I'm basically finished with the actual construction of my cellar and I've been looking for racking options.

Because of the limited space in my cellar (about 3ft by 15ft) my primary goal is bottle density. What I found by looking through many many web sites specific to wine is that wine racks don't offer the best density! The line made by drobot, offered at a few places (notated as F01-F09) probably offer the best bottle density if you get the F07 and F08 racks. In this setting F-07a&b stacked would get you 100 bottles in 16". The problem with these is that each bottle has to be exactly standard size or you lose a lot of space.

I found an industrial shelf producer called "Metro". They produce wire shelves in various depths (14"-30")and widths (24"-72"). They are graded to hold 500lbs per shelf. I have calculated that a 14"x36" shelf with 13 inch clearance can probably hold 48 bottles. This has increased the theoretical capacity of my cellar from about 1100 to about 1500. This is a huge difference when it comes down to it.

If anyone is interested, here's a link to the producer's web site. You find my info by searching "metro shelving" and looking at stores that sell it.

Just a piece of info in case anyone cares.....

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Who loves you, baby?

Co-incidentally, I bought a couple of the Metro shelving units for my basement a couple of months ago. I use them for general storage in my furnace room. I think I picked them up at Costco.

The ones I have are quite heavy-duty. Also, although the frame is metal, the it has wooden inserts to form the shelves, so there's nothing there to keep wine bottles from rolling around. Hopefully the one you're looking at is different from mine, because my view is that the ones I have would be too cumbersome as a wine rack.

grossie, are you sure about this? Are you just going to stack bottles on top of each other? What if you want one at the bottom? Are you concerned about labels? Wire racking, any wire racking, is a label killer.

Your wine but if it was me...

Joe

metro shelving is used for commercial restaurant applications so if you want to see/touch/feel stuff before purchasing look at a restaurant supply house. Also as noted by other posters, metro, to my knowledge, does not make shelves that have "cradles" so the wine would be stacked and only the end corners of the shelving unit would hold it in place, so extracting a bottle that's not on the top might be a chore.

As to the question of wire racking tearing up lables, metro makes a plastic coated wire shelving unit also, although it is pricier.

Hope this helps.

ks

As for the labels, that's a good point. I should look into putting down shelf liner or something.

As for holding the bottles in place Metro makes dividers that are either 14" or 18" deep and are 8" high. They are very sturdy and I have no doubt they'll support the wine. The shelves are wire, not wood.

Coincidentally Metro does make a wine shelf with slots, but I'm not using it, it wastes too much space.

I have put together one unit already, only 3 shelves high just to test it out. I will load wine in the next day and let you guys know.

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Who loves you, baby?

quote:

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Originally posted by wineismylife:
Are you concerned about labels? Wire racking, _any wire racking,_ is a label killer.

Your wine but if it was me...

Joe

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Joe - do you want to read or drink the bloody thing?

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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer

I have a dozen cubes, with 12 per cube, easy to get to , easy to see.....

tomj123

To maximize the number of bottles in a given space, I built bins in my cellar. I used commercial steel shelving and cross-braced it. I have no complaints.

Just one more sip.

quote:

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Originally posted by Pauly:

quote:

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Originally posted by wineismylife:
Are you concerned about labels? Wire racking, _any wire racking,_ is a label killer.

Your wine but if it was me...

Joe

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Joe - do you want to read or drink the bloody thing?

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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer

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Pauly, I asked if he was concerned about labels. My implication is that if he is concerned about resale value then pristine condition commands a premium. If he intends only to drink his wine and never sell then the point is mute.

And that has nothing to do with whether I intend to drink my wine or read the labels.

Joe

Joe- I don't speculate in wine. I'm a collector, not a seller. The labels only mean a little to me. Plus, if I don't touch the bottles that often (and I tend not to) then there really shouldn't be that much wear and tear on the labels.

Tomj- cubes look good but are a very inefficient way to store wine in terms of bottles per sq inch. In Gold's book ("how and why to build a wine cellar") there's a pretty good description of this.

Board-O- What did you use as cross braces? After trying out these shelved tonight I've discovered that I will need to buy more pieces to brace the ends if I want to maximize space, and that means mucho bucks. Each brace is about $15 and I would need about 4 per shelf level. That's going to translate into about $1000 just for the braces!

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Who loves you, baby?

WIML,

I understand and appreciate the serious intent of what you were saying. It's just that I am firmly in the "drinker not collector" camp, and I thought I'd have a bit of harmless fun. No slight was intended.

pax

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The ultimate result of shielding men from the effects of folly is to fill the world with fools. -Herbert Spencer

I bought aluminum bars, about 1/4 inch by 1 1/2 inches, cut them to the appropriate length and drilled them. It wasn't expensive at all.

Just one more sip.

quote:

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Originally posted by Pauly:

No slight was intended.

pax

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None taken mate. I'm a drinker as well. As a matter of fact, I have NEVER sold any wine. Not even a single bottle.

Joe

Thanks Board-O. I will do the same.

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Who loves you, baby?

Is this the kind of thing you're referring to?
http://www.biz2bizonline.com/safco/3bsc01.htm

I don't quite understand how you made bins out of it? It looks like these are 36" across per shelf.

That's pretty much what I used. A standard 750 fits perfectly and the corner connectors plus my cross bracing holds all the wine in place.

Is the cross bracing from front to back and back to front at intervals on the shelves? or something else? I just can't envision it.

Cubes have the benefit of allowing a good amount of bottles for the space, as well as increasing the thermal mass of the wines - if the bottles are touching, they change temperature less rapidly than stand-alone bottles, etc.

Grossie - you might try taking a piece of 3/8 plywood, cutting it to width, and simply screwing it in place at the ends for your brace. That will set you back about $14 plus the price of the screws and nuts.

A word about bins - if you stack your wine, the Rhone or Burgundy shaped bottles don't stack really well and if you want to pull out the bottom bottle, it's a pain. For Bordeaux style bottles, they work much much better. I built bins initially, but quickly came to realize that they were better in theory than practice. Now I use them primarily for wines of which I have many bottles. On the other side I built shelves 3/34 inches high. Took a long time but then I got single rows that are much easier to deal with. I lost spacing for a few bottles because they aren't as densely packed, but it was worth it in ease of use.

Just an observation: Grossie started this thread in 2004.
I've seen his cellar.
He figured it out.

wow, this is an old one!

I used Metro shelving, which is restaurant-grade and meant to hold 500lbs per shelf. It's a litte more expensive than the brand in the link provided by aphilia. I bought metal bars to cross brace in the few places I need them, really just on the ends of 2 rows. All in all it worked out pretty well. I think KSC can attest to the fact that I can hold a lot of wine in a little space (currently holding about 1000 bottles, total capacity about 1200-1300, I hope not to find out). My cellar dimensions are listed at the top of this thread (about 3' x 15').

Grossie - so you ended up not making bins out of it? I have some metro shelving in my basement already I use for storage - I like it. But I was thinking about using the vertical separators to break it up into bins.

You don't have problems pulling bottles when there are lots of bottles above them?

quote:

Originally posted by aphilla:
Is the cross bracing from front to back and back to front at intervals on the shelves? or something else? I just can't envision it.

Diagonal, on the sides

Yes, I use the vertical separators to break up the shelves. You can call that bins if you like. It does makeit easier to remove bottles. My largest 'bin' is probably 6 wide by 4 high, and it's not that difficult to slide one out of the bottom and replace it with one from the top (think jenga)

As Board-O points out the cross bracing is for the sides to keep bottles from rolling off the ends. The backs are all against walls.

Thanks all. I think I've got it now.