*Water Storage Shelving*
After realizing that I needed to store more water and an underground tank isn’t in the near future I decided to build another set of shelves to hold a portable water supply. This will be my 3rd set of shelves so I decided to take some photos along the way. The shelves are 14” deep by 36” wide. I used this side because I get 28-1/8” x 40” sheets of plywood from work that are typically tossed into a dumpster so I’m always grabbing a truckload and bringing them home for a project. I ripped them down the middle and trimmed the length to 36”. Keeping them at 40” didn’t really give me any useable space. All of the 1” support pieces are free scrap also. The only thing I had to purchase was the 8’ 2x4’s and the angle brackets to secure to the wall. I have a bucket full of screws so my cost was only $10.87.
Here is what the area looked like prior to adding the shelves.
The first step was to clear the “junk” out and take down the old shelf and bracket system.
I then attached a 2x4 to the wall and anchored it in place. I then took some 1” material and trimmed it down to 2”x36” and attached to the wall for the rear shelving supports. Holes were predrilled in the supports and fastened thru the wall into the studs. The bottom 2 shelves are spaced at 18” intervals to allow for the 7 gallon Reliance containers. The other shelves are spaced at 15” for storage of 2-liter bottles or gallon jugs.
Make sure you predrill all of your holes in the support pieces to keep them from splitting.
After all of the framing was completed I added the shelving. I initially used a nail gun to attach the shelves but due to the weight that was being placed on the shelves (150 +lbs) I went back and used the coarse thread screws.
The floor and the bottom shelf holds a total of six 7 gal reliance containers. The next 4 shelves will hold 24 2 liter bottles if you place them directly in front of each other. If you stagger the bottles you can get 32. Going the route of 32 bottles places them right at the edge but gives you 16 gallons of water instead of 12. This size shelf also holds twelve 1 gallon jugs.
This shelf set up holds 106 gallons of “portable” water. The only modification I needed to make was to add screw eyes and bungee cords across the front of the 2-liter bottles so I can hold the extra row. An additional $5.97 from Home Depot. Total cost of material $16.84 and a few hours labor.
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