It made a sound like the house was falling apart. Remarkably, we only lost 5 of the 60 bottles that fell. Yikes.
The part that gave way — and it was the brackets that were screwed into the wall that snapped — was a triangular section. The majority of the bottles (based on the dents in the linoleum below) fell cork-first, which meant they hit at their strongest part.
You can see the pool of wine from what broke seeping toward the back. Which reminds me of the joke about the drunk who staggers out of the liquor store into the street, is hit by a car, picks himself up, feels something wet, looks at it, and mutters, “Thank God, it’s blood.”
We got the fallen bottles wiped down and into boxes, the broken stuff into a trash can, a wet-vac to pick up most of the remaining glass and wine, and that’s it for tonight. Time enough to further assess (and recatalog) tomorrow.
EEEEEP!
Well it is a good thing that you are just weeks away from being able to find 5 more bottles very easily….and Might I suggest that you move the “A’s” and “B’s” to the lowest level of the “Wine Death Trap 3K”. 🙁
A lot of what was up there (esp. toward the top) was smaller dessert wine bottles.
I will — given what is now clear from this event that the plastic brackets simply can’t handle that much stress — not be rebuilding up the racks that high. I’ll shift them onto the stack on the back wall. The biggest pain will be recataloging where all those things are.
Of course, since my folks are coming out, we may get an opportunity to reduce the wine that needs to be reshelved …
On the construction:
Were the brackets screwed into the sheet rock only, or did you screw them into the studs?
One thought on a rebuild of the tower of wine will be the go back and bolt wood strips (1″x1″s) to the wall studs, and then bolt the racks to the strips.
They were screwed into the studs. The brackets themselves snapped.
Oohh, well that *is* annoying.
Indeed. 🙂
Well, I wonder what it will sound like if the house does fall down! I’m ready to help on the search for replacements.
On the plus side – the basement smells great.
We are always glad to help.