My wine cellar build - preliminary questions

WINE TALK
1

So I’m in the process of planning through my renovation and specifically the wine cellar portion of the project.

The heating plan for the house is radiant staple-up between the joists. I haven’t decided on the basement yet (depends on if I end up re-pouring the floor, may just go baseboard down there). Of course the cellar is going in the basement.

My question has to do with the ceiling in the wine cellar. Will I have to go to any extraordinary measures if I want to have staple-up radiant heating in the ceiling heating the room above the cellar? Is it better to go with baseboard heating in the room above? of course I’d rather not go that route. I’m mostly concerned with condensation as well as making sure the cooling system doesn’t have to work too hard.

The plan now is to go with a split ducted system, although the exact unit is to be determined. Any advice on that would be appreciated as well.

Thanks in advance for any input

2

Okay, I had to google that one:

Yikes - lotsa luck with that.

My only advice is to treat the wall surrounding the wine cellar as though it were an exterior wall, and use exterior grade components: pressure-treated studs, pressure-treated plywood, stainless steel screws, hardipanel [flat] siding [rather than sheetrock], keep the vapor barrier on the warm side of the wall, use exterior-grade insulation in the middle of the wall, and the cool side of the wall is allowed to “breath”.

If you pay a little more, and use exterior-grade components, then you can sleep peacefully at night and not have all that anxiety that you get when you try to cut corners and use [inferior] interior-grade components.

PS: And yeah, if there were sufficient height in the basement, then I’d add a “false” exterior-grade ceiling, as well.

3

You can also use a coat of exterior-grade plaster over the Hardipanel.

But I would NOT use an oil-based paint in the wine cellar.

Urban Legend holds that the fumes from oil-based paints are so strong that they [the fumes] can penetrate the wine corks.

4

Nathan’s got it pretty covered for you.

If you want a rustic wood look on the interior, you could replace the Hardipanel with exterior grade tongue and groove cedar or redwood siding. Works almost as good as the Hardipanel and since it really isn’t exposed to the “elements” it will last a long time. Doesn’t need to be stained or painted. The cedar and redwood siding we used at the store is over 5 years old, looks brand new and still gives off some of that new wood smell.

5

Just insulate the ceiling (of the cellar) well. And check with the builder whether it’s okay to encapsulate the radiant tubes in the insulation or whether you need to leave them open. Consider using a foil barrier first underneath the radiant tubes, with insulation for the cellar below that (perhaps spray foam).

So, to answer directly, I don’t think these are “extraordinary” measures.

6

One other thought, which came up recently in this thread:

[u]Anyone have experience with this wall mounted racking?[/u]

If you’re using these fancy racking systems, then they’re probably going to need to be screwed [really “bolted”] into the wall studs and/or the ceiling joists.

And on just about every single construction project that I have ever watched [or participated in], the dudes would seal up a wall with the plywood and/or the sheetrock without having made a record of where exactly the wall studs were.

Or, for that matter, without having thought about whether any further load-bearing functionality might be asked of the wall studs after the wall was sealed.

Point being that once a wall [or a ceiling] is closed up, it is simply infuriating to try to find a wall stud [or a ceiling joist] for “load-bearing” purposes: You keep drilling into air and drilling into air and drilling into air, until finally it feels like maybe you’ve hit something solid, but then you worry about whether you’ve hit it dead-on in the center of the stud, or whether you hit it way off to the side, in which case half of the screw/bolt probably came out of the stud at some weird diagonal angle, and the corner of the stud probably shattered right off within the wall.

And it gets really bad if the dudes who framed the wall [before it was sealed] just completely forgot to put a stud or a wooden “plate” where you were going to need some load-bearing capability.

That’s why you see so many closet rods and shower curtain rods and towel holders, which were hung in raw sheetrock [without being attached to a stud or a “plate” behind the sheetrock, if for no other reason than that there simply wasn’t a stud or a “plate” to be found behind the sheetrock], and then it isn’t much more than a few months later when the closet rod or the shower curtain rod or the towel holder starts falling right out of the wall.

So first and foremost, you need to know exactly what your wine racking will be expecting - whether your racking system expects studs centered at 16", or studs centered at 24", or whatever.

Then you need to remember that once you cover up the wall, you will lose some “length” in every direction, due to the wall covering itself.

So that if you use 1/2" plywood and 1/4" hardipanel for your covering, then you will lose a total of 3/4" in every direction.

Or if you use 3/4" plywood and 1/2" sheetrock, then you will lose a total of 1 & 1/4" in every direction.

Etc etc etc.

Then after the wall is closed up, when you go back to try to find your studs, in the case of a 3/4" loss, what had been a centering of, say,

16", 32", 48", etc,

on your measuring tape, now becomes a centering of

15 & 1/4", 31 & 1/4", 47 & 1/4", etc

on your measuring tape.

This can become really maddening at the corners of the room.

You always want to throw in a few extra studs at the corners, to account for the “loss”, in each direction, so that, when all is said and done, there will still be a nice, firm, “load-bearing” lip that you can drill into at the very corner.

And if, say, your wine racking ships in segments of 32", then you don’t want to get down to the very last segment of racking, and suddenly realize that you have only 31 & 1/4" of free space remaining, because you forgot about the “wall loss”, and you’re staring at the sad fact that that last 32" segment just isn’t going to fit into a 31 & 1/4" slot, no matter how hard you try to squeeze it, and then you spend the rest of the day wondering whether your life insurance policy will pay up if you were to stick a gun in your mouth and pull the trigger.

Finally, if it were me, and if I were going to hang several thousand pounds of wine from racking attached to a wall, then I’d go ahead and upgrade, from pressure-treated 2x6 wall studs, to pressure-treated 4x6 wall timbers [if not outright 6x6 timbers], and then I’d attach the racking with something like 1/4"x3" stainless steel screw-bolts, or some of those exterior-grade painted screw-bolts from Fastenmaster [although, in the long run, stainless steel will always be better than painted].

That way you can be reasonably certain that nothing shy of a direct hit by a 7+ Richter scale earthquake or a Cat 4/5 Hurricane is going to rip your wine racking away from the wall.

7

Nathan, you take my motto “If it’s worth building, it’s worth over-building” to a new level!

[welldone.gif]

8

We have radiant heat throughout the upper floors of our home. When building the cellar, which is under a portion of the living room, we simply put the vapor barrier directly over the tubing and then lots of insulation, followed by drywall for the cellar ceiling. That was about four years ago and all has seemed fine since - no humidity oddities or anything. Here in Seattle the heating system is completely off for about half the year anyway. In fall/winter the cooling unit does not run much - usually only when my wife comes home and parks in the garage where the cooling unit vents.

9

Thanks you all for your responses

Nathan, agreed on your thoughts regarding overbuilding for piece of mind. Since everything will be stripped to the studs no reason not to use full exterior grade components in this cellar.

Andrew, was planning on spray foam as my insulation throughout the home and the cellar walls. Foil barrier sounds like a good idea, before the spray foam. Will check with the contractor whether the radiant tubes need to be left open. If so I guess I could always build a small drop ceiling in the cellar and insulate with foam there.

Jim, glad it’s worked out for you. Do you have staple up as well? Being in a very similar climate I found the same with my previous cellar regarding how often the cooling system runs. However in my last home I was running forced air and had no ducts running through the cellar walls at all, so radiant heating is new to me.

This will be my first cellar with a split system

10

Does anyone have any thoughts on air handler split systems? Any specific brand recommendations / ones to stay away from?

I was looking at the idea of putting the condenser inside the furnace room, but could find space outside if that option is more favorable

11

Uh yeah. Using 4x6 framing is massive overkill and 6x6 is a beyond reason. The racking would probably be fine with 2x6 framing with the controlling factor being the screws not the members. If one wanted to overkall they could use some 3x6s at key positions. But using a good stud sensor to locate centers and predrilling there would be a lot of strength in (8) 3" x#10 screw throughout the height of an 8’ stud. A layer of 3/4 ply wouldn’t be as strong, but definitely makes it easier to fasten randomly spaced items

12

I would use sprayed polyurethane foam with a barrier of some kind to decouple the radiant from the foam.

As to a ducted split, I’m not a fan of any of the branded systems. Most run high static pressures and are noisier than necessary. Our installations use a small air handler matched to a refrigeration compressor. Also all of the branded systems you are locked into proprietary fans, coils and controls.

13

This is most likely a very bad idea. The real advantage to a split system is the ability to move the heat and noise outside of your home.

How large is your cellar going to be? How large is your mechanical room relative to the size of your cellar? What is the current ambient in the mechanical room.

As condensing temps rise capacity and efficiency go down.

14

You may be overbuilding for no reason. Unless you’re going to hang racks on the wall, there is no need for anything more than 2x6, and even 2x4 is sufficient so long as you can adequately insulate (which you can with 3.5" of foam). The floor/slab will more than adequately support racking. The only thing going into the wall is a couple of restraints to keep the racks from tipping over, which they shouldn’t unless they’re installed improperly or you have an earthquake (or you let kids in to climb on them). A few screws at the top should be sufficient to do the job.

As for exterior components, it’s really not necessary. Your bottom plate should be pressure treated, but the studs and top plates can be interior grade. If you have a moisture problem in the walls, you’ll be opening it up because of mildew before the wood has rotted. Don’t let that happen, by using a vapor barrier.

Other than the radiant heating, your project sounds fundamentally similar to mine, and you’re welcome to read about it here: