I’ll take the other side. I’ve read your notes on California Cabs. Given what you are willing to spend on a bottle of wine…invest 2K in a cooling unit and keep the cellar at 55 degrees 24/7 all year. I could go with a passive cellar given similar circumstances in Seattle but still chose to invest in a cooling unit.
Tom
Justin, your floor is deepest underground and should be cooler than any of the exterior walls. Concrete has almost zero insulation value so any heat entering thu your well insulated walls and ceiling should easily be taken out thru the floor. This assumes of course that your floor is of reasonable sq ft in comparison to the sq ft of walls and ceiling.
Your cellar should be at the same approximate temperature as your floor so to check this I suggest you obtain a digital temp device with a remote probe and then drill a small diameter hole in your cellar floor such that you can insert the probe into the floor. You can then compare floor and cellar temps to see if they match.
If they do match then you know your cellar is correctly designed for passive and maybe you will need to do a little more research on earth temperature in your location before making any decision to go active.
This site has some good data on US earth temps:
http://www.builditsolar.com/Projects/Cooling/EarthTemperatures.htm
It looks like the data presented pretty much agrees with your original data so I think you should be fine with passive.
My passive cellar in your area varies between 50 and 62 during the year, no insulation on the concrete floor or walls, just on the interior walls - regular interior door. No problems with my bottles over the last 22 years.
Think about it. People have been cellaring wine for thousands of years. And, we have had refrigeration for +- 100.
Another unnecessary obsession added to our lives.
Unless you plan on living to be about 150, the cellar is fine. I found over 20+ years with both an actively cooled cellar (constant 56 degrees) with a second passive cellar (60-64 degrees), that there is a minor difference in aging curves, with my preference for the passive cellar. (They evolve a bit more quickly, but the quality of evolution is really quite nice)
With the 56 degree cold temps the wine seems to stay in suspended animation for longer than I would like…after all I want to drink these suckers at some degree of maturity while I am young enough to enjoy them!
One exception, as in other threads, it does not matter what temp you keep white burgs, or fat California chardonnays at. They will oxidize in an unpredictable fashion no matter how they are stored (in my experience.)
Thanks for all of your thoughts, everyone.
I know my floor is the cooling element of the cellar, if kept passive. After tiling it, would that diminish the effect?
LOL, Tom. But you do have a point. The counterpoint to that is if I kept it passive, I could spend that $2K on more wine. ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
Here’s a table of R-values for different flooring materials. I wouldn’t think regular ceramic tile would have a big insulating effect.
But you might want to consider using something with a little cushion, to make it easier to set bottles down without cracking glass. There are pretty decent decorative rubber floorings you can get that might be an option. or vinyl, which is pretty soft.
Back to my question, don’t you want humidity in your cellar? Wouldn’t covering the concrete up reduce the humidity passing thru?
http://www.cement.org/for-concrete-books-learning/concrete-technology/focus-on-floors/concrete-floors-and-moisture
Acceptable Relative Humidity Levels
What percentage of relative humidity is acceptable in an interior concrete floor slab? Various levels can be appropriate depending on the uses of the occupied space and applied floor finishes. Relative humidity at mid-depth in bare concrete floors—such as those found in manufacturing facilities and warehouses —can be quite high if there is no vapor retarder below the slab. Moisture vapor passes through the slab and evaporates at top the surface with no detrimental effect most of the time. However, dew point condensation can occur on or within the slab if the temperature and relative humidity of the air are right.
To minimize the opportunity for dew point condensation, relative humidity in the upper centimeter of a slab should be less than approximately 85 percent. Dense, hard troweled slabs or slabs with an applied sealer and no vapor retarder can have greater than 95 percent relative humidity in the upper centimeter. Abrading the floor, for example by shotblasting, can remove a portion of the dense surface and allow the slab to “breathe,” thus lowering the relative humidity in the upper region. However, removing a densely troweled wearing surface may reduce the wear resistance of the floor. Acceptable RH levels using in situ probes have been established and published in Finland and Sweden. These maximum permissible values are given in the following table:
Steve, people sure haven’t been cellaring wines in Bakersfield for thousands of years. Just getting wine shipped here without it being cooked is enough of a challenge!
I’m near Chicago myself and my cellar was fully insulated and temps were nowhere close to what underground data suggested they would be before installing cooling. Why? Guessing that the basement floor outside my cellar was being warmed by my basement air and that countered any cooling effect from underneath the floor.
If your entire basement was insulated like your cellar, I believe it would work. However if your cellar is just a portion of your basement, forget about underground temp data. Once you’ve paid to build out the room with insulation and racking, is the expense of a cooling unit that big of a deal? Would sure beat watching temps approach 65-70 degrees in the summer, IMO.
Justin - if you really are at 61 degrees I wouldn’t worry about it at all. The idea of 53 or 55 or 58 degrees being perfect comes from some people having measured the average temperature in some deep cellars somewhere in Europe that happened to be at those temps and the numbers have been repeated over and over on the internet but they’ve not received wisdom from on high.
Many people have stored their wine at 61 or higher without problem. I know plenty of people who obsess about keeping their cellars at 51, while others swear by 56, and others don’t obsess at all and just let wine sit in passive cellars that stay around the low to mid 60s. One of the people I know with the most wine, and very expensive wine, is in the latter camp. He keeps the wine in the family house in Spain in the same passive cellar his dad and grandfather used and some of the wine has been sitting there for decades. It’s just fine - I’ve had some of it.
I would love to have a passive cellar at the temps you describe. Tiling the floor shouldn’t be a problem, but why would you tile it? Why not just leave the concrete?
Wasn’t written for you. The person asking the question is from Illinois. But look at Greg’s post about Spain. Pretty hot there and no problem.
There’s a big difference between a UPS truck and a below grade passive cellar.
Justin. 61F is just fine…but some disappointment is understandable since you had a lower target.
9 feet deep to the bottom of your cellar means the top is probably only 1 ft deep. Soil temps can flux dramatically at such shallow depths…i.e.: 15F up to 80F+. At 9 feet the temps should be much more stable but will still flux significantly…i.e.: 50F - 70F. Tons of things contribute to soil temps (soil type, surrounding exterior surface coverings, soil moisture content, sun exposure, groundwater, bedrock, etc.).
Something to be aware of is the delay in soil temperature maximums. Max temps at 9 feet probably don’t occur until late October…and are slow to drop, probably not hitting bottom until April. This is completely consistent with my passive cellar.
My recommendation is to be patient and see what happens in April and over the course of a year. I expect you’ll see some differences. I also expect that the temp changes will be very slow (a good thing IMHO).
If you must have 56F constant, buy a cooling unit. If your peak temps don’t exceed 70 - 72F and the changes are smooth and gradual, I’d be happy with it. FWIW my passive temps slowly change from 58 - 70F and I’m completely satisfied, going on 14 years.
RT
Another vote for your passive environment being fine. I am also in Northern Illinois and have the exact same conditions you describe. Literally to a T. My summer temps are actually a bit cooler at 58 or so (due to ac) and higher maybe 64 in the winter (due to heat).
My wine seems to be fine for the minimal time I have had a cellar, but my soon to be father in law has stored wine in this environment for many years with no issue.
This x 1000.
Live in the Boston area with unfinished basement which I use for passive storage and have never had a problem. Temps don’t fluctuate dramatically high 50s - low 60s. that being said if we ever redo the basement then I do think a separate room with cooling would be needed.
-jason
empty rack space…ahhh, the good old days.
I purposely avoided the stacks of unpacked shippers and dangerously stuffed diamond racks.
This is something I hadn’t thought of yet. Thanks for the input.
It seems the overwhelming majority of responses thinks I may be just fine as it. I think I may wait and track the temps through May and make a decision based on what I see. Can always add the cooler later.
Thanks to everyone for your thoughts!