We all know, the only way to help our addiction is... get in deeper. Ripped out the old rickity stairs in the Bilco area. All ready to start on the Bilco firewood bin. Fitting and nice way to deal with this 7 step "issue"... ... Poooooof
Uhhh... I was hopin' you'd come up with sumthin'... cause now I don't have any stairs into the basement... Gonna start out with a couple big wood bins on 4" casters. Maybe more if needed. The plan is to use the JD and dump bucket loads of wood down into the bins, roll them into the basement and over to the stove when needed. Stairs had to go first.
Now, if I had a transporter... that would be handy getting the wood from the shed wouldn't it? Do those transporter thingys run on batteries... ?
You could rebuild a set of stairs on casters. Then you could pull the stairs out of the way for wood bin dump loading and roll them back into place for stairs in the meantime. Of course this is contingent on having enough space in the basement to move the stairs to while loading, and your desire to have stairs there at all. You could make a trick secret storage space inside of the rolling stairs too.
I don't have any outside door to the basement at all. Just the stairs up to the kitchen. To make matters worse, the previous owner put glassblock in the windows.
I did the same thing in our old house, stair treads were on metal stringers that were attached to the concrete on the sides, just pull the treads out and roll the bin in fill it up roll the bin out and slide the treads back in.
I like the way you think Pyro Man... Trick storage areas... hmmm. Reality is, this area is changing jobs... Bilco firewood bin now, and it's right next to the stove. Our main stairs come down from inside so there's no real stair issue. I keep a 6' step ladder down there now too... so, if I had to, I could get out thru the Bilco. Once I remove some unused shelves, I'll have lots of open floor space for rolling the bins where ever I need em. I like putting stuff on wheels whenever I can.