Just found out that I made a fundamental error. There is approx an 18" man way between each rick bay with flooring so workers can work between the ricks to move barrels in and out. I had asked Nick to review the drawings, but he didn't pick this up. Not only does this change the appearance of the model, but it would use less ricks to fill the same space. The train has long left the station to fix this now, but I will incorporate these changes into any future rick house models I may or may not be asked to build.
It's called the "catwalk". Now that I look again at the drawings, it shows up clearly and all makes sense, but I completely missed it. You can see that the space between rick bays is significantly bigger than what I was doing, and the flooring that runs perpendicular to the aisle. It looks like it's paved with plywood. I really needed a field trip to the site. It's also why there's a floor joist at every column. With my spacing it didn't make any sense to have that many joists.
Nick related this to me yesterday when he was discussing the exterior wall design. He explained that window placement aligns with the catwalks. He then went on to describe what the catwalk.
