Tricks to increase cellar storage capacity

As my wine buying problem exceeds my drinking problem, I’ve had to come up with some ways to increase the capacity in my cellar. I’ll show you mine if you show me yours.

More tricks

Between racks storage works but if you live in earthquake country like me stacks can be dangerous.

Was about to say the same thing. I wouldn’t test that out in EQ Land

I look at these photos and get scared at the high-stacking and open side-stacked boxes. I hope there is no sprinkler system if the fire-alarm goes off. Cardboard doesn’t hold up too good when wet!

It also doesn’t hold up to fire too good.

I’m surprised those cardboard boxes don’t wilt. Three high is a lot without any styro-support!

Are those a nice selection of Ganevat I spy in the racks?

aw lawd that is scary

Anyone use a compactor?

Not for the faint of heart; desperate times call for desperate measures. There are no storage lockers within an hour of my home.
We do live in an earthquake prone area, but I’ll have bigger worries if a significant quake hits here.

Cheers,
Warren

This is our regular cellar.

Through the little opening on the left in the above picture is our ‘deep’ cellar. This is where we keep most of our daily drinkers.

It is located under the stairs adjacent to the temperature controlled cellar. I decided to utilize it for additional storage and initially installed the actual racking. This past weekend in installed the DIY racking that also holds the beer collection. Unfortunately, or fortunately depending on how you look at it, I will soon have six more cases in this area. What’s worse is that my wife wants to store her sweaters in the cellar the for the summer.

There would need to be a fire directly under the sprinkler head to go off. So first the cardboard would be burnt to ash. Then soaked.

Doomsayers, all of you! Earthquakes, fires, floods! Armageddon in my cellar!

I’ve always known (even when I stored all of my wines in the racks) that in the event of an earthquake, I’m f**'d. That’s what insurance is for. A fire or flood in my cellar would probably destroy everything, with or without my less than ideal temporary storage solutions.

I will concede my racking and short term stacking sucks. I’m going to have to pull it all out and install some stable double-deep racking, secured to the studs. A huge commerce corner post is pending to help fund that project!

Thanks for all of the comments! Nice cellar, Paul.

Cheers,
Warren

I think you can fit some more warren if you shove the boxes right up against the racks. Go double deep on the box storage. In an earthquake this will decrease the likely hood of falling over.

I underestimated Carrie’s ability to purchase wine. 24, nine case lockers now hold six cases each, sideways, plus the floor, plus shelving units, plus the original 230 case storage for the store.

Our 17 case wine refrigerator at home died in the earthquake last August as did the wine inside. At some point I will build a new wine storage room at the house.

you should store your corked beers on their sides.

Warren, you are asking for problems, especially with those oversized cardboard boxes without even flaps to seal them, let alone taping them shut.

There is no way that you need all that wine accessible at a moments notice. Pack up the stuff you aren’t going to touch for years and drive it the hour south. That’s a couple hours out of your life, and you don’t even have to revisit the wines more than once every year or two. Plus, you are spreading the risk of loss due to an earthquake by having some of your wine offsite, far enough apart that a single earthquake, even a major one, isn’t going to destroy both your house and your offsite. Small price to pay for some peace of mind.

Underestimated benefit. I cut my insurance coverage (and bill) significantly when I split up my offsite storage, simply because it’s very unlikely that one event will take out more than one site. (East Coast, so I don’t have to worry much about a massive quake.) If they all go down at once, I’ve got bigger problems. My biggest risk of correlated failures, I guess, is a mid-summer Eastern Seaboard power outage that lasts long enough for underground storage to get seriously hot. In that (unlikely) case I get a new cellar that’s half as big and probably still plenty.

I’m all in. Let’s talk!