Looking to convert a downstairs room into a cellar in the next few months. Ideally it will all be DIY with the help of my dad who is pretty experienced with construction/woodworking. I live in MN so there’s a pretty wide swing of temps over the year. The room itself is just under 10’x10’ and the ceiling is just under 7’ high. Shooting for 1200-1500 bottle capacity. I’ll attach pics below but I really just want input on what a feasible budget will be for this project from start to finish. If I can keep it around $10k I think I can live with that. Just let me know your thoughts! Thanks!
I just started my cellar this month. I had a 12 ft by 13 concrete-walled box in existence. I had to put up walls, closed cell spray foam, dry wall, etc, without wine racks, and I paid $4500 so far. That may give you a frame of reference.
What’s the exposure above, below, and on the four sides? Is there existing lighting? How hot does it get outside in peak summer?
If you do all the labor yourself or with dad and buy good but not expensive racking, you can do it for less than $10,000.
You can totally do it for much less. Main cost will be racking, so depending on how slick & fitted you want the racks, you could blow through the budget, but if you either buy pre-built racks or even do it yourself (carpentry experience is required), you’ll be good. Spray foam is nice, but pricey vs. bats & foam boards.
I am assuming that you had a contractor put up the walls for that price or is the cell spray that expensive?
It cost me about 30k to convert a 12 by 15 room to a cellar.
wow. I spent like $400 bucks on the supplies for the buildout for an 8’ x 12’ space that I built over a weekend. I got most of the racking and the wine cellar AC unit off craigslist and spent a around $600; for a total of around $1000. It’s not going to win any beauty contests, but it holds about 1,500 bottles right now with a max of around 2,000.
You can definitely do it for less than $10k – provided that you do passive cooling or go the mighty kenmore route and don’t buy pre-built racking. Buying a wine cellar cooling unit and pre-built individual bottle racking for that space will will set you back a minimum of $7-8k.
We built a 1300-bottle basement cellar in Maine for about $13k. Very similar climate to my hometown in SE MN. We were initially going to do it DIY but ended up using contractors for most of it – we framed the walls, painted, and assembled the racking, while contractors did spray foam, drywall, door framing/door install, floor tiling, and duct work for cooling unit. But the two biggest line-items in our cellar were the price of the active cooling unit and racking.
Yep, racking is likely to be the most expensive part, followed by cooling, and whatever fanciness you want to add. I would not go fancy if you want to keep under 10k, because you can spend a lot on that stuff. Of course, if you make your own racks, you’ll save a lot there, although it will be a lot of labor (check other threads - folks have shown how to build own racks).
If you’re doing cooling, I don’t believe you can do it under $10k. You have to rip out existing drywall and carpet. Insulate, tile and drywall. Plus racking - which even if you do it yourself it isn’t cheap for that many bottles.
With mostly DIY, I think you can. Demo drywall is a pain, but just labor. Insulation is $1000-2000. Re-drywalling is $1000 ($100 if DIY).
I dont think I can agree with the 1000-2000 for insulation for DIY. A big part is whether you need to seal or insulate the floor. I didn’t have to do that and just threw down some rubber matting (mostly to control breakage). If you use a combination of a plastic liner, traditional fiberglass batting, and foam panels, the 4 walls and a ceiling shouldn’t be nearly that expensive. I also got a used insulated door at at home salvage yard, so that saved alot right there.
Electrical could be an issue, depending on how many amps you can pull through the breaker, what other loads are on the circuit, and how many amps you will need for cooling. Not too expensive if you do the work yourself, but could be pricey if you have to create a dedicated circuit for cooling and have it installed by an electrician.
Is there anything wrong with attempting passive cooling initially and if it gets too hot in the summer installing a cooling unit then?
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Good point - I can’t see any good reason to NOT have your cooling unit on its own circuit.
Forgot about the cost of an exterior door in my previous post as well. What is the OP going to do about that glass block window? Definitely not a good seal with the vent in it.
I built my own cellar and even though I used spray foam which is definitely more expensive than fiberglass and plastic, the other costs are what they are. There’s no getting around the fact that hardwood (one with properties that make it suitable for a cellar with humidity) for the racking will run at least $4 per bottle all in if doing individual slots.
Are you going to properly insulate with vapor barrier right away? I guess you could do that - but seeing as you’re not totally below grade I’m guessing your temps will hit the mid to high 60’s in the summer.
The plan is to build the wall up in front of the window. Unless anyone has a better suggestion.
Yeah, vapor barrier and insulation will both be going in during the initial build. Probably going to stay away from the closed cell foam because of cost.
He is right. Since you are not totally below grade you will most likely hit those temperatures during the summer months.
I had planned a big cellar for my basement and picked up redwood racking from someone I knew who was getting rid of a cellar. Since the racking was designed for 8’ ceilings I was going to have to cut down the racking to accommodate it into my shorter 7’ basement. However, I can’t bring myself to cut these beautiful racks so I am going to list them for sale. I am going to use a few wine refrigerators for the time being until I can find some nice racks that will fit nicely in my basement without modification.