bunch of friends that are in Toronto, and Toronto is super expensive. So a lot of people don't have room for

dang, like, every contractor we reached out to said, like, hey, can we make this bigger? Can we turn this into this? They just say, we can't we can't even we can't even touch it in those ways. You you know, you could drywall or whatever. You can't add on to it. You can't do anything like that. Otherwise, it's against zoning. So we, unfortunately,

to a few people that got I think they're called variances. I don't know a whole lot about this, but you can apply for sort of like, oh, but can I be the exception? and and all of the beams and everything like that, and then it expands Oh, that was good. Yeah. Anyways, that that's an awesome one. So, some sort of space heater. That one so we're just gonna give you your money back.

convert it into an existing structure.

Really cool. If you go to his blog or just Google Brad Frost office,

it's it's really awesome. So let's talk about structure first. So you if you wanna build something in your backyard, you need something to put your office in. And for a lot of people, there is probably some sort of existing

sound? So it's not worth putting a bunch of money into something that was will fall over or is maybe rotten or is is sort of sitting in the dirt. You gotta make sure it's, like, not gonna be sitting in the dirt. Otherwise, that will go rotten.

Things you sort of need to look at is, like, is it The the Brad Wes one, he's in, I think, Arizona.

And we weren't really using it for much, just storing rakes and stuff in here. So I decided to to to go ahead with that and and convert it over.

do that. We quite a bit looked into some additional tool. We have, like, a Node car garage that we're using as a gym in our backyard, and we've looked into what that would take to

And

shed where you're putting the wheelbarrow in it. And that's what I did JS we had this shed in our backyard, which JS 10 by 12.

lot of people gave me hack for putting So I didn't have to worry about any of that. But I did have to worry about insulation because, So all in, people always ask me, like, how much does something like that cost? Given that we had the, like, most expensive Yarn, which was the shed, it was about $4,000 feet for for all y'all. That's not in meters. That would be a very big office if it was in meters.

And, it was so good. It was so fascinating. I mean, I absolutely love this channel anyways, but, like, man yeah. That is some some seriously good content. The 1 on space heaters and on the 1 on portable AC units, both fantastic episodes, especially in the context of this.

1500 watt heater, and they're rated at What else? We could run it, but we had to install pnpm extra circuit breaker. And then we also and then, like, all the walls are already finished and everything like that. So I couldn't I we had to run it outside and then dig again, which which kinda Vercel, but he came in and did that. And then I was about to hook it up myself, but it turns out you need a special vacuum pump to release the gases So I didn't I couldn't power it, and I was a dummy because I just paid an electrician to wire this whole thing up, and I didn't have the foresight to Get the to run 240. The beefy the beefy power.

was more than enough for my space. It did take when it's on. I also had a ceiling fan put in as well, and I can't record with the ceiling fan on either because it the air buffets against the mic and it you can hear it.

last night while we were eating dinner, and Courtney hasn't seen she's seen him before, but hasn't and she was just like, what does this guy do for a living? And I was like, oh, this is this is what he does. He makes these really awesome videos. The color brown. That's the one that we watched. It was like the color brown in LEDs.

really cool. That video was so good. And we watched another Technology Connections video break ins and Bos went to Home Depot, and I said, give me a giant roll of linoleum. And, yeah, that's my my my linoleum looks like a a floor. Yeah.

that heat that was used. A

but getting my music out of here.

1.8 watts, I think, those plugs. So I did my homework. Don't worry.

at, like, 5 AM. And by the time I started working or 6 AM, and by the time I started working at 9 AM, it was, like, super toasty. And I could almost I would turn it off at about So this came in, like, in planks that you install, like, hardwood. Oh. But it's it's awesome. It's, like, really floppy, so it all sits down really Node.

at Costco.

And then Wes also have to pay an electrician to run can't go above They had, like, a dent a big dent in the Node, higher.

electrical, and that can greatly vary depending on how far you need to go. For me, in order to get electrical run, like, Node, people are like, what? You're just weren't you just heating that thing, like, 2 weeks ago, and now you're looking into air conditioners? and very, very Scott, and I've been here for both.

structure to start off of because I think they're only, like, $1,000 for a bigger house, and a lot of people are doing this in the backyard. And I I've talked

it had to be buried, but definitely if that's if you're gonna be, like, working from home full time, especially I know some some companies give, like, a couple $1,000 12:30, and this was, like, when it was snowing. And it would stay warm the entire the entire rest of the day. So the installation was doing its job and and retaining

you think about insulation. So this and it was just reroofed a couple years ago.

or something like that to to get up and running. And they're they were pretty big Wes I saw them And the one on how a certain height, which is is not a whole thing, or or putting bringing electrical to that is is really tough. So before you get too excited about it, definitely look up any building code that is in your area to make sure that you can, into the unit, BTU was

after electrical, Other people said that they're getting quotes to just build something, It's great. And I install or I haven't used the outside y, but I installed it, in the office. And then I had unfortunately, the only one that was available I had to get permits for that.

And then what else? Wi Fi, I ended up people told me to, like, trench Yeah. I I like, even before we bought this place, I was asking my accountant. I said, could I build something on the property and 100% expense it? And he said he's like, not really. You can make the argument that you're gonna be there Peace.

but I didn't feel like doing that because it's it was so much work, especially how rocky it is here. So I just used a Ubiquiti outdoor access point to get it wired up, to do something like this. So, like, not cheap,

And So, I thought, okay. Well, I'm gonna I'm gonna go a step further, and I'm gonna get one of these things called the mini split. And a mini split is where you put the compressor unit outside, like a tiny little air conditioner, 3 months a Yarn. And so you could you could expense 1 third of it or or sorry, not 3 months or 1 fourth of it. But it's it's kind of hard to do something, especially when you are increasing the value of your US. And how many in euros? air like, portable ACs that I could find, and that was, like, a 1300 space, workspace.

And it it's been been super nice.

shed chic.

Alright. Let's get into this, Wes. Let's get into the the the whole shed office,

It's one of those services that you need to see to believe.

and you will get 14 days for free.

And if that's the case and you need some sorta good setup, and if you don't if you aren't as lucky to have a room in your house for that, then this is a a good option if you have something in your backyard or you have some space you can build. Yeah. So just like we want to see your home setups, I want to see all of my errors and exceptions handling in real time with the video Scott bold replay

rocket .comforward/syntax,

Shed chic. Yes. You know what? I just thought of another one is, Brad Frost

text errors and, you know, log messages and whatever just to find out what happened when somebody did something or how the heck did that user do this thing. Well, now you can see exactly how this user did that thing by seeing it in a scrubbable video replay. So head on over to log

I like to use LogRocket. Now LogRocket is a error and exception handling and finding bug finding service, I guess you could call it, that allows you to see the bugs and the errors happen in a real time scrubbable video. As I just mentioned, it is really something cool. And for those of you who have just been pawing your way through,

and, my Redux store. And, yeah, let's see what else my error tab, my network tab, and all that. And that's

jam by themselves. Sort of the

Bos, and Scott, El Toroloco,

soft skill, web development, the hastiest, the craziest, the tastiest web development treats coming in hot. Here is Wes, Barracuda,

Welcome to Syntax in this Monday, Sanity Street. We are kicking off season 1.5 here. We're not quite into season 2 yet. We are gonna be talking all about home offices

Monday. Monday. Monday.

Open wide dev fans. Get ready to stuff your face with JavaScript, CSS, Node modules, barbecue tips, get workflows, breakdancing,

Tolinski.

home offices popping up ever since this whole pandemic started. You've seen all sorts of neat stuff. Now we we have a a Node little shed in our backyard that could be turned into 1, but it is a complicated

we have on the show,

and building an office in your backyard.

So we're just gonna just gonna kinda go through, like, the steps and and what you need to to know about and think about before you go ahead and and build one of these because, like, it looks like a lot of people are going to go be going remote full time.

Now I've seen quite a people do this lately. There's been a lot of cool,

and I did that. And I can talk about that today. And then I also just by posting stuff on Twitter, I've got, I don't know, probably 7 or 8 different people send me photos of of their own setups of what they've been working on. If you have, like, photos of your backyard office, tweet us at syntax f m. So I'd love to share photos of of other people's setups. I have Node link right here to Brad Westfall on Twitter. He just built the most beautiful one in his backyard. There's a palm tree over it.

that you can just put together yourself.