Really like it from the pics. What are the dimensions? Seems like the original space was sort of a half thought. Nice repurpose of it.
So boss. Enjoy!
I know they say it’s not nice to hang out in 58 degrees but I think the ambiance more than makes up for needing a coat. We had dinner once in a cellar in southern Portugal while on our baby moon and it was just remarkable.
Is this AOC responding? ![[cheers.gif]](/uploads/db3686/original/2X/0/0ff9bfcdb0964982cd3240b6159868fbdf215b1a.gif "cheers"){kind=small}
It’s 17x15 overall, 255 square feet.
The ceilings are 9.5 feet high in the middle and 8.5 feet under the soffits, where the racking is. It’s a a nice deep basement.
It’s a good observation, Terry. The previous owners used it as an office and sometimes living area. According to the architect this room was built with a wine cellar in mind, on the left wall only, behind glass. That would have been enough storage for normal people, perhaps, but I needed more…
After the demo, with everything now accessible we did plumbing, electrical, cooling, vapor barrier, and insulation.
Every tradesman in existence was in our little room. I envy those of you who can do this yourselves. What a wonderful project this would be to do with one’s kids, especially now, while in lockdown.
Anyway, this behind-the-wall work actually took the longest amount of time, managing everyone. We were also painting the entire house (as we had moved in abut six months earlier) so there were days where between the cellar contractors, painters, and regular cleaning lady, we’d have 12-14 contractors in the house at once!
This view gives you an idea of where the room is in relation to our stairs leading down into the basement.
The little storage room on the left is where the wine was stored in boxes while the cellar was being built, but also where we installed the blower part of the cooling system as well as the plumbing and reverse osmosis.
The wine, waiting impatiently, to be moved in.
That’s where the blower and plumbing is.
This is the second piece of the Wine Guardian split system – it’s the blower unit that gets cold air into the vents of the wine cellar.
And this is the main condenser unit in our mechanicals room (like an AC unit outside your house). This goes up into the that open vent above it and connects to the blower unit next to the cellar.
We got lucky that all these rooms were connected (or connectable).
We took out the heating ductwork from the wine room, but still had this (now unused) vent from the mechanicals room to the wine cellar to send pipes and electrical down.
Finally, this is the plumbing for the humidor in that little storage closet on the other side of the wine cellar wall. It’s an RO system that’s plumbed into my humidifiers in the humidor, and keeps it all running automatically without me having to think about it.
This was another major goal, things needed to run themselves. I did not want to have to remember to refill anything, or turn anything on and off.
All this work was done after demo.
Did you install two thermostats for your split system? One that kicks on the blower then condenser when the temp gets above the set ideal temp…but also one that will turn off the blower if the condenser fails, and the blower continues to blow in warmer air? I did, after I saw someone here had theirs do that, I think it was in AZ, and it cooked all his wine! My blower is in a garage closet, so it could be blowing in 120+degree air in summer! I set it at 70 to kick off.
Thank you for sharing. I hope to build a wine cellar one day (a long ways away), and seeing your experience is fun and value added.
Brian, no we just use the one thermostat that came with the unit, but that’s really interesting. Didn’t even know this was an option to get a second unit for the blower.
Our condenser is in the basement, where it’s usually in the mid to high 60s range, so we won’t have the 120-degree air issue.
Super cool to see the progress and everything that went into this. I’m sure you and the family will enjoy this for years to come.