Advice On Designing Your Own Wine Cellar

More and more home-owners dream of having their very own wine cellar. True it can increase the value of your home should you decide to sell but enjoying a well-aged bottle of wine from your very own cellar is hard to beat.

A few things to consider are:

What is the purpose of the wine cellar?

Will the cellar be purely for storing wine, or will it also be used for entertaining and displaying your wine collection?

What are the critical factors when building a wine cellar?

Insulation – a minimum of R12 and R19 if possible is recommended. To the extent the cellar shares an exterior wall, R30 insulation is preferable for that wall.

Moisture barrier – a moisture barrier must be used when constructing a wine cellar. The most common vapor barrier is 6 mil poly sheeting, which should be wrapped around the entire wine cellar on the outside of the insulation.

Airtight seal – when the door is closed it is crucial that the wine cellar has an airtight seal. The door should have weather-stripping and a door-sweep to prevent air from entering the cellar when the door is closed.

How do I select a wine cooling unit?

The most cost effective and easiest to use are through-the-wall or self-contained cooling units. The downside of through-the-wall cooling units is that they take up space inside the cellar, and noise from the cooling unit can be heard inside and outside the wine cellar.

For a smaller wine cellar of up to 300 cubic feet the WhisperKOOL XLT 1600 is an excellent choice.For larger wine cellars up to 1,000 cu. ft. the WhisperKOOL 4200 would be the best choice.

Split-system cooling units are designed so the evaporator is located inside the wine cellar ad the condenser outsidie. The advantage of split systems is that the condensing unit can be located in a remote location, which mitigates noise from the compressor, and split systems don’t require having a big hole in the wall. However split-systems require professional installation, which is expensive.

There are four different Whisper KOOL split systems available depending on your requirements.

What type of wine rack is best?

Individual bottle storage: each bottle is cradled in its own cell, either single or double deep. Difference size cells are designed to accommodate various types of bottles, such as Bordeaux, Burgundy/Champagne, Magnums and splits.

Diamond Bin Storage: The advantage of Diamond Bins is that they can accomodate any size bottles however because the bottles rest on each other they are best reserved for long-term storage.

Tabletops: With individual bottle or bin storage below, tabletops provide excellent spaces for opening bottles and pouring wine.

These are a few of the factors that you should consider when building your own wine cellar.

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