I guess there are different uses of the term “double deep,” and I can see both making sense. In building ours and speaking with several cellar designers, we were on the same page with the way I used it - the front bottle in each individual slot needs to be pulled out to access the one in the back. The ones in your picture look like what I would call open rectangular bins.
Yup - just as if they were two single deep attached to each other. The double deep in the sense you were using it only comes into play if you have a shortage of space to put in my sort. Having to pull the front wines to check the rear ones would drive me crazy!
Not sure I agree that space constraints are the driving force. I know a ton of people with huge cellars and double deep (in my terms) racking. Our space is quite large, and we have double deep everywhere that isn’t open bin, including back to back double-deep (like yours, but double on either side) for the center aisles. With our cellar volume, to do back to back single deep would have necessitated a large number of walking aisles, which would have been a waste of space for us. With ours, we fit 4 columns of bottles with only two aisles, one on either side. To do your arrangement, the same 4 columns would take an extra walking aisle down the center to give full access. Okay sure - you’re totally right that if you have truly endless space, seeing each capsule would be great. But even in a large space like ours, you’d need to dedicate more space to walking, which to me is less efficient.
To my mind, what makes sense in each case probably has to do both with best use of space and a lot to do with the kind of cellar you have. If you have a lot of single bottles, I can see wanting to do single deep, back to back, like you describe.
Cellar composition also speaks to the driving one crazy issue. Like I said above, we never have two different wines in the same slot, so it just doesn’t come up. The back bottles are always the same as the front. We never need to touch the back bottles except after removing a front one for consumption. Then we just shift the back up a foot to take its place.
The way Sarah describes double deep is the same way I’ve always thought about it. The other version - that’s the first time I’ve heard it described that way.
I guess it is both a space and a comfort consideration with navigating a cellar. Mine isn’t a huge cellar (as yours sounds like it is) - I only have room for about 5,000 bottles before I’d have to start stacking cases (which I don’t intend to do!).
I hadn’t heard the other way either, to be honest. The only time I’ve seen it done has been in wine shops. To me, it seems like way too much space given over to aisles to make sense for a home cellar. If 3 feet is the minimum space you need between racks, that’s a lot of potential storage feet you lose every time you add another walkway. But again, the composition of my cellar (which, btw, isn’t huge) makes double deep very easy to use. With a lot of singles, it could be a very different story.
There’s certainly nothing wrong with the other way - everyone’s needs and space are different, there’s no wrong way - but I think discussing the distinctions and considerations here might be useful as the OP ponders his design.
Bear in mind that given a necessary spacing between a bin and the next bin - I figure about 30" so you can bend down and find bottles - (assuming several parallel rows of bins) it makes no difference at all whether the bins are double deep with one side blank, or double deep with both sides open. Same amount of wines in the same territory - my way just makes it easier to get at it. If you decide that the first row against the wall should be the other style of double deep, accessible from one side only, that just moves your next row the amount of one single (1/2 double) bin over - usually 12" as in my bins. That would mean in my case that I’d only be able to have a bin (double) against each wall and plus a double down the centre - there wouldn’t be room for two doubles as I have because the added width of he doubles on the walls would account for that distance. (We are talking about 14’ wide room).
I have a collective 72" of width of bins my way and access to every bottle without pulling any out. If I did double deep (your style) in the same space, I’d have exactly the same total width of bin space, I would just have converted them to bins that I would have to pull the bottles out of to see what was behind. I think I prefer my way…
As I said, every space is different, and what works best will vary. I am sure your layout makes the most sense for your space, needs and priorities.
Different example - we have a number of library style racks running in parallel rows. With back-to-back double deep, in a given floor space, we can get 4 columns without the need for an aisle down the center. Converting to single deep back-to-back (what I believe you are describing) and putting in that aisle in our layout would necessitate extra space for the same number of bottles.
I put together this little graphic to help me think about it. The grey area is the same in both examples - 6 Excel columns wide.
This 4 column row is repeated several times, so the edges of this picture aren’t open walls, but more racks or shelves with bins. In other words, you can’t convert the far left and right columns of racks to singles and move them over further left and right. The arrows show which direction the bottles face. Picture is not to scale, obviously.
A different space with different needs, so different best solution. And, again, we almost never need to remove a front bottle to get at the one behind it, so having access to every bottle isn’t necessary.
Finally got my design finished a few weeks ago. Racks shipped today and are set to arrive Monday. May self quarantine myself next week so I can install. Final design:
