Just a quick update to mention that the new treadmill desk arrived this morning, ahead of schedule, and is now being assembled at the office.

Once the treadmill is finished, I will take some pictures and post a quick how-to on the progress of the desk building. Hopefully that will go as smoothly and come Monday morning the employee using it will be able to just hop on to their new desk and get straight to work.

For this particular treadmill desk I am only outfitting it with a single 21” LCD monitor as it will only be used with an IBM ThinkPad as the main computer.

I will still put the treadmill on its own surge suppressed power strip, and the computer, monitor and other electronics on a separate APC uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to protect everything from power surges and other electrical problems.

My biggest concern at this time is the two treadmills being on the same electrical circuit at the office. The amount of power being drawn by the treadmill motors may cause issues and I will need to have an electrician work some magic if I find that the treadmills are drawing too much power.

The user of the new treadmill desk will be keeping a log of their time, weight and distance walked on the treadmill and has kindly agreed to let me post those details over the coming months.

At this time, the new treadmill desk will not be the only desk that the end user will have. They will still have a regular sit-down desk to work at should they find that they need to do so. The data that I will be interested in, is whether the user will increase the amount of time that they use the treadmill desk for as they become more used to it. Personally I believe they will but it remains to be seen if this actually happens. I am also predicting that it will be a couple of months before any discernible health benefits become apparent.

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Treadmill desks are all the rage right now it seems, I have been using one for the better part of a decade, using it to work and play through hundreds of miles.

Now it seems that Infinite Monkey Factory, the video game development company I started in 2001, is about to become a two treadmill desk office.

Last Saturday I ran a few investigative errands and priced out a new treadmill, parts for a desk, and sundry other items that will be required. I have settled on another Nordic Track treadmill, but a much less, feature laden machine than my current one. I am confident that the new treadmill will more than adequately supply the needs of the user so long as it has a strong motor and a belt that tracks true. Because of the odd cadence that my own Nordic Track Solaris treadmill possesses at the lower speeds I made sure that this one does not exhibit the same problems by testing all of the relevant speeds for a few minutes each. It felt good, and best of all, the motor was a lot quieter than in my Solaris so I think the purchase will be a good one.

Tomorrow I have to pick up the desk material from the local hardware store and get to work assembling that. Having discussed it with the person whose desk this will be, I am trying something new, using self-assembly chrome wire shelving for the most part as an experiment to see how the desk works out.

There is a lot of the chrome wire shelving around our office and my home so I think a desk constructed of the same materials will blend right in. If the chrome shelving does not work out as planned, I will tear down the new desk, use the shelving as a storage solution elsewhere and return to the “Organized” brand of self-assembly shelving available through Lowes and other hardware stores. My biggest concern with the chrome wire shelving is vibration and noise.

If all goes according to plan (yeah, right!) I should have the new treadmill desk finished by this time next week. I will post pictures as soon as I am able and let you know more details about the very simple desk construction.

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