I would like to see someone make a treadmill desk for less than $1000.
If you can buy a poor-quality treadmill with rails for $200, why can't you buy a poor quality one without rails to put under a standing desk which you've made out of PVC, lag bolts, and IKEA parts?
I would love to know where to get a cheap treadmill without rails though...
I got one for $25 at a garage sale (and passed up many others because they didn't have features I wanted like incline, folding, brand name etc) and laid some cut plywood across the arms for the desk portion, my monitors are mounted over it on a shelf. Works perfect (this is my second), just vacuum it every once in a while and use a treadmill maintenance kit (code for grease it). Non-pro treadmills are like pianos in that some people will just give them away.
You don't need anything fancy.
Also, like the author says, faster is better, I also find a slight incline to be helpful. Normally I do a few hours (2-3) at 4.5% incline and between 2.2 and 2.6 mph.
Check out this treadmiller[1] who documented his very affordable setup and results. I've done the same for around £100 using the tripod-stand from previous standing-desk efforts.
It reversed a slowly creeping weight gain for me. Then we had our first child and the data was skewed, i.e. weight plummeted, but it's back on the trendline now and steady with limited use of the treadmill.
Concentration, noise, typing (I type a lot for a living); none adversely affected. You can adjust and it's surprisingly easy to do so. Besides, as a person with a relatively healthy BMI already (whatever it truly means for health, I was just into the overweight section before), I don't use the setup all day on those days when I do have it on.
A mixture of standing, walking and sitting works fine, switching as and when it feels needed. I understand that doing any one of those all day can be detrimental in the long term so I keep moving. The muscular effects of standing/walking can easily be felt after a few sessions. That's enough of a result for me to know it's worthwhile.
You can, but most of those poor quality treadmills are meant for light use (i.e. running at high RPM for 30-60 mins per day, 3-5 days a week). If you try to run the same treadmill at low RPM for several hours per day every day, you'll burn out the motor pretty quickly.
That's not to say that people don't try though, there are plenty of DIY treadmill desks made out of exactly what you describe.
If you can buy a poor-quality treadmill with rails for $200, why can't you buy a poor quality one without rails to put under a standing desk which you've made out of PVC, lag bolts, and IKEA parts?
I would love to know where to get a cheap treadmill without rails though...