Brew Stand Recommendation

So I finally located metal and someone that can weld to make a brew stand....

I'm currently using a SS 7.5g brew kettle with 2 10gal. igloo coolers for my HLT and Mash Tun. I also have a an additional SS 7.5gal kettle available.

I'm wanting to stay away from a single tier (I think - unless you tell me that's the best way to go) mainly due to the cost of the pumps @~$300 for both.

The design I'm leaning towards is the modified tippy dump (w/o the tippy). So its a compact 2-tier system.

My questions:
1) would you recommend another design (thinking ahead in my brewing endeavors) and learning from your years of experience, outages you see with this system, etc.
2) If the design is good and keeping the design of this system in mind how would you recommend I set up the system...would you recommend that I continue to use my current igloo coolers for just the HLT, for just the mash tun, or continue to use them for both my HLT and Mash Tun? So what I'm asking is if your reco is to use the 2 SS kettles where is the insulation properties of the cooler best utilized - the HLT or Mash Tun? I have 2 cooler and 2 kettles so I'm looking for what the BEST method is...


Thanks in advance and I welcome ANY input!

I finished a three tier system about 3 weeks ago. I don't know if you are on a budget but I built my system out of wood I had laying around my garage and the wood at my neighbors build site. The materials cost me nothing to build and it works like a charm.

Now if I could ever figure out my digital camera I could post a picture. I will have my wife help me soon. Its a very nice, cheap, system to build.

I definitely thought about a tree because it would be easy to use my existing equipment and because its very compact (length/width-wise).

What changed my mind was my friend's father got a scrap square metal tubing from work and he can weld....


Out of curiosity do you have any problems with heat and clean up with your wood stand?


Thanks for the reply!