Basement wine storage
0I’m buying an old home. Like 100+ years old. Found out that it has an old basement that has been closed off. It used to have a boiler, but that is no longer functional. Basement was never “finished out”. I do know it can collect water and has a sump pump in place, so humidity is an issue. It is rare to have a basement in Texas, but during an inspection yesterday (99 degrees outside) I noticed how cool it was in there. That got me to thinking about putting in some floor access and creating a wine cellar. It would take an undertaking to make this happen, but I don’t want to get halfway into a large project just to find out it isn’t feasible. Anyone have any experience in this? Advice or pitfalls?
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I have an old house with a coal room, which is dark and cool all year round. I live in central Wisconsin, so temps are not an issue – but throw a thermometer/hygrometer in there (cheap one costs south of 20 bucks) and plot the temp on extreme humidity/temp days. If it stays below 68 or so you are golden.
@nicksmithg @mwfielder The key of course is consistent temperature throughout the day/night. Any room that goes 24 hours with almost no variance, all year, will be a very good wine cellar. Even if the temperature in some part of the year stays above 70. This is what I’ve read, but also tasted! My boss has a basement that stays even throughout every day, though in the summer the temperature is almost 76 F. I’ve had wine cellared there for 14 years and the wine lasted great.
What an opportunity!
Frame in a little room with a trap door through the kitchen floor.
This sort of thing:
https://wikiecloud.us/kitchen-wine-cellar-trap-door/
@FritzCat Yep, should definitely get one of those.
@FritzCat That is exactly what I want to do!!!
You can also add some temperature stabilizing elements to the basement if it doesn’t meet your needs. Also remember that the temperature will change much more slowly in your wine than in the air, so a variance of 5 degrees F during a 24 hour cycle isn’t going to move your wine temperature by more than (roughly) a degree or two.
You can also add cooling and humidity control - the latter may be important in your situation.
And if you want to spend less money on it, you could also just put things in styrofoam down there and that’ll give you a much wider latitude in how much air temperature variation you can handle while minimizing wine temperature variations.
@klezman But the BTU capacity of wine is much higher, ergo, fill 'er up to stabilize even more.
@klezman @rjquillin Yeah, that’s my philosophy!