Wine cellar vs. Wine Fridge

I’m looking for some advice from you 'Berserkers who are much more experienced at this than I:

I have quickly run out of space on my existing wine fridge, and so I am contemplating building a small cellar or getting a large wine fridge/cabinet. Which would you choose?

I don’t have an extra room to dedicate to a cellar, but I do have a small area of my basement that I am not using where I could build something. The space is 10 ft. long x 4 feet deep with 9 foot ceilings. My basement is already fully finished, and there are finished walls on 3 sides, so theoretically I’d only have to frame off and close the front of the cellar. Or would I have to pull down the existing drywall and re-insulate and re-drywall to accommodate the requirements of a cellar? For racking, I am looking at the instacellar racking at Wine Racks of America. For a cooling unit, the area does not have any outdoor walls, so I think I would have to get a ductless split cooling system. All told, what is an approximate cost to build a budget cellar?

Alternatively, I see something like the Le Cache Contemporary series wine cabinet can hold 622 bottles for around $5,500.00. Or WineKoolr makes a cabinet that holds 800 bottles. I’m not very handy with building, so this option is attractive, as it’s likely a lot less costly, so that I can put the savings into wine

Thoughts?

First, only build if you plan to be in this house for many years or the rest of your life. Assuming that’s the case, what temp does that area of the basement maintain? In Kelowna, I would seriously try and go passive if at all possible. Even if you can’t, you may not need a split system, as long as you have adequate cubic feet to vent the heat into the rest of your basement, and the noise issue isn’t a problem.

If you go active, my guess is you’d have to replace the walls with adequate insulation and a vapor barrier.

Thanks Chuck.

The entire house is usually at a pretty steady 71-72 degrees year round, so probably not ideal temps for my desired long-term aging of wine. The basement is approximately 1200 sq. ft. with a family room/games room, 2 bedrooms and a den. The area where the cellar would be is off of the family room/games room.

I do have a wine fridge now down there, which I am assuming vents into the rest of the basement. Would a cooling unit that vents into the basement be different than that? (i.e. a lot more heat or noise)?

If one of the bedrooms is unoccupied, CONVERT IT. Do it once, and do it right. Vent it to the finished basement. Or get a cellarpro with a duct kit and send the heated air outside through a 6" vent.

That’s my humble opinion.

If it’s a legal bedroom, converting it to a wine cellar would SIGNIFICANTLY reduce the value of your home. 71-72 is too warm for passive. In terms of heat and noise, yes a 4x10x9’ room (360 cf) would vent considerable more heat than a typical 4x2x7’ refer unit, and with a bigger fan and condenser, it means more noise.

You could probably vent into the basement. You can trick an AC and you’ll save a lot of money. That’s what I’d do. Alternatively get a cooling unit made for wine rooms, but you pay a lot more money. Split systems are probably the most expensive.

But I’d do everything myself. I like doing it and I don’t want a bunch of idiots running around the house. If you hire someone to do your construction, and if you buy from Wine Racks of America, you will end up spending more money than if you were to buy a few units. At that point, I’d buy the units because at least those you could take with you if you move.

The bedrooms are both occupied by kids, so I can’t convert either of those rooms over.

What would be some recommendations for where to get racking and the brand of cooling unit for the 4x10x9’ space?

Best thing to do is get rid of a kid, and use the bedroom for your cellar. Saving from taking care of the kid will allow you to put in a real good set of shelving, cooling unit and insulation. Without a kid (or even two) you could have a real good builder come in and do the work.

Let the kids visit the cellar when they grow older and get off the streets.

Two words:

Bunk

Beds

And just think how much really nice wine you can buy with their college funds! Dang, wish I’d thought of this before raising both of mine through adulthood, and putting them through college

I recently bought one of the WineKoolr 800 units – it runs the cooling unit a lot (much more than my previous 500 bottle unit). It may just be that it’s not full until I pick up some wine in storage and so the temperature varies more, or it may be that the larger unit is pushing the capacity of the cooling unit.

Either way, I am happy with the value of the WineKoolr but still dream of a “real” cellar!

Erich, how does it look in person? Seems to good to be true, but also seems like it needs to be “out of sight” not a focal point.

I recently finished an active cellar using the Instacellar racks from Wine Racks America. I’m happy overall with them. The one issue you’re going to need to consider is whether 4 feet is too narrow to have racks on both walls. You might try doing double-deep along just one.

I don’t know anything about ductless split systems for wine cellars (although I have a ductless heat pump conditioning the rest of the basement). The cooling unit manufacturers that have been discussed previously on WB don’t make them. But Chris Kravitz participates on this board, and he designs and builds wine cellars for a living. You might try messaging him if he doesn’t chime in here.

I just found this good resource for sample cellars:

They have drawings of various cellars. The very first one on that list is exactly what my space is like. I think I could spare an extra foot, to get to 5 feet across, so that I could have racks on both walls. As seen in that drawing, that leaves 25.5" of room to walk. Will that be too tight?

Haha, that is an option. Though if I think about it, my wife and her accompanying clothes and shoes takes up more room than the kids…

That should be enough. My cellar is irregularly shaped, and I have an area that is 5 feet across with racks on both sides, which works. I wouldn’t go much smaller than that though; the trick is squatting down to look/get at bottles along the bottom.

You can probably get 1300-1400 bottles in there if you squeeze, especially if you take advantage of your ceiling height. Assuming you’ll be glad you have that capacity in the long-term, in terms of whether you’ll beat the Le Cache solution on a cost-per-bottle basis, it will depend on how much of the work you can do yourself, particularly since I bet you’re going to end up spending at least $5k on your cooling unit with professional installation. If you go with the basic pine, you should be able to buy the racks for less than $3,500 (wait for a sale). Having recently put them together, you could build them yourself for a lot less with the right tools, and I’m tempted to do that if/when I expand my storage. But for now – given the value and scarcity of my time – it was worth paying for.

Thank-you all for the help.

Jay, is that your cellar in your avatar? Looks great, and that’s just what I am shooting for on mine.

Chris-- given the price I was pleasantly surprised. That said, it’s not a piece of furniture. It’s basically insulation with a nicer looking outer layer, but anyone that looks closely will certainly see it’s not real wood, not even veneer. Just plastic with wood grain.

Yep, I just took that photo last week. We built it in the space under the stairs heading down to our basement. Right now it holds about 1000 bottles, with a little space to add about 300 more as the need arises.

Yeah, check with Chris re cooling. You might be able to do a through the wall.

If you’re handy the costs won’t be great - racking is most expensive part.

1. Rip out drywall in the nook. (labor)
2. Frame out fourth wall, with door ($300+labor)
3. Use foam insulation all around (vapor barrier plus insulation) ($800)
4. Drywall (greenboard) ($200 + labor)
5. Cooling ($300-$2500). Regardless you can probably vent to basement for a small space like this without a problem.
6. Racking (~$1500)
7. Fill with wine ($30-200k)

If you’re not handy and can find a contractor (or contractors), you can probably supervise this yourself. They need basic carpentry, drywall skills, and a modest amount of wiring.