How a carpenter went from bankrupt to financially independent with a novel business of renting dirt

Chris Long, the CEO & Founder of Longyards, and his daughter at the Ottawa yard grand opening in 2019.

Courtesy of Chris Long

• Chris Long turned a problem he faced as a contractor — not enough storage — into a business.
• His company, Longyards, rents storage yards to contractors and other businesses on a month-to-month basis.
• He's expanded to four locations in Canada and the US, with more in the pipeline.

Chris Long ran into a problem while running his construction company in Ottawa, Canada: He had bulky equipment but nowhere to store it.

So he built the kind of place he wished existed.

Long, 38, is the founder and CEO of Longyards, a company that rents secure outdoor storage yards to contractors and other businesses on a month-to-month basis. Customers can park work vehicles, containers, equipment, and materials behind a gate instead of signing a long warehouse lease.

"We brought this self-storage model to dirt," Long told Business Insider.

As of 2026, Long operates four locations: the flagship in Ottawa, two in Florida, and one in Texas.

Longyards

The idea grew out of his own experience in construction. Long had spent years working as a carpenter before starting Conrad Construction, named after his grandfather. As the business grew, he began buying residential properties, but he found managing tenants frustrating — and still didn't have a good solution for storing his own tools and equipment.

Outdoor storage yards seemed to solve both problems. The model offered contractors flexible, secure space, while allowing Long to build a commercial real-estate business with simpler operations than his construction company.

Getting the first site open, however, was anything but simple.

A two-year clock to make the idea work

Long bought a 10-acre property in Ottawa and planned to turn it into his first storage yard. Then, he said, a big-box retailer failed to pay his construction company for a major job, wiping out the cash flow he had expected to use for the project.

He had the land but little money to develop it — and only two years to pay off the seller-financed loan. If he couldn't get the site operating and find new financing before the deadline, he risked losing the property.

Long became a dad at age 19, dropped out of college, and started from scratch. Wanting to get into real estate, he became an apprentice carpenter.

Chris Long

The yard opened on October 1, 2019, without a single tenant. Long said he had roughly six to eight weeks to lease the spaces before winter slowed business activity in Canada.

"I had to validate the market," he said. "Will people rent it? Is this crazy?"

He went looking for the answer himself, cold-calling landscapers and approaching potential customers at gas stations, in Home Depot parking lots, and even while stopped at red lights.

Among his first tenants were a roofer, an electrician, a landscaper, and an RV-and-boat operator. Within six weeks, Long said he had leased the initial spaces. That traction helped him secure an investor who paid off the seller financing shortly before the deadline.

At its most basic, a storage yard requires gravel, fencing, cameras, gates, lights, and software that lets customers sign up and receive digital gate access. But Long said the model is not as passive as it might appear. After finding correctly zoned land and securing permits, operators still have to screen tenants, enforce insurance requirements, manage security, and watch for potential contamination risks.

"There are still headaches. People can abuse the facility, and you need to be on top of that," Long said. Unlike residential real estate and long-term rentals, he said, there is no established playbook for this business. "I'm building the roadmap, and that's painful. It's cost a lot, and it has not been easy."

Demand first, land second

Long has since expanded beyond the original Canadian location to Florida, where he and his family currently live, and Texas, with additional sites in the pipeline.

Business Insider reviewed an appraisal for Long’s first Canadian storage-yard location, Longyards’ US franchise disclosure document, and a recent 90-day snapshot of one of the company’s Canadian bank accounts.

Long wrote a book about building and operating self-storage yards.

Longyards

When it comes to adding more locations, he doesn't begin by hunting for cheap land. His approach is "demand first, land second."

Before entering a market, Longyards tests whether local contractors and businesses are actively seeking secure outdoor storage. Only once the company sees enough interest does it look for a suitable property.

That order matters. A plot of land may look inexpensive but be unusable for outdoor storage because of zoning restrictions, costly site work, or weak local demand. And in fast-growing markets, land suitable for the business can be hard to find as more parcels are developed.

Long believes the opportunity is substantial because the problem is so unglamorous — and so persistent. Contractors will continue to need a place to park a truck, store equipment, or keep materials secure between jobs.

Long and his family moved from Canada to the US, where he says he sees "10 times the opportunity" as a business owner.

Courtesy of Chris Long

Before Longyards, he was managing 17 employees and multiple construction jobs. He now says one storage yard has generated more income than that more complicated operation did.

"Simple cash flow creates freedom," he said. "I went from bankrupt carpenter in Canada to financially free in Florida from a single storage yard."

For Long, the business began with a mundane problem hiding in plain sight: extra dirt.