At my brewery our cold room is in the basement. So that requires that as kegs are filled from the brite tanks they must be moved downstairs to be served & stored. Then when we need to deliver kegs they must be moved back up to street level. We're in an older historic building that has a "bilko" entrance outside, but there is no lift/elevator still there.
We've tried a couple of solutions for moving kegs up & down. We have a slide that we can use. It requires 2 men to operate (1 to put the keg on the top and 1 to guide it down) although we could put a bumper at the bottom to "catch" the kegs. But this would mean alot of going up and down the stairs. And although it works ok for moving kegs down to the cellar, it's a really pain for getting kegs back up.
We've also built a lift. It's hard to explain but it basically operates much like the front end of a forklift with a pulley & cable that raise and lower a platform with kegs on it and it's powered by a very heavy duty winch. However we've burned through several motors in a short period of time so obviously something is wrong with our design. Most likely it's because we're using the winch motors for something they weren't designed for.
So my question is...Does anyone have any ingenious means of moving kegs up and down between 2 floors? I'm looking for something that would only take 1 person to operate and could move 2-4 kegs at a time. It could be electric or manual, at this point I really don't care as long as it works and doesn't cost a small fortune. Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
We've tried a couple of solutions for moving kegs up & down. We have a slide that we can use. It requires 2 men to operate (1 to put the keg on the top and 1 to guide it down) although we could put a bumper at the bottom to "catch" the kegs. But this would mean alot of going up and down the stairs. And although it works ok for moving kegs down to the cellar, it's a really pain for getting kegs back up.
We've also built a lift. It's hard to explain but it basically operates much like the front end of a forklift with a pulley & cable that raise and lower a platform with kegs on it and it's powered by a very heavy duty winch. However we've burned through several motors in a short period of time so obviously something is wrong with our design. Most likely it's because we're using the winch motors for something they weren't designed for.
So my question is...Does anyone have any ingenious means of moving kegs up and down between 2 floors? I'm looking for something that would only take 1 person to operate and could move 2-4 kegs at a time. It could be electric or manual, at this point I really don't care as long as it works and doesn't cost a small fortune. Any help or ideas would be appreciated.
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