Wine Cellars

[Triassic]

It's chucked it down all day here, so the wife is stuck indoors with a pile of house magazines. The problem is she's spotted one of those spiral wine cellars and wants to know how difficult would it be to build one under our, soon to be built, utility room?

 

So not wanting to let her down just yet, I said I know someone to ask, leave it to me.

 

As an aside, the local farmer has three large concrete rings in a field close to us, no doubt I could do a deal with him for them!

 

Over to you.

[Barney12]

Sorry, can't help. I've never understood the concept of "storing" wine.

I prefer the "buy it and drink it" methodology. Repeat as required.

 

@Onoff will be along in a minute with a blueprint for a home brew wine cellar made from concrete rings and 110mm drainage pipe offcuts to store the bottles.

[Triassic]

I must admit, I only went along with her 'scheme' because I was thinking a cellar might be a cool place to store veg and other items! 

[gravelld]

The thing to consider is whether you are piercing the insulation under your floor, and how to rectify.

 

A far cheaper option, if you have the space, are the Liebherr storage fridges. You get at best about 250 bottles in one (at best meaning Bordeaux style bottles).

 

What wine needs is consistent temperature, ideally about 12C, no vibration, darkness, and the right amount of humidity to not allow corks to dry out. So if you can do that some other way, do that, because I bet those spiral cellars are priced for "lifestyle" if you get my meaning.

[Alexphd1]

Expensive larder!

It was the james bond style door that took my eye! 

 

 

[Ferdinand]

I think if you want it to be really impressive you need one that comes up out of the floor to avoid the labour of going down the staircase.

 

There is perhaps a lot to be said for installing it in a structure dug into a small hill outside.

 

Who was it who said they had lots of spoil to dispose of?

[PeterW]

Spiral cellar starts at £15,000 installed ....

 

So far, my wine cellar has cost me £14 for a sheet of OSB and by the time I'm finished it will probably owe me £200 in total...

 

Let me explain ..!

 

We are doing a partial conversion of an old double garage and it has an inspection pit - 5ft deep, 9ft long and 3ft wide. Was bone dry when we bought it and I refused to just fill it in. 

 

Walls are 6" hollow blocks and they are solid - I think the floor is at least 6" thick concrete and the whole thing was perfect for wine ..! It now sits under a 100mm cast concrete lid that ties into the tops of the walls and then is covered by 75-90mm of Kingspan plus the 100mm of concrete over the top that also has the UFH in it.

 

Plan is to build a simple set of steps down into it, paint it all white and quarry tile the floor. It will then get some of the LED sensor strip lights between the wall and ceiling and I reckon it will hold about 400 bottles or so plus a nice selection of spirits ... there is a raised slab at one end that will be for cheese ...!

 

I plan to run a series of sensors in and around it - it gives me direct access to the soil temperature under the slab for example - and see how it performs. I think it's sat at around 11-13c even with the lid open to the elements for the last 6 months so I'm happy it will work. 

 

I think you could easily do the same with concrete rings - dig a hole and stick some DPM in it, concrete round the edge and then settle the first ring onto it. Let it go off, add the remaining rings and then cast the floor from inside. Capping it off could either be one of the concrete cast tops or just shutter and cast your own.