Wine Cellars : Adding Luxury To Your Home:

Part One : Plotting and Prepping

by: Liz Roberts

A wine cellar is a great addition to any home. Not only will it allow you to store your wines, it will also let you expand your collection. Instead of just keeping a small oenolibrary, you can expand to include variations as well as indulging in locally grown vintages. A wine cellar also increases the resale value of your home. It’s a little more time intensive than installing any other kind of room but well worth it in the end.

The first and most important step is planning. Ask yourself how many bottles am I going to store? You don’t have to install all the racking at once but give yourself an idea. You may start out with twenty or thirty bottles but as time goes by you’ll be adding to your collection. Also you’ll be receiving bottles as gifts as well. Figure where you’ll be in a year or two year’s time. You may be adding as much as fifty more bottles of wine or champagne. This brings you to the second point- your wine cellar’s expandability. Will or can you expand its’ dimensions once the collection grows bigger? If that’s what you eventually want, choose a larger area of your basement. Remember you’ll also have to install a cooler that will efficiently cool the room. Electricity, as well, plays a vital factor. A bare minimum wine cellar requires only a light bulb with chain and an outlet for your cooler. The cooler is best allocated a separate circuit(the larger the room, the more important it is). Back up power will be needed too., especially if the main source goes out during a power failure.\(which can give you basically a room full of vinegar or hot wine especially during a summer heat wave).Having a separate circuit for your cooler is a helpful start in creating the perfect wine cellar. Keep it attached also to a separate independent generator located outside your house.

Wall thickness can make or break a wine cellar. You can position it so that the room will be against your home’s foundation. The interior walls however will have to be constructed from 2’by 4’s. These contain the right amount of insulation, R 11. (you can also buy ones that have R13 or R15). If your basement is above ground and facing the sun, you’ll have to construct walls with thicker insulation. Your cellar’s flooring and ceiling are other matters to consider. If your basement has a concrete floor, you will have to build a raised floor over it. Cement wicks away moisture and allows heat passages to flow freely. The ceiling should also be insulated and the room protected from any heating ducts that might warm it (and the wine.)

Once you’ve planned out the actual room, it’s now time to think about the door. It has to be a well fitted one and heavily insulated. The perfect type would be the kind that connects a garage to the house. You can install a windowed door, but remember it will not be as effective as a solid door. it won’t be as insulated, thus allowing some degree of heat to seep in.

After the walls, floor, ceiling and door have been figured out you can start looking at your wine cellar’s inside dimensions. This is important because you want to get the maximum utilization for your racks. Each rack column takes up about thirteen inches. Make sure you’ll be able to fit them in nicely without wasted space. Experiment with layouts during this crucial planning phase.

The last, but perhaps most significant part is positioning your cooler. Cooling equipment is generally mounted between studs. Do not plan to place it directly opposite the entryway door. Also it needs to be put in such a way that you can get to its’ back cooling fins for their annual cleaning.

Once everything has been plotted and planned down to the inch, it is now time to start deconstructing the intended area. You’ll need to remove any existing drywalls to make way for later installations of vapor barriers. Using a utility knife, vertically cut through them. Peel the drywall off of the studs, using a section approach. (meaning pull off the dry wall in strips, not hunks). After finishing, tidy up the edges and now remove all remaining nails and drywall screws. Remember to turn off the power because you may accidentally hit a wire. Also remember to wear heavy gloves when doing this. If you do happen to nick a wire, assess the damage and replace it as necessary. Remove any insulation in the wall. You may be able to reuse it if it’s not too damaged.

These are the first steps in the installation of the perfect wine cellar. Plan it carefully down to the last inch. Then deconstruct and prep the area to ensure that the next steps go smoothly. The beginning is crucial to having an easy time installing and a wine cellar built to last.