Wines, Vapor Barriers and Hot/Cold Side
Hey guys,
I’ve been doing some research on this subject and have come across a # of different (well actually 2) opinions on vapor barriers.
As the title states, this is for a wine room. My questions concern “where” the vapor barrier (6 mil plastic) goes.
9 out of 10 opinions I’ve seen say the vapor barrier goes on the warm side, which on a typical house (wall separating the interior/exterior), the warm side is the inside. Seems simple enough…
Our wine room is going to be built in an existing crawl space/basement opening. The house is on a slope, so theres storage room in one area. It’s not a finished off basement (as in concrete surrounding the entire area..just open space where the crawl space, footings, piers, etc are all accessible. Being on a slope, head room goes anywhere from 9 feet to 2 feet.
My questions concern the different walls/floor/ceiling and which side is the warm/cold side.
1) 2 of the wine room walls will be shared with “currently” exterior walls of the house…if that made sense. These 2 walls are currently exteior walls (exterior being in this crawl space), but once we close off our wine room, those walls will not be “exterior” anymore, as the wine room will be between them and the rest of the crawl space. For these 2 walls, I’d assume the house side is the warm side and our wine room will be the cold side….am I correct on this or way off??
2) The other 2 walls will be exterior (exterior still being in the crawl space). It’s these 2 walls where I’m unsure about. During the winter, the wine room will probably be warmer than the exterior (crawl space). Come summer time, it will probably be close as the crawlspace does not get warmer than 60 degrees or so. In this scenario, which side would one consider the warm side?
3) The ceiling of our wine room will be the floor of the house, so I’m assuming the wine room side is the cold side and the above side (floor of room(s) above) is the warm side.
4)Floor of our wine room will be raised, 2×8 or 2×10. This is similar to #2 (the 2 exterior walls), as in which side is the warm/cold side?
I realize this probably made very little sense, but I’d appreciate any input anyone has.
Thanks in advance,
James
PS….northern California…Bay Area…
Replies
Are you going to use an "air conditioner". IIRC conditioned wine cellars are much different than normal and the mositure drives different than want one expects. But I really, really don't remember the details that I have read.
But in reality it is not the tempature difