What do you use for Valentine Extra Storage

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kerrlynne

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Sep 12, 2004
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Blue Springs Missouri
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Mo
We have to large walk in coolers, but we need more space for the VDay flowers, In the past we have been lucky enough to have an empty space in our strip center and we allowed to turn it into a large cooler and sort our deliveries for the holiday.. WOrkes great! But this year we are full!
Got any Ideas?
Kerrie- Blue Springs Bouquet
 
We use an 18 wheel refigerated semi parked at our back door. We hire a company to bring it in and set it up. Has worked great for us for 4 yrs.
 
extra storage

We use refrig trucks...sometimes two 28 footers but mostly 1 with a gate lift....too old to climb those itsy bitsy ladders...........we rent banquet tables and stack them on each other. Use one side for greened and flowered and the other for tagged...leaves room under for buckets of blooms.........keeps the part-time drivers from having to come into the store and add to the chaos. Besides, the designers do not want to be interupted from their foot massages, chilled wine and chocolate covered strawberries!
 
We use basement space for V-Day. Being in the blustery Chicago area, our basement keeps a temp around 38 degrees. It means alot of stairs...but who of us doesn't need the exercise.
In addition to Sher's chocolate covered strawberries and foot massages...we have a massage therapist next door to our store. The day before all major holidays we send each person to the massage table for a 30 minute upper body massage.
They come back in much better shape and we can get extra hours out of them.
 
Since it is February, we have a garage that can keep the flowers in good shape. Temps usually are in the low 50's or 40's, which is fine. We also use some of our greenhouses, the night time temps, the day before Valetines day can go as low as 45 degrees. It works well. The garage is heated but not refrigerated. However, I have enough compressors and condesors to refrigerate the garage which is what I am going to do this summer. Valentines is not my problem, my problem is keeping 3000 easter lilies cool and in good shape before they go out. The garage would be perfect for temporary cool storage.

As a side note... I had a funeral arrangement that I got back from the funeral home after the visitation. Nothing wrong with the arrangement or the order. I just got this particular arrangement back. I set the arrangement out in my garage on Dec 12. The arrangement had football mums, alstro, carns, LL, and emerald in it. The garage temp was set at 56 degrees. The mums lasted until Dec 27, the carns lasted until Jan 2, and the alstromeria was still good -- everyone stem! The LL was starting to turn.

The moral of this story....flowers last a pretty long time in modest temperate environment. If you have a cool (and preferably dark) room, use it before you spend money on extra refrigeration.

Joe
 
We have a secondary cooler downstairs that we use on holidays.
Audra
 
What is the cost of the refrigerated truck rental??Sher, I saw your set up and it was really neat. We only have parking for one here and I do worry about security-do you have overnight guards? We will have the store next door but it is to soon for us to have the renovations complete- gonna crank up the air like crazy.
 
I ended up buying myself a fridge for this exact problem. Little bit of re-organizing in the back room and there is my extra space. If it is not in use for major holiday it gets shut down and used as storage space.
THe other thing is at Mother's Day, No matter how much organization I have, I still need room. THe grocery store downstair in the mall from me, lets me store overstock for that week. When I need it I send someone down to get it. I usually store the extra carns, lilies, alstro, etc. See if they can help you out. But make sure you tag your buckets. You don't want to see your supplies out in their store at $19.95....
Luc
 
We have over the last 5 or 6 years purchased 4 non road worthy refrigrated trailers from various trucking companies. Every holiday we customize them a little more with various shelving and lights. We also have built a wooden dock with steps so we have a nice set up for either major holiday. It can still be tricky if the weather is bad but we have plenty of space.
 
Extra Storage

We rent a 45 foot refrigerated trailer from Thermo King. It's parked beside our shop with wooden steps to enter rear. We build temp shelving and store orders as designed by delivery zones
We live next door so security isn't that much of a problem.
Deliveries are loaded in the vehicles from the trailer.
Cost about $475.00
 
Mikey the Flower Guy said:
hauls it in and out for you?? for that price??
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Yup, and for aboout the same price as Louis...including the deisel to run the refer...

but a couple years ago I had a "Plug in" installed on the outside of my building so it can run off electric to cut down on the droan of the deisel motor running the refer...
 
refrigerated trucks

be careful with the trucks i worked for a florist and froze 400 pre greened vases in about 4 hours. make sure to turn the trucks off when you leave. the cool air will be fine for the 8 hours that you are not there. make sure you keep a thermastat in the front and the back of the truck to make sure the tepm stays accurate. remember the front of the truck will get cooler than the back end. make sure you leave the doors closed when your not in the truck..
I will also be working this year for a flower shop. See wholesalers help there florists out also.. after putting in my regular 12 hour day!!!.. Good luck to you all this valentines.
richie
 
Richie said:
be careful with the trucks i worked for a florist and froze 400 pre greened vases in about 4 hours. make sure to turn the trucks off when you leave. the cool air will be fine for the 8 hours that you are not there. make sure you keep a thermastat in the front and the back of the truck to make sure the tepm stays accurate. remember the front of the truck will get cooler than the back end. make sure you leave the doors closed when your not in the truck..
I will also be working this year for a flower shop. See wholesalers help there florists out also.. after putting in my regular 12 hour day!!!.. Good luck to you all this valentines.
richie
Click to expand...
We hook all trailers to an alarm system. Goes off when they are not doing the job so we can get if fixed quickly. We did have one freeze up one year and lost some stuff, so we put the alarms in after that.
 
We found a company who offers catering tailers. They are perfect for us due to limited parking for our store. It holds 2 8ft banquet tables with plenty of extra room to walk and store buckets. Approx. $300 for the week.
 
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