Air Condition the Garage !!!
I sort of dig the industrial look. It really doesn’t look out of place in my friend’s garage. He has a bunch of shop equipment (which he used to build racking), metal cabinets/benches, sand and water toys; so it probably looks more at home in that setting than some fancy wooden box. He has a side wall mounted refer that is vented to the outside and hidden from view behind a pony wall, which makes for a somewhat tidier look.
But aesthetics really were more of a secondary consideration for my friend, as he was looking to purchase something engineered for the greater temperature differentials he needed to overcome in his unconditioned space, in his sand state location. Performance wise, even the best beefed-up indoor wine fridge options remain marginal when ambient temps rise to 95* and above. It’s not unusual for a closed garage in hotter parts of the southwest to be in the 120-130* range. This solution may be overkill in milder locations, but not so much, when you’re hoping to protect your valuable wine collection, over a multi-year period, in a desert setting.
One helpful thing that can be done for relatively little money, is to insulate the garage door and attic space above the garage (if not already done).
https://www.dri.edu/images/stories/editors/receditor/HEA_-_Insulate_Garage_Doors_4-5-10-1.pdf
Is it actually out of the engineered application range? The chart on Le Cache’s website shows the 1800XTS as good up to 95 degrees to cool to 55. If I were going purely by what the manufacturer claims, I’d think its ok.
That said, the points about premature failure are what I’m concerned about, and obviously I agree that a failure in a 95 degree room would be bad news.
Inside the house, the only real logical place for one of these besides the living room is a small upstairs room, and I’m concerned about the weight load (not to mention getting the thing up there). I’m thinking I’ll just bite the bullet and deal with having it in the living room. Maybe scale back and get a smaller one (which could get by with a smaller/quieter cooling unit) and leave more in offsite…
Technically, no; provided you never see temps in excess of 95. But claims like this have little meaning if it’s really a measurement of peak capability and not sustained usage. IOW, you may be okay for short periods of high temps, but how greatly are you taxing the compressor, and shortening its life, if you have periods of sustained high temps? I’m no HVAC expert, but I can look at the chart (and if I’m reading correctly) see that the 1800 XTS in the 5200 cabinet is rated for 1886 BTUs per Hour (BTUH) when cooling to 55 at an ambient temp of 95* and is working on a thermal load of BTUH 1861. Unless I’m missing something here, the unit looks to be running nearly maxed out at 95*.
The walk-in cooler from the Master-Bilt example offers a compressor rated at BTUH 4662 (1/2 HP) or BTUH 6409 (3/4 HP). Those number are for 35* box temp at 90* ambient temp. It would obviously be easier still to maintain a 55* temp. Really is an apples and oranges comparison in terms of performance. The commercial box has 4" thick foam walls and a very tightly sealed door. The refrigeration system is significantly more robust and is far easier to service in place. Hard to fairly compare the two units. The walk-in has considerably more cooling capacity and is so much better insulated, that it seems a fair certainty that it would last longer, work better and be far more reliable in a hot garage setting.
Ref: http://www.missionrs.com/amfilerating/file/download/file_id/1209/
That said, the points about premature failure are what I’m concerned about, and obviously I agree that a failure in a 95 degree room would be bad news.
One would hate to come back from a vacation, only to discover your collection is cooked. This is why overkill isn’t such a bad thing. My friend’s walk-in cooler is also big enough to stand inside with the door closed. Definitely nicer pawing through the wine inside the cooler box, rather than standing in a hot garage trying to find something before all the cold air rushes out of the box.
Inside the house, the only real logical place for one of these besides the living room is a small upstairs room, and I’m concerned about the weight load (not to mention getting the thing up there). I’m thinking I’ll just bite the bullet and deal with having it in the living room. Maybe scale back and get a smaller one (which could get by with a smaller/quieter cooling unit) and leave more in offsite…
I have no idea what you house is like and what your summers temp are (beyond the provided graph). I also don’t know how big your garage is and what kind of space you have to work with. I was just trying to throw out an idea as food for thought. Might not be a workable solution for you, but it may be for someone else reading this post.
Sean, it obviously your choice but I think your getting some misleading info. Your garage is not 90 all the time. Guessing off the graph you provided I bet it’s more like 80 for an average. Not if you extend that average out over time for a year, it goes down even further. The le cache works just fine in a garage. It is not at its maximum capacity and does not run all the time. It cycles just like my fridge out there does.
Again, I have the largest cooler just for this environment.
I purchased a walk in wine cooler one year ago and assembled it in the garage. I’m in SoCal and so far, so good-the cooling system is keeping up and does not run all the time.
Hi,
I just want to add (and retract what I said earlier). I had my first unit failure in the garage.
Now scrambling to find a way to keep all that wine cool… I am in SoCal and it’s been really hot lately,
so that probably helped. And it looks like it going to get worse year over year.
