Interesting; my basement seems to be significantly cooler than others even without using AC.
have you thought about a modular wine room. I have mine for about 3 years and it’s been great. The size I have has individual double deep racking for 790 bottles and then you can put a bunch more on top of the racks. Even though these are meant to be DIY I am not very handy and the place I bought it from put it together for me which increased the price a lot. I upgraded the cooling unit from a Breezaire to a Cellarpro and paid extra to have it manufactured with split panels so it could make it down into my basement all in was about $9000. I think the manufacturer is Wine Cellar Impressions the walls are all nicely finished wood and the racks are also wood
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Pretty much all supplies are extremely expensive right now. Unless someone here has had a cellar built in the past year or so, there’s no direct comparison going on. $80-100K for the cellar does seem high. I doubt you (Demian) could possibly get this done for $20K right now, though. That’s a number that made sense a few years ago in some areas, and probably not in the Boston area given the local labor costs.
It’s a tough time in general to be having work done. It seems like half the houses on my street have a dumpster out front or have in the past few months, so it isn’t holding people back, but that’s part of the issue.
Yeah the BILD wine room is 5k and sounds like it would meet your needs.
Yeah, I don’t live too far from you (in MD) and my passive cellar in an unfinished basement room is about 54 degrees and 68% humidity right now. No temperature or humidity control. From the graphs you posted it seems like your cellar gets a lot cooler and drier than what I would expect. I would check for outdoor air infiltration and try to see if you can seal or insulate the space better.
I guess this topic is probably not germane to the rest of the discussion, so maybe PM me Michael if you want to compare data points.
I’m pretty happy with the temperatures and humidity so not going to change anything. I can easily add heat and can add some humidity if necessary. My space is 50-55 year round.
When the air-conditioner is on for the whole house during hot summer time…I open a big hole ( which I cut ) in air-duck pipe which passed-by the area of my cellar so as to keep the temperature more low.
If you just want capacity it might be worth looking at walk in coolers designed for restaurants. I would imagine that would cost around 10k for an active unit that size.
I have put three cellars in different houses we’ve owned. Cost was 10-20k for 2-5k bottles of storage. The price offered seems quite high for a non display type cellar. Pandemic pricing coupled with builders who have plenty of jobs I bet is the culprit. A storage cabinet or offsite could tide you over. Building a cellar is not that difficult for a just regularly skilled folks to do. Fairly simple framing, drywall,insulation, elec, plumbing runs, and carpentry for racks. Key items here are insulation (closed cell is best) and installation of the cooling system. Racking may be hard to find now and I have generally gone with clear heart redwood about $2.5/bottle installed. I ordered from a racking supplier and then had a finish carpenter install.
Oh, I don’t want to spoil anything here but one should assume basically zero payback on whatever you spent to add a wine cellar. There was a long thread here a while back on this topic and was spot on. Many buyers remove it once they move in. Just something better to know going in.
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What John said. For my non-display cellar, I
- did the framing myself
- had an electrician run the wiring as part of other work
- had a reputable contractor blow closed-cell foam insulation
- had a guy do the sheetrock and paint
- built and installed racking myself, some from kit, some of my own design
- installed Coolbot + A/C myself
Holds around 2000 bottles, cost was well under 10k. Could have easily done the sheetrock and painting myself – might be a good option in these times, with good contractors having very long waiting lists these days. That would put the electrician and the insulation contractor as the only 2 people you need to line up.
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Which temp sensors do you use?
Based on all the feedback it seems my best option is working with my GC. I’m basically asking for a closet which any GC could easily do except I want better insulation, a door that seals, and the cooling unit. I see the cooling unit as the biggest ask of the HVAC installer.
I’ll have to do the wine rack installation but I’m handy enough for the instructions I’ve read.
SensorPush
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I guess it depends if you’re looking for some aesthetic or not, because the BILD or the vintage version of it all seem to meet your capacity goals and would be much cheaper. The BILD fits in your space and would cost only $5k.
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Honestly, if you are at 325 now, you need to go bigger than 500 bottles. You’ll kick yourself if you run out of room. And you will.
Cool. Do you find it easy to access the slots closest to the ground? Asking because I have a tight storage room I’ll be converting, and I’m trying to determine if I can run racking down only one, or both, sides – my main concern is not having enough space to access the lowest slots.
Thank you. This is really helpful, particularly the rack-to-rack measurement. Do you think you could get away squeezing that 29.5" any, or is that about as narrow as you can manage? (this is just added incentive for me to lose some lbs …)
I don’t have trouble accessing anywhere. The depth is likely about as narrow as it could be, but I don’t have any issues with. If I start stacking boxes along the glass I’m thinking it would get cramped. Hopefully I don’t do that to myself. 
I’m not sure closed-cell insulation is economical for a small room. Because of the hazmat suits, etc., I thought it only made sense if you were doing a fairly large area.
If you’re framing the room, it’s easy enough to frame it 8" or whatever depth you want for batts and/or polyiso board to achieve a very high R value. I think that would end up being a lot cheaper unless you have the spray insulation people on site already.
This is the second most important point in the thread. Painfully true.
The most important is that your proposal seems… excessive. Get more bids or wait until the irrational exuberance passes.
Good luck!