What Every Home Based T-Shirt Printer Should Know

Are you a home based t-shirt printer (or planning to become one) ?

Many screen printers start out by working from the basement of their home or in their garage.

As a matter of fact, many screen printing operations live out their entire existence as a "home-based" operation.

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This is more common than you might think. Having a home based business has huge tax advantages along with the savings you will realize by not having to commute or pay rent. Working from home can have many advantages, but there are drawbacks as well. Customers seem to think that because you're "working out of your house," they can show up any time to do business. If you like to keep regular hours for meals, you will find that this will be disrupted. There is not much you can do about this as many people call from work on their lunch hour (which also happens to be your lunch hour). The telephone call that comes in at mealtime could be for that important order that you have been hoping to close all week!

There are huge tax advantages to running a business out of your home. Make sure you keep copies of your mortgage payments, heating, electrical, water, sewage bills and so on, as a portion of these expenses are usually tax deductible.

Some of the chemicals and inks used in the screen printing process are solvent based—which means they are flammable. The fumes from some of these inks and chemicals can travel throughout your whole house. If you're planning to print primarily t-shirts using plastisol inks, odor problems are typically a non-issue. If you have small children in your house, you will need to consider the safety aspects of where and how the inks and chemicals are stored. You will definitely want to keep these products out of reach from small children.

One important issue for the "home-based" to consider is children and pets. Nothing can kill a sales call faster than a dog barking or a baby crying in the background when you're on the telephone. Cordless phones go a long way toward solving problems in that they allow for a "quick escape" when problems arise.

No matter where you intend to set-up shop check out the electrical service that is in place. You will need to run at least one or more 240 volt line for operating a textile dryer and it is recommended that you operate each flash cure unit, exposure unit, and transfer press on a dedicated electrical circuit of 15 amps or greater. It would be a good idea to have an electrician look things over.

Before you purchase any equipment, be sure to take plenty of measurements to make sure that the equipment will fit through the doorway of your home. Much of the equipment made today factors in home-based operations. Bottom line–check first, then buy.

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