My locker was not full, but, it was losing organization. I decided to expand into the locker already on hold for me. I felt like I was losing a lot of storage room with 4 inch PVC and went looking for 3.5 cardboard. No one had 3.5 for sale. I then googled custom cardboard tubes and found:
http://www.phenixtube.com
2701 S. Coliseum Blvd
Ft. Wayne, IN 46803
ph 260-424-3734 fax 260-424-4080
[email protected]
I started working with Dennis. I gave him some base dimensions of wine bottles and my locker. He then sent me some samples. One was 3.25 the other 3.51
The 3.25 worked well for your standard bottle size. If I did not care about keeping varietals grouped together I would have purchased some of these.
Seeing that I like to organize by varietal, I found the 3.51 perfect. I provided a list of the bottles I tested it out at the bottom of this page.
My new locker has the same dimensions as my old locker. 3 sections of 32W x 25H x 25D.
Old Locker with 4 inch PVC: 6 rows per section with 7 tubes= 84 bottles per section
New Locker with 3.51 inch cardboard: 7 rows with 8 and 9 tubes= 120 bottles per section
This new configuration will allow me 108 bottles more (252 vs 360)
The Price? Prepare for some pain. Tubes cheap, shipping not. The tubes were only $1.03 each but shipping was also $1.05 a tube. It cost me $450 to fill my new locker compared to $500 in my old locker. I would have saved money if I did not have my PVC cut by someone else.
However, based on the time it took to clean the other pipes, it was worth it. I was able to set up my new locker in under 30 minutes.
This was such a simpler process than last time. Simply open the box and lay them out. Unlike last time, I was able to go with a hex stacking system that gave me an additional row.
Compare:
Someone pointed out that because my personal locker had more space at the top I could probably add an extra tube to a row or two. Indeed I could! So, if you wanted to maximize space at the wine grotto you could get up to 124 bottles per section.
Some additional pictures
The following larger bottles in my collection fit into the 3.51 tube
Shafer Hillside Select
KB Pinot and Syrah
Insignia
Carter
SQN Rejuvenators and Covert Fingers
Scarecrow
The following larger bottles in my collection do not fit into the 3.51 tube
Pax (I will be sending an empty bottle to Dennis to find out what tube will work)
Sea Smoke Ten (Botella and Southing fit)
Beaux Fr ères Pinot Noir Belles Soeurs