“Time is money and money is time, and ErectaStep helped us with both.”
– Alan Ward, Saint Paul Mountain Vineyard
Although many of our clients are in the large-scale commercial loading sector, we occasionally provide access solutions for smaller businesses. When St. Paul Mountain Vineyard in the Blue Ridge Mountains of North Carolina was ready to add winemaking to their business model, it toured other wineries to glean all the information it could about building a safe and efficient production facility. With 10,000 square feet of space to work with and more than a dozen fermentation tanks to install, a thoughtful access plan would be crucial to the success of the operation.
Location | Hendersonville, NC |
Project | ErectaStep Stairs and Platforms |
Client | Saint Paul Mountain Vineyards |
Product | Wine |
Testimonial
We are Saint Paul Mountain Vineyard, Appalachian Ridge Artisan Hard Ciders. We’re located in Western North Carolina within the Crest of the Blue Ridge AVA, and we’ve grown into the position where we needed to have our wine-making capabilities here.
So, when we decided to build a winery, we visited many facilities to see what the owners would have done differently. And the catwalks were one of the most important aspects for the winemaker getting access to the tanks and being able to service the tanks which is a crucial portion of making the wine.
https://www.saferack.com/go/vineyard-stair-installation/
Most of them are custom in that once they’re made you can’t move them unless you come in with a welder and a saw and you have a big mess. What we like about ErectaStep is that it is flexible, but it still has the highest quality. The aluminum was very lightweight. The powder coating was just top-notch. They’re all OSHA-approved. It was a very pleasant and economically viable process for us.
The bottom line was that their product was very, very competitive. More so than the folks that we had quoted. It was very affordable for us but in our opinion a higher quality and a more versatile product in that if we change the location of our tanks or add some extra catwalk, it’s very flexible.
They do a lot of commercial work for large companies, and we were very fortunate to work with them. It surprised me how flexible they were working with a small winery like ours. We’re very fortunate to have ErectaStep in our process.
I couldn’t believe how quickly we got it erected today. You know, in a 10 000 square foot winery, we were able to complete it in one day which is just unimaginable. It’s top-of-the-line, in my opinion. It’s just really a high-quality product.
I can’t tell you enough about how you need to talk with these folks, not just because of your time constraints but just because of the quality of the product and the uniqueness of the flexibility of being able to make it fit what your needs are instead of making your needs fit to what it is.
I’m old enough to have seen a lot of things in the wine industry, and this is just one that’s a pleasant surprise. And if you’re a mid-sized winery, a small winery, or a large winery, I would recommend you talk to these folks if you’re adding or changing your catwalks because it’s a unique and high-quality product that you can get going quickly. And time is money and money is time, and ErectaStep helped us with both.
