We have decided to build an addition to our house (it will be a separate building from our current home) and my wife has allowed me to have a 5-8 x 13-8 space for a wine cellar. We are in Florida so we are above ground and dealing with hot weather.
I have started researching cooling unit options but I have no technical expertise whatsoever. A through-the-wall unit won’t work because an office will be next to the cellar so I don’t want to deal with the noise/heat from the unit. Since we are building the building (and cellar) from ground zero, what is the best way to handle this? Can I just use a regular central AC system that we will be adding to the building and have the wine room be it’s own zone that is always kept at 55? I know humidity is also important so I hope there is someway to regulate it other than have to buy a completely separate cooling unit for the room.
Any advice is much appreciated. I am sure I will be asking more as the project moves along.
You don’t want it to be part of your central AC. Those systems aren’t really equipped for wine cellar needs.
There are a number of solutions, and NickC has pointed out a good one. Basically that’s like it’s own AC system - you can even put the compressor outside. Or a mini-split, which achieves something similar without the duct work.
Jeff, we had almost the identical situation, we built a separate pool house here in Texas (very hot) and I carved out some completely interior space for our cellar. Through the wall didn’t work due to noise, so I went with a rear ducted cellar pro. The “intake” line is a short run to a spare bathroom, the exhaust line is ran straight up and vents through the roof-using a standard roof vent for a bathroom exhaust fan. I used flexible ducting and it was fairly easy to do. If your pre-construction my very best piece of advice is install a gasket under your plates for the cellar, just like they do on your exterior walls (it’s an easy place for warm air to enter from underneath).
Best of luck
+1 on the ducted systems, especially as the temp diff on most units could get risky in severely hot FL weather. It is well worth it to have a separate cooler for your cellar versus trying to share with an AC box. Have the cooler, as stated above, pull air from a conditioned space and exhaust it outdoors. Be careful and try and minimize the runs on the ducts. Good luck with the project. Look forward to chiming in on all other aspects - lots of good expertise here!
Your AC won’t work at wine cellar temps. The room will require a dedicated system, mostly likely you will require a split ductLESS system. I’d suggest you budget $4-5k for equipment + installation costs.
If you want the system to function well you will need to build an airtight room, you will absolutely want to use closed cell foam. I’d suggest 3" on interior walls and 5" on exterior walls.
Remember all machines break, A WiFi Thermostat or Temperature Alarm is advised. If my wine were in Florida above grade I’d have redundant systems $$$.
Jeff,
Your house system won’t work for a number of reasons as Chris has noted.
It won’t be the least expensive first cost, but I recommend a commercial quality split type refrigeration system. I would look for an A/C contractor who does a lot of supermarket work.
I’ve had my cellar since 1992, and have replaced the system once. I could have had it fixed, but it was an old R-12 system and I was in a related business and could replace it at wholesale costs.
Be sure they understand you want to maintain high humidity, so you’re evaporator needs to have a low temperature differential (low TD) - to do that it has a higher airflow than a “standard” unit.
I also recommend you ask for a pump down type of control system, a little noisy when the solenoid opens, but it’s a very reliable old school type of control.
Insulation and vapor retarder issues are paramount in Florida, highly recommend wood stud framing, expansion type foam insulation and no recessed light fixtures or electrical boxes.
Jeff- I live in Florida and this is what we did and I used a contractor to build the entire cellar. Cooling unit at the time was $3500. We’ve had no problems with it going into the 8th year other than one time having to flush the system which I used a commercial AC company to come on sight and show me how to handle.
Just to update the situation, I have had nothing but headaches trying to get my wine cellar up and running. I went with a dedicated wine cooling split system. However, it has never been able to keep the cellar at the proper temperature. In the morning, it starts out at about 57-58 air temp but by the evening it is in the low to mid-70s. I have had a refrigeration company out here 100 times and every time they swear they found the fix and every time it is the same thing. I can feel the air coming in, it just isn’t cool enough to get the room to where it needs to be. It is incredibly frustrated (luckily the wine is still in proper storage offsite so I am not ruining anything). I am thinking I am going to need to call professionals from Jacksonville or Orlando/Tampa because the people here in Tallahassee just cannot solve the problem.
Assume your techs have tried this, but I’ll mention it anyway just in case - temperatures in my cellar in Charlotte would occasionally (2-3X per year) start creeping up from 55 degrees to 60+ - stumped everybody until we realized that the air filter on the outside of the unit in the crawlspace had gotten clogged up with dust, impeding airflow and freezing up the coils. So I have to remember to take a handheld vacuum and run it over the filter to clear it out once in while. Just something to check, especially if the construction has kicked up a bunch of dust.
Make sure that the capacity of the unit is enough to handle the thermal load. It is better to have excess capacity working at a lower load than a machine working near capacity all the time.
I am not an expert like Chris but it sounds like the system is undersized for the room. If you had a professional refrigeration specialist do the cellar they should have done that calc going in based on the thermal load and room specs. If it was your GC, then might be best to have a commercial refrigeration guy come in and evaluate as it generally not something GC is great at. Good luck!
I used a refrigeration company and had a commercial system placed that effortlessly keeps my cellar at 50 degrees regardless of outside temp in S Cal.
I have Whisperkool as a backup that I run for a few minutes every few weeks–it died and needs repair, but the main unit runs fine. And Breezeaire sucks, too.
Please provide more details.
Room dimensions, r-values, exposure.
equipment type, capacity and location.
indoor and outdoor ambient temp.
supply and return temp of cooling unit.
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