[78-L] Record storage & 2nd floor weight limits

[Steven C. Barr]

----- Original Message ----- 
From: <victrola78s at aol.com>
> Just curious about how & where everybody stores parts of their
> collection. I have some of the collection stored upstairs in the loft
> family room. These are mostly Lps(with many 78 reissues) kept in those
> U-Haul "record & book" boxes, turned on their sides & stacked two high
> so that they function as "record shelves". There are 27 boxes each
> weighing about 40 pounds, equaling some 1,080 pounds total. That's a
> TON of music, literally. They are lined up against a wall under the big
> picture windows, spread from one end of the room to the other. This of
> course doesn't include the weight of a sleeper sofa, wing chair &
> entertainment center with AV stuff in it.
>
> There is a similar amount of 78 albums & Lps stored on actual shelves
> in an adjoining room on the same floor-two tons altogether? I remember
> reading the obit for the late broadcaster Fred Kallend years ago, in
> which it was mentioned that his record collection was so
> massive(50,000+) that his ground level floor had to be reinforced. I
> don't expect to get up to that many records, since I won't have the 900
> years of Methusalah, but we're talking probably 4,500+ at any rate. Oh,
> and there are more stored in the garage-which has a concrete pad
> floor:) Should I be worried about "mannah from heaven"?
>
Note that an old-style "analog ton" is TWO thousand pounds (a metric
"tonne" is 1000 kg, or about 2240 pounds!)...so you only have about
half-a-ton of records! OTOH, I have about 56,000 78's (I haven't set
out to make an exact count...?!)...since 10" shellac records weigh about
.5 lbs. per each, that is around 28,000 pounds of shellac. About 2/3 of
this is stored in the basement (where I have a dehumidifier running 
24/7!)...
but that still leaves me with around five tons of shellac stacked in "milk
boxes" on my first and second floors. Very fortunately for me, they seem
to have built VERY well back in 1869...no signs of shifting or sagging!

However...IF I win the lottery, and can approach my theoretical goal
of "EF78REM" (NOT including classical discs!) I will have around
2 million 78's...or a million pounds of shellac! The other problem is
that a milk box will hold about 125 78's...or eight milk boxes per
thousand 78's...! That works out to 8,000 milk boxes per million
78's; my first problem is finding the 16,000 milk boxes I will need,
and my other problem is spatial. A milk box occupies somewhere
just over one cubic foot; 16,000 will occupy around 18,000 cubic
feet. Stacked five high, there will be 3600 stacks...or six rows of
600 stacks. A row of 600 stacks is around 700 feet long...and my
whole house is only about 35 feet in any direction...?!

One hopes I can purchase the old factory of the Malleable Iron
Works (which was our Knob Hill Farms market before Mr.
Stavros went broke!)...then I'll have to figure out how many 78's
it can contain maximum...?!

Steven C. Barr