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D deemancpaMember
Hi Guys,

Dee checking in here. I'm in Va by way of TX, by way of Nassau BS and grew up in Chicago(never returned)

I joined here back in 2012 and never really posted, just searched.

I love wine, cognac and cigars. Recently built a Mancave last year for cigar smoking and movie theater.

I have wine in storage I'm waiting to bring home.

I'm thinking about building a cellar or buying a 1130 bottle Vino Temp Walk-In Wine Vault(any comments on this would be greatly appreciated)

Dee
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D danyullMember
quote:
Originally posted by Deemancpa:
Hi Guys,

Dee checking in here. I'm in Va by way of TX, by way of Nassau BS and grew up in Chicago(never returned)

I joined here back in 2012 and never really posted, just searched.

I love wine, cognac and cigars. Recently built a Mancave last year for cigar smoking and movie theater.

I have wine in storage I'm waiting to bring home.

I'm thinking about building a cellar or buying a 1130 bottle Vino Temp Walk-In Wine Vault(any comments on this would be greatly appreciated)

Dee


Welcome! I'm currently building my own after owning a cabinet. How many bottles do you have right now?
D deemancpaMember
quote:
Originally posted by Danyull:
quote:
Originally posted by Deemancpa:
Hi Guys,

Dee checking in here. I'm in Va by way of TX, by way of Nassau BS and grew up in Chicago(never returned)

I joined here back in 2012 and never really posted, just searched.

I love wine, cognac and cigars. Recently built a Mancave last year for cigar smoking and movie theater.

I have wine in storage I'm waiting to bring home.

I'm thinking about building a cellar or buying a 1130 bottle Vino Temp Walk-In Wine Vault(any comments on this would be greatly appreciated)

Dee


Welcome! I'm currently building my own after owning a cabinet. How many bottles do you have right now?


Wow! That's awesome! I have a small collection of approx 300 bottles on site..and 25 cases off

Thoughts on large walk in? I have space to build a cellar, just can't decide on what to do.

d
D danyullMember
quote:
Originally posted by Deemancpa:
quote:
Originally posted by Danyull:
quote:
Originally posted by Deemancpa:
Hi Guys,

Dee checking in here. I'm in Va by way of TX, by way of Nassau BS and grew up in Chicago(never returned)

I joined here back in 2012 and never really posted, just searched.

I love wine, cognac and cigars. Recently built a Mancave last year for cigar smoking and movie theater.

I have wine in storage I'm waiting to bring home.

I'm thinking about building a cellar or buying a 1130 bottle Vino Temp Walk-In Wine Vault(any comments on this would be greatly appreciated)

Dee


Welcome! I'm currently building my own after owning a cabinet. How many bottles do you have right now?


Wow! That's awesome! I have a small collection of approx 300 bottles on site..and 25 cases off

Thoughts on large walk in? I have space to build a cellar, just can't decide on what to do.

d


Definitely build your own. It's actually not too expensive or difficult. For the cost of a nice Eurocave, or what I had, a Le Cache, you can build yourself a very functional room. The racking is what will drive up your costs. If you just get shelving with bins, you will be able to reduce your costs quite a bit and still have a ton of storage.
G gregtMember
For my 2 cts, building is cheaper, buying is easier. If you make something that you want to show people into, then it can be expensive. I never really understood that thinking however and never particularly cared to show off a collection of anything. The cellar was for storage prior to drinking, that's all.

In any event, you can build something fairly quickly. Then you need to figure out how you'll cool it. You can pay a lot of money for wine cooling devices or trick out an air conditioner. The cooling principle is exactly the same in both cases, they're just sized for different purposes but if you get an oversize AC, and the smallest one you can buy is going to be oversize, you'll have sufficient capacity to drive down the cooling temp w/out too much problem. In your area they use old ACs to build meat lockers, which need to be colder than a wine room.

Racking, as mentioned, can be expensive. If you're handy, you can build them yourself. If you buy them, they'll cost you more.

Racking is going to be the issue no matter what you do because there's not a perfect solution. The best is probably to have a separate slot for each bottle. That also wastes the most space so over-build if that's the direction you go.

If you buy a wine fridge, you can never really find the stuff in back unless you take out everything in front. If you make bins, it's a real pain to take out the bottom bottles, particularly if you have Rhone-shaped bottles, which don't stack very well at all. One thing you could do however, is make the racks slightly angled so that when stacking, the wine won't want to dump on the floor.

