Storing Implements

[Gary_in_Indiana]

With storage space such a concern for most of us and the number of implements always increasing I had a thought I'll throw out for discussion. Has anyone considered going up instead of out for additional implement storage space?

Currently, when we aren't using an implement we set it on the floor of the barn and tie up whatever square footage it covers. For the sake of discussion lets look at a finish mower as the largest piece and say it's taking up an area of about 50 sqft. (approximately 7'x7'). Worse than that it's taking up 700 cuft. if you have 14' truss height inside.

My idea is to use something like industrial pallet racks so you can store implements ABOVE that. /w3tcompact/icons/clever.gif The mower is only going to take up 4' of height at the most. If you put the first shelf at 4' then you have a place to put your brush hog secured to a pallet. Another 4' up is another shelf on which you store your box blade secured to another pallet and your tiller on yet another pallet. Viola' You have stored four implements in a 7' x 7' corner of your barn! Pretty cool, huh? /w3tcompact/icons/cool.gif

Of course, there are more than a couple assumptions or prerequistes here. One is that you have a FEL capable of handling the weight of the palletized implements. Another is that your FEL will reach high enough to get to your top shelf and lift that pallet off. Yet another is that you have a set of forks for your FEL.

Assuming your FEL is up to the task I'd think the cost of the racking and the cost of a good set of forks (which, of course, could and likely would be used for any number of other tasks) would more than outweigh the cost of adding an additional 100 square feet to your building.

The "economy" version of this would eliminate the forks, the pallets and the need for much working height on the bucket. You could just use a single shelf and store two levels. The implements on the floor you could back to and hook up to pull them out before completing attachment. The ones on the shelf you could lift off with your bucket and some chains or straps. It would still save half the floor space you're now using.

Any other thoughts on this? I just thought it would be something I'd like to do when I have the slab poured. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Will]

The one implement that I need to figure out how to store is my fertilizer spreader. It doesn't weigh much, maybe 85lbs, so I can lift it, but it takes up a lot of space. I feel like if I were clever I could hang it from something, and maybe hoist it into position too. If anyone has an idea on this, let me know.

 

[memenzel]

Gary
that is exactly how I store my implements and anything else I can put on the pallets. I have pallet racks set up against the side walls of my building, with 2 levels of shelves, which gives me 3 storage spaces. Right now I use pallet forks to set everything on the racks but have thought of attaching the JD Imatch quick coupler to the FEL, and use it to set the implements that way. Now doesn't that give you thoughts of using 3 point implements on the FEL? Storing implements this way, opens up a lot of floor space and does not take that long to put up or take down anything stored on the racks.

Mike.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Mike,

First let me welcome you to TBN. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

Now let me ask you if you can post some pics of your set up. I'd really be interested in details of what you used and how you set it up. Thanks.

 

[Turfman]

I am planning a shop, also. I'd like to be able to stack implements some how. Having them all on the floor takes up a lot of floor space. I'd like to figure a way to lift them to a rack with a fel and chain.

 

[Gary_in_Indiana]

Will,

An older gentleman I knew for years did something like that with some items in his garage. Rather than take up floor space with everything he had all of his stuff on casters so he could move them around.

The first time I saw him use this I was impressed. He'd been using his little air compressor and was done with it. He simply moved his toolbox out from the wall and wheeled his compressor over there. He then hooked onto it with a pulley and lifted it up to the ceiling and secured it there. He then wheeled his tool box back in place.

His theory was that he didn't need the compressor that often so it made sense to have it up out of the way most of the time. I would imagine you could do something very similar. /w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif

 

[Phred]

Mike,

I was thinking about the same thing and had found several sources for the racks. One can get racks that are pretty heavy duty. While I don't recall the cost I remeber thinking that it was workable.
However, I was about to conclude that it was not practicle for most of my implements due to the weight. The bush hog is around 1K Lbs and the rear blade is similar weight and 9' long. My loader could handle it but were do you buy pallets that could handle the load in that size? Also these items are not like a pallet full of boxes that spreads the load over a wide area. The rear blade puts all that weight along that ~1" edge.

I suppose one could make / modify a custom pallet for each implemnet out of 4x4 posts.

I would love to see what you have setup and hear about the size and weight of the implements you are storing.

Fred

 

[memenzel]

Gary and Phred,

Here is a picture of my pallet rack. I have 9 implements stored in a area of 18' x 4'. The posts are rated at 18,000 lbs and the beams are rated at 6,000 lbs. The beams in one section are 8' long and in the other section they are 9' long. You can get beams 8' 9' 10' and 12', long so you can set up these racks as you need. The tiller and spreaders are on wood pallets that i pick up at a local manufactoring plant that was giving them away. Pallet forks are stored in the pallet that the tiller is on. The bucket is sitting on four 2 x 4, the front blade is also sitting on four 2x4, the blade edge is sitting on the wood right on top of the beam, so the wood does not carry that much weight. The drop spreader is sitting on 2x4 with a sheet of plywood on them. As you can see I set up each shelf for what is stored on it. On another rack I have the wooden pallets with loads of two to three thousand pounds on them. So far no problem with the skids handling that weight. Depending how you picked up your brush hog, it could set on the beams without any pallets, using the side rails of the brush hog.

 

[Kodiak]

Hey guys look you can actually see open floor space in Mikes shop. Mike your making me look bad. Guess this will have to create some incentive in me to clean up my own shop.

 

[tdenny]

MarkV,

Good points as far as the water and electrical. Perhaps I should have been more specific. I already have a concrete floor partially ready. Just need to make another pour. Out here anything 10 x 12 or less requires no permit whether it has a concrete floor or not. The electrical and water I was referring to were more to the fact that my well house is right next door so I'll put a water line in from there and just add some lights from the well house as well. This might require some permitting but I'll most likely be avoiding that process. I'm currently working on some clever way to work around the 10 x 12 foot restriction but haven't completely figured it out yet.