I’m not sure a “fraction” of the cost is correct - the prices listed if you dig through show cedar is only a few $ less than redwood.
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I know nothing from real wood
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Jews and power tools generally make a poor mix
Given the above I’d love a real suggestion for a 3ft high floor space that can handle 7-8ft in length wood racking. Single depth would be best but double not a deal killer. This is going in my new OR garage so we’re 200 yards off The Pacific and temps really very steady from mid 50s to low 60s. Will fill with daily drinkers and other bottles that can be lost in a tsunami without me committing seppuku. Not looking for luxe racking, durability and ease of use/installation the premium here.
TIA for any useful suggestions.
Glenn, I’ve had great luck with J.K. Adams co. (jkadams.com) racks - American made from Mahogany or other hardwoods. No tools required other than a mallet or deadblow hammer. Can be built to any configuration, but you have to put them together yourself. Easy as pie, just takes a little time.
The link above is to the company itself and their prices seem high, I got the racks through Wine Enthusiast or Amazon and the prices were lower than on the JK Adams site.
Let us know what you decide to use!
is that why we built the pyramids by hand?
The other alternative is to hire Chris Kravitz, who I assume is of the other persuasion, with that name and all. He just finished mine and it’s excellent. But you will have to pay air fare, since he lives in New York.
Well Jay, with hyper-motivated guidance maybe I could build something too?
Mark - thx for Adams link. The racks look decent once done?
Yes, they do, nothing fancy but certainly not butt-ugly. See below for a pic of mine, such as they are! And, the wood can be finished/stained, which I did not do, or you can buy them that way…
(Sorry for the crappy iFone pic…)
Mark - do you think their “penguin” styling is worth the extra coin? I can’t ascertain what metal is the pin in Penguin.
Glenn, I don’t know. I went with the unfinished wooden pins; the black pins look nice in the pics on their site but they might be just black painted wood rather than metal.
I think you’re right, it seems painted wood when viewed in detail.
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Absolutely can be metal.
IMHO, ALL wood is beautiful. I put the cheapest oak flooring in my bedroom because I liked the knots and character marks - the clear flooring is more expensive with oak, but then with rosewood, people pay extra for the character. Stupid IMO. I have rosewood in the living room and it’s wonderful, but exponentially more money than cheap oak from Arkansas.
And same with pine. We used to build houses out of pine - that was the exterior wood used for soffits, etc. Soft, light, but seemed to work out pretty well for a lot of the houses my uncle and father built many years ago.
Based on that, I’d build the cheapest shelving you can. You can put a coat of clear poly on it and it’s good for many years. My own cellar has never had any mold and it’s all pine with a poly coat.
If you want to pay extra for “better” wood, remember that you’ll only see the facing, you won’t really see what’s in back, and “better” has to be qualified. You can use stuff like Ipe or Brazillian Cherry - that’s nice wood and pretty resistant, but why would you use it in a cellar? I made a floor of old railroad ties from Burma. The British just cut down whatever trees were around and laid the railroads, which are no longer used. Nobody even knows what the wood is but surviving the jungle for over a hundred years is proof of its rot-resistance, but again, why put that beautiful wood into a cellar that you don’t spend time in?
Who hangs out in a cellar? I’d use the least expensive, most sustainable material there is.
I was happy with racks from http://www.wineracksamerica.com/ Looks like they have a number of units just shy of 3 feet. Easy enough to put together.
Depends on the pine.
Yellow pine has excellent strength charateristics.
The three common measures of wood strength are;
- Compressive strength - how much load applied parallel to the grain can it carry?
- Bending strength - how much load applied perpendicular to the grain can it carry?
- Stiffness (or modulus of elasticity) - How much will it deflect under a load applied perpendicular to the grain?
In all three measures, yellow pine is roughly equivalent to ash, oak, and maple - and stronger than redwood.
Comparison:
- Compressive strength: Yellow pine 8,470 psi; redwood 5,220 psi
- Bending strength: Yellow pine 14,500 psi; redwood 7,900 psi
- Stiffness: Yellow pine 1.98; redwood 1.10
Other pines (white, ponderosa, sugar) are not as strong as yellow pine, but are roughly equivalent in all three strength measures to redwood.
Source: Wood Strength
My conclusion: Use pine, save money.
Greetings, Doc: Ditto Andrew. Just finished my cellar yesterday. WRA has pine or redwood. I opted for redwood as I didn’t want to brush a surface on the racks. Could not have been more pleased with WRA. Helped me plan an efficient cellar in an area of my basement with challenges. Christian was a pleasure to work with.
Now I need to find a few bottles of Saxum !
Should have mentioned I reviewed my WRA experience:
Glenn,
Just finished filling my new cellar yesterday! I went with the WRA pine racks. They look good and are practical.
3 2010 033 (Medium) by wequedad, on Flickr
Also made these for my cellar in Park City. Some bottles are hard to stack and if you want the bottom bottle you must take out a bunch of bottles to get to it … but functional. Also pine.
I called WRA, sat on hold for quite some time only to a leave a VM on a female salesperson’s phone. They never called me back. Last try commencing…