Also, if you build, make sure you learn all about insulation and where you put it. It won't do you any good to insulate the hell out of your walls and ignore the ceiling and door. Whatever has the least insulation is what your cellar will have. I can't stand fiberglass, but when people build cellars they always insist on using wood studs and fiberglass insulation for some reason.

Finally, if you're in a place where you may get basement floods, think about that. If you use wood racks, which you probably will, I'd put a coat or two of polyurethane on them first. Easier to wipe off spills too.

There are some other threads on this subject, both here and on other sites. Do a couple searches. Good luck.
P parcivalMember
quote:
Originally posted by GregT:
For my 2 cts, building is cheaper, buying is easier. If you make something that you want to show people into, then it can be expensive. I never really understood that thinking however and never particularly cared to show off a collection of anything. The cellar was for storage prior to drinking, that's all.

In any event, you can build something fairly quickly. Then you need to figure out how you'll cool it. You can pay a lot of money for wine cooling devices or trick out an air conditioner. The cooling principle is exactly the same in both cases, they're just sized for different purposes but if you get an oversize AC, and the smallest one you can buy is going to be oversize, you'll have sufficient capacity to drive down the cooling temp w/out too much problem. In your area they use old ACs to build meat lockers, which need to be colder than a wine room.

Racking, as mentioned, can be expensive. If you're handy, you can build them yourself. If you buy them, they'll cost you more.

Racking is going to be the issue no matter what you do because there's not a perfect solution. The best is probably to have a separate slot for each bottle. That also wastes the most space so over-build if that's the direction you go.

If you buy a wine fridge, you can never really find the stuff in back unless you take out everything in front. If you make bins, it's a real pain to take out the bottom bottles, particularly if you have Rhone-shaped bottles, which don't stack very well at all. One thing you could do however, is make the racks slightly angled so that when stacking, the wine won't want to dump on the floor.

Also, if you build, make sure you learn all about insulation and where you put it. It won't do you any good to insulate the hell out of your walls and ignore the ceiling and door. Whatever has the least insulation is what your cellar will have. I can't stand fiberglass, but when people build cellars they always insist on using wood studs and fiberglass insulation for some reason.

Finally, if you're in a place where you may get basement floods, think about that. If you use wood racks, which you probably will, I'd put a coat or two of polyurethane on them first. Easier to wipe off spills too.

There are some other threads on this subject, both here and on other sites. Do a couple searches. Good luck.


Greg . . . that's a great overview.

My two cents ... I have a passive cellar that maintains temp between a low of 53 and a high of 65. Humidity hovers in the 45 - 60% range. I have separate slot racking that holds 600 bottles. 4 years ago, I thought this would keep me pretty much for good. Back then I had ~150-200 bottles. I never suspected I would go above 600 bottles assuming that purchases and regular drinking would help limit the number of bottles in my cellar. I am now at close to 1400 bottles with most of those bottles in an offsite wine storage facility and have no room right now to grow my in-home cellar

Long story short, when people say pick a number and multiple that by 3 or 4 (or more), that is a very reasonable suggestion.

Greg points out great practical issues re: flooding and insulation that you should definitely keep in mind. If you want to keep everything home and are not concerned about show-casing the collection, you should spend some time figuring out how to maximize bottle capacity

Anyway, good luck and welcome.
C cellarnewbie
Just went through this as well. Agree that it's cheaper to build, and gives you a lot more flexibility in design / configuration than a large standalone unit. You can find detailed instructions online and helpful advice on this forum (as evidenced by the comments above). If you're handy, you can certainly build the room out yourself.

If you hire out, get at least 3 quotes. I met with a few general contractors who all quoted me well under $10k (excl. racks or A/C). I did get one absurd quote for $65k-$100k, but that person was more interested in building out a "designer cellar" despite my directive that the 10'x10' space was just for wine storage and not where the Queen would sleep when she gets around to visiting our home.

Needless to say, I went with one of the more reasonable quotes and just made sure the builder knew exactly what I wanted (vapor barrier, preferred R values, etc.) and got the job done in 5 days. From my perspective, it was very easy to work with a basic contractor when I knew exactly all of the steps that had to be done to get the room insulated correctly (those online directions are really quite helpful).

Depending on your home and location of the cellar, you may want to try to start with a well-insulated passive cellar. We had our contractor frame out and mark a space for a cooling unit but plan on spending a year monitoring the temp fluctuations to see if it's necessary. If we need a unit, it'll be easy to add the venting into the wall down the road.

This is a fun home project, so enjoy and best of luck!

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