The cedar looks really good, we have done two offices in our building on request to pull up the carpet when old and finish the wafer wood floors. They look really good but are a bit noisy which would not be a problem in the cellar. There are a whole range of panel products that would work well on the walls now. Decorative pressed straw and reed for the commercial market.
what are you going to use for the cooling unit? The cedar looks great!
Kenmore A/C unit (should be in one of the pics). It’s the small model - I think it’s 5400 BTU. I’ve added a resistor to get it to drop the temp a few more degrees. Trying to get it calibrated.
How are you keeping the humidity high enough to keep the corks from drying?
Right now it’s been running 65-75% per my weatherdirect unit without any added moisture necessary. I suspect there will be more of an issue in the winter. It’s in a basement that I don’t directly cool (A/C upstairs of course), and that runs about 70-75 depending on how hard the A/C is running. Humidity is lower in the basement, but evidently high enough that when the air is chilled the RH increases to the right levels. (And as I pull out my psychometric chart, I see that 55 degrees and 70%RH is the same amount of moisture as air that is 70-75 degrees and 30-40%RH).
Probe Sensor Device Sensor Humidity Timestamp Record
56.4 °F 55.8 °F 72% 7/14/2012 10:47:27 AM
56.4 °F 55.4 °F 70% 7/14/2012 10:42:28 AM
56.4 °F 56.0 °F 68% 7/14/2012 10:37:27 AM
56.4 °F 57.3 °F 73% 7/14/2012 10:32:28 AM
56.4 °F 57.2 °F 73% 7/14/2012 10:27:27 AM
Andrew, is the A/C vented into the basement? Has that been an issue at all? Considering similar project myself.
It is, and it hasn’t been any kind of issue. I’m sure it adds a touch of heat to the basement, but it’s not obvious (basement is pretty big, and it’s venting directly into an area that’s bigger than the cellar itself). It occasionally drips a little water (condensation), so I plan to attach a drip pan, but it’s just falling on concrete and the puddles don’t get large (they evaporate pretty quickly). Noise isn’t bad either. I can hear it in the basement, and if it’s really quiet on the first floor I can here it slightly, but it’s less noise than the central AC makes.
Now all your wine will smell like Lafite!
Finally some updates. Two trips for work plus a couple weeks on vacation out of the country, not to mention some various family events, kind of slowed things down. I got the cooling up and running before the summer heat took hold. Good for the wine; not so good for making easy progress. The boxes in the pictures have been moved back and forth a couple of times so I could put in the floor and do other work. At least one more move to put in the quarter-round on the floor. I’m aiming for that to be the last move before they wine goes onto racks, which I still have to order.
Anyway, the big step since the last time is the addition of the floor. It’s cork, although part of a laminate flooring, so it’s actually cork-some sort of hard rubber-more cork. The surface is somewhat soft, and can be dented. Not planning on any high heels in here, nor hard wear. It’s a “click-lock” system, so reasonably easy to install, although I had to do a lot of planning to make sure I had enough (even with the 10% waste factor, it was pretty close, because the manufacturer has all sorts of constraints: each piece at least 16" long; make sure the overlap is by at least 12"; and a couple others). I had to map out each piece before starting–fortunately I ended up with one piece left over, plus scraps.
Also installed and painted the door. Color on cellar side isn’t a perfect match for cedar, but it’s not terrible. Still need to get the rest of the hardware on (I am using leftover pieces from doors removed during the renovation of our house and it turns out I didn’t have keyholes and rosettes for around the door handle.) You wouldn’t know it, except I’m telling you, but I matched the casing around the door for the rest of the house–that took some doing as well.
I’m kind of proud of this: Upthread I mentioned the gas shut-off valve for the stove. I created a panel opening, and then got some “super” magnets to hold it up. A bit of a challenge to glue them to the wood (metal epoxy), but they hold the panel in nicely.
One more for good measure:
In addition to racking, I still need to solder up the resistor and put on wall plates. On the outside I need to paint the walls and door frame, and there’s some other touch-up stuff to do. I may need to install a drip pan for the A/C, mainly so when it does drip it doesn’t get on the walls or anything else underneath it.
A few more weekends, and a little time to make more progress, primarily on the exterior. A few small items probably not obvious to anyone, but I put new (old) hardware on the door that matches the rest of the house, and swapped out the bright brass hinges for oil-rubbed bronze. Had to go to a used-house products store to find matching parts (well, hinges were Home Depot). Outlet covers went on as well.
Paint is on the beadboard panels, and I installed baseboard and some moulding at the top (didn’t bother with crown, given the absence of a true ceiling–just something to make it look a little more finished). I’ll be glad when the project is done and I can reorganize the basement. Maybe get some decent, clear shots when I do that.
Left side and front:
Right side and front:
Right side:
I also put some insulation in the A/C cavity. We’ll see if that helps keep it a bit cooler. Owens-Corning Foamular sheet–2" thick, advertised as R-10.5, which isn’t bad. Notice in the picture of the wall I covered it up somewhat. When I need to replace the “Mighty Kenmore” I should be able to pop the insulation out pretty quickly–it’s just taped in. And I have most of the 8’x2’ sheet left to make some more blocks.
I’m closing in on being done . . . waiting for the racks to arrive this week, and then I’ll install them and do some finish work on the inside. Then it’s into the racks the bottles go and on to some other project.
Looks fantastic! Is there an issue with the warm air exhaust warming up the basement, thus making the cellar cooling unit work harder?
Haven’t noticed it at all. Cooling unit doesn’t run a lot, and I don’t notice a particular “hot spot” in the basement, which is pretty large anyway. The cellar is probably <20% of the entire basement, so I wouldn’t expect a huge effect.
Looks really good. I have the same Kenmore unit and it has been working great for the year since I put it in. Did you get it tuned to cool below 60? I can give you the specs of my power brick and resistor if you need them.
I did - I have it set at 72, which keeps the cellar about 55, although it fluctuates a bit more than I’d like. Trying to figure out why–I think the sensor is picking up heat from outside the cellar, because the fluctuations seem inversely related to the basement temperature.
(FWIW, I used a resistor from radio shack wired onto an old cell phone charger, and taped to the temperature sensor.)
At this point, I’m basically finished. (You’re probably thinking “about time”, as are a few people around my house.) Here are a couple of pictures of the drip pan for the A/C. It barely drips at all - I may need to bring up the humidity a bit though this winter. The goal is solely to keep water from dripping directly to the floor below. It has a drain, which I haven’t plumbed (I could run it to the slop sink). But I may rely on evaporation, as condensate wasn’t a real problem all summer.
The pan sits on the two brackets. If it starts slipping around I’ll attach it somehow, but right now it’s not an issue.
And some pictures of the finished product.
I may add some LED lights at the top of the racks, and I’m thinking about a fold-up table at the end (over the outlet) for storing bottles in progress and supplies. Or perhaps simply a nice, small, tall table that stays there.
As you enter:
Double-deep racks on left:
Single-deep racks on right (including magnum rack and half-bottle racks):
Display rack, which doubles as “grab and go” bin for my wife:
Some detail:
Let’s head to the exit:
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Thanks. What did you do with your floor? (my bad- I went back and read the entire thread and found the answer to my question.)
Great Job!!! ![[winner.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/07ec25c9fd71159fe15d7f1ba5fad64e91238d0e.gif "winner"){kind=small}
Looks like you have adequately insulated your Cellar.
How many bottles does it hold?
Is your door solid wood or internally insulated?
Glad to see you adopted my “Fooler Circuit” for your purposes.
After using a Mighty Kenmore for my last three Cellars, I have some words of advice:
- I believe the lowest temperature you should go for is 56 degrees. Lower than this may cause the pipes to get covered with frost/ice.
As the Kenmore ages and loses some refrigerant, this may cause some ice at 56 degrees.
This situation can be helped somewhat by permanently removing the plastic front cover (exposing the grill & pipes - not attractive, however) - I assume you have set the AC to take in Wine Cellar air, not 'big" cellar air.
- I assume you are using the “Power Saver” setting.
Just finished my new Wine Cellar in my new home (Finally retired).
You bet it is run by Kenmore! 
TTT
So many questions:
- 1293 bottles (per plans)
- Solid wood (although it probably is not as good insulation as I could do otherwise)
- I haven’t noticed icing yet, but I’ll keep an eye on it
- There does not seem to be a setting for fresh air on this model–I looked
- Yes–it cycles every ~10mins to test the temp. Most times it runs for 15 seconds and shuts off.
Hi Andrew -
What are you using to obtain your cellar temperature and humidity conditions? What is your desired humidity range? After 6 years with our cellar we have not noticed any dried corks, but we have bottles that need 20-25 years and I am a little concerned about seasonal fluctuations. How is the cork floor working for you, any mold? We have a concrete slab that we were thinking cork would be best.
TIA!
Ken