I will now consider external storage, I don’t want to have to deal with this ever again…
Cheers
JF
Two buckets and regular trips to get more dry ice until you get the unit replaced.
Thanks, I have been using ice to keep everything cool and so far the temp has been constant.
Cheers,
JF
At the risk of asking a question with an obvious answer, what are you doing with the ice? Or rather, where are you putting it? My only solution if the garage unit failed would be to bring every bottle inside the house and turn the AC way down until I could source a new cooling unit.
If I had to store at home but not in the house I’d look seriously at one of those commercial walk-ins that Z posted, probably used to save money – restaurants are always going belly-up so one in good condition shouldn’t be too hard to find.
If I already had a cabinet unit and wanted to use it in a garage I’d think about roughly framing out and insulating a small room to contain it, adding a window rattler to bring that small room down maybe to the eighties or upper seventies, sort of a two-stage cooling system.
I keep mine inside and it got super high. Garage seems killer.
Listen to Chris! He’s in the business and very knowledgeable
Actually, it has not been so bad. I am close to the beach.
I put block ice at the top of the cabinet and put a probe in the cabinet measuring the air temperature
that I can monitor on the internet. It stayed stable around 62-62.5 degrees since yesterday morning.
I know because I have taken a temperature sample every 5 minutes.
The bottle are still cold to the touch tonight.
Just to test, I put another probe in the house (in a closed bathroom with an AC vent) and it went down
to about 66 (with the AC at 70). So I am still better with block ice at the top of the cabinet. But I am
monitoring the temp closely.
LeCache customer support were awesome, they rushed an replacement unit and I will get it tomorrow.
So overall I was without refrigeration for 2 days with a max temp of about 62.5. All in all, not so bad.
Obviously I kept my cheaper stuff in there to maintain the thermal mass.Moved the most expensive stuff
to another unit I had.
But I will be looking at external storage for the most expensive/ageworthy stuff.
Just wanted to share the experience.
Cheers,
JF
I have one of my two wine cabinets, an old Vinotemp, in my garage. I know, bad idea, though I had a new condenser put on a year or two ago and it seems to do well.
Anyway, particularly in this hot year, my garage stays pretty hot, particularly with a fridge and a wine cabinet in it. This of course worries me, in the sense that (a) it will likely wear the Vinotemp out faster, (b) it wastes energy, and (c) if it fails and I don’t notice it for awhile, the wines could be subjected to high temperatures (unlike in the house, where it would just be at the 70s house temperature and probably fine until I noticed and had service done).
The other issue for me is that the garage sits squarely below our master bedroom. I wonder if the heat in the garage makes it harder to cool our bedroom, which also is on the south-facing side of the house and gets more sun.
We have four “whole house fans” in the house, and (with the exception of this unusually humid summer and fall with warm evenings) works well to cool down the house in the evenings. Basically, they blow air out of roof vents, which creates a suction for air to be pulled in through open windows. In a climate where, in most summers besides this one, the evening temperatures still drop into the 60s, that works great to save AC electricity costs and power usage.
Could I put some kind of attic / house fan type of thing into the garage, to keep it from trapping in so much heat? The garage doesn’t have openable windows, so I guess that would require two openings of some sort, one for a fan to blow air out, the other for air to come in. And the fan would have to be temperature activated, I guess, rather than manual.
Has anyone heard of such a thing? And does it make any sense for me to consider?
One last thing – I’ve heard some of y’all have temperature monitors for your wine cabinets, so you get alerted on your cell phone or something if there is a breakdown and temperatures rise. Can anyone point me to a good and (hopefully) low cost option for that?
Many thanks, fellow berserkers.
Lacrosse Alerts provides a nice unit the gives you temperature and humidity, can add on alerts, monitor remotely, etc…
I don’t see why you couldn’t have some type of fan/circulation tied to a thermostat in the garage. Another consideration is to insulate the garage door which could help keep the garage cooler as well (assuming a conventional metal garage door). Home Depot sells some kits for this.
As for the temperature monitors I’ve only heard of them used in reference with the CellarPro units, but there are independent units. I found this on Amazon: http://www.amazon.com/La-Crosse-D111-101-E1-WGB-Wireless-Monitor/dp/B0081UR76G/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1414003029
This one seems useful as the sensor is battery operated and alerts when the battery is low.
Investigate a swamp cooler. My dad uses one in his Arizona desert garage to keep it reasonable in 110 degree heat. He’s got two fridges and a freezer in there and the whole thing stays nice and cool. Wish we had one at our place, but I’m not handy enough, unlike that side of the family, to set one up.
I don’t know how much this will help you down south but I open my Garage door at night and in the morning to get some cool air circulating. I have a Vinoteque in my garage.
Same. Even keep the garage door cracked during really hot days to allow circulation. Just watch out for wayward animals ;-D