My business just got wings

OCJohn said:
That's a good concern. There's a lot to be said for staying below the radar.

24 years ago when our daughter was born, I lost my home office to the crib and changing table. So I rented a 1-room office a couple blocks away... Landlord was a super nice guy. Upon giving me the keys, he told me to watch out for the "city lady."

The "city lady" was a civil servant with seemingly no other job than sniffing out self-employed smucks like me, operating within city limits without a business license. She's was a master at finding every new LLC, DBA, tax ID change of address, etc. He said she would periodically make rounds knocking on doors of all the small office properties in the area looking for new tenants. She'd act like a friendly neighbor asking about where you were from and what you did. Once she learned enough to know you should have a business license, she'd ask to see it.

"Best to just not answer the door," he said.
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My town doesn't care if you operate a business from your home as long as you don't have customers visiting or frequent deliveries in a residential area, they just want to make sure they get their tax revenue! There are some additional restrictions if you have employees working there, but a large number of businesses in my town are operated from someone's home.

Here in CT, local towns get their tax revenue from businesses though "personal property tax", ie. they tax any and all assets of the company down to how much you spend on office supplies each year. The state sends them a list of corporations and LLCs registered in the town every year, and they have the list from the town clerk for those that registered a DBA, so the tax collector only needs to try and find the ones that are operating unregistered. Google is making it easier on them by populating their mapping software with businesses it finds while crawling the web for company listings, and I am sure social media posts are being cross referenced as well. It's getting harder to operate under the radar, but people keep trying to do that.

Your situation of renting an office instead of a home office got me thinking of all the people working remotely, I could see my town considering your employer having a presence in town by working from home and requiring them to register with the town, and pay tax on any assets you use there. If you have a company car that you drive to and from your home each day, that gets the personal property tax assessed in the town you live in even though you do not own it, so the same might be true for someone that works remotely with a home office.
 
^^^ I would bet that if you are an employee and not a contractor, it would be an uphill slog for a town to assess that employee. I don't see that happening.
 
It's evident that retirement has opened a new and exciting chapter for you. It's commendable that you took the initiative, and the support from your wife with the Facebook page and the promotional materials is truly wonderful.
 
Aaron_W said:
I've thought a brake lathe might be worthwhile as a hobby business. Modern cars have gotten away from turning drums / rotors, just replacing them instead so many shops are getting away from having the equipment. I see brake lathes for sale all the time, often fairly cheap.

Old car owners will still need to go somewhere and it seems like someone who got some ins to a vintage car club could do well. Those older cars likely might run into other things that need to be remade due to a lack of factory parts.
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The ”on car” brake lathes have replaced the old school automotive lathes. They do a much better job.
Now with that said, if the customer is complaining of a brake pulsation more often than not turning the rotors will be a temporary repair. Memory.
Quality brake rotors can be had for a fairly inexpensive price considering how long they last.
My 2017 F-150 has 112,000 miles on the original brake pads and rotors with no pulsation. It took the industry about 20 years to come up with brake lining that is a good substitute for asbestos. In my opinion based on automotive repair business experience.
Do yourself a favor and buy quality oem pads and rotors.
 
OCJohn said:
That's a good concern. There's a lot to be said for staying below the radar.

24 years ago when our daughter was born, I lost my home office to the crib and changing table. So I rented a 1-room office a couple blocks away... Landlord was a super nice guy. Upon giving me the keys, he told me to watch out for the "city lady."

The "city lady" was a civil servant with seemingly no other job than sniffing out self-employed smucks like me, operating within city limits without a business license. She's was a master at finding every new LLC, DBA, tax ID change of address, etc. He said she would periodically make rounds knocking on doors of all the small office properties in the area looking for new tenants. She'd act like a friendly neighbor asking about where you were from and what you did. Once she learned enough to know you should have a business license, she'd ask to see it.

"Best to just not answer the door," he said.
Click to expand...
What a bi#$@tch!
 
Janderso said:
The ”on car” brake lathes have replaced the old school automotive lathes. They do a much better job.
Now with that said, if the customer is complaining of a brake pulsation more often than not turning the rotors will be a temporary repair. Memory.
Quality brake rotors can be had for a fairly inexpensive price considering how long they last.
My 2017 F-150 has 112,000 miles on the original brake pads and rotors with no pulsation. It took the industry about 20 years to come up with brake lining that is a good substitute for asbestos. In my opinion based on automotive repair business experience.
Do yourself a favor and buy quality oem pads and rotors.
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I have been buying aftermarket high performance rotors and pads.
I like the drilled rotors, they seem to work much better.
The pads are a carbon fiber/ceramic mix, so they work in cool (which ceramic don't do well in) and very hot.

These brakes don't fade, they have not warped the disc... Loving them. I hate bad brakes, nothing worse than not being able to trust them.
 
woodchucker said:
I have been buying aftermarket high performance rotors and pads.
I like the drilled rotors, they seem to work much better.
The pads are a carbon fiber/ceramic mix, so they work in cool (which ceramic don't do well in) and very hot.

These brakes don't fade, they have not warped the disc... Loving them. I hate bad brakes, nothing worse than not being able to trust them.
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I know there are aftermarket products that perform well. It’s great to hear you found a good product.
Buyer beware on name brand lower priced pads and rotors, they caused a lot of grief for us and to customers who chose a lower priced alternative.
The Motorcraft line brake pads would squeak After a while. The rotors seemed ok. At least we didn’t have to machine them right out of the box like some off shore rotors.
 
just for reference, they were PowerStop Evolution .. drilled and slotted ... I've been using them for years. 2 vehicles. Way better than OEM..
 
I put them on my diesel with all new calipers . Have had no issues , and they really weren't expensive .
 
woodchucker said:
The pads are a carbon fiber/ceramic mix, so they work in cool (which ceramic don't do well in) and very hot.
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Isn't carbon fiber dust dangerous to the lungs? Not saying ceramic, or any other material is good.
Just seem to remember that carbon fiber itself is particularly small, or something, that makes it really not good. Anyone else know about this?
 
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