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For what it's worth, when my parents moved into the house I grew up in, a few years before I was born, they decided to consolidate their very large collection of records and tapes -- at least those not in my father's office at the studio. The basement was non-ideal because it's too wet and too dark/dank for my mother in any case. So they decided to put them all on a long wall, floor to ceiling, in their shared office room. The contractor planned out the shelves and then did weight estimates and promptly changed the plan so that first of all, the shelves were on a structural wall and second that there were new reinforcing columns added below. He did something where the weight is centered on a foundation wall (stone and morter) because the wall is where the original house meets a late 1800's expansion (the office is the ground floor of the expansion). The shelves have been chock full -- I mean full to the brim -- of records and tapes since 1964 and no problems thus far. I'd estimate the weight must be approaching a ton, spread down a 15' or 20' length. The shelves are hardwood, I think.
In my house, I have a similar shelf, but it's free-standing on the carpeted concrete slab downstairs. I just stacked up a wall's worth of those pine cubes you can find at AC Moore and other stores. AC Moore has a coupon in our pennysaver each week, so all were bought at 30 or 50 percent off sticker. There's another similar stack in the furnace room for my extensive collection of audio books and magazines.
By the way, at 128K MP3, the entire wall at my parents' house could fit in an 80-gig iPod, half a deck of cards. The quality would not be anywhere near the original, though.
-- Tom Fine
----- Original Message ----- From: "Roger and Allison Kulp" <thorenstd124@xxxxxxxxx>
To: <ARSCLIST@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx>
Sent: Thursday, December 21, 2006 1:00 PM
Subject: Re: [ARSCLIST] Floor Load Capacity
I never had to worry about that,as mine have always bee in a ground-level area, witha a concrete floor.I would not suggest anybody store a big collection any other way.
Roger Kulp
Nicole Blain <Nicole_Blain@xxxxxx> wrote: Hello all,
Does anyone know what the standards are for floor load capacity for stacks of 12" vinyl and 10" shellac discs.
The standard for library book stacks is ~150 pounds psf. I tried and failed to find anything on the internet that specifies vinyl and/or shellac. I imagine it would be higher for the latter. If there's an official document or study out there too, it would help convince the architects/engineers that this is an important issue.
I found an article in the Fall 1993 ARSC Journal: Storage of Sound Recordings by Richard Warren Jr. He has weight per linear foot, but not floor load capacity.
Our collection houses ~175,000 12" vinyl and ~30,000 10" shellac discs.
Merci, Nicole
Nicole Blain Manager, Music Library/ Chef, Musicothèque CBC/Radio-Canada P.O. Box 500, Station A Toronto, ON Canada M5W 1E6 Tel: 416.205.5901 Fax: 416.205.8574 nicole_blain@xxxxxx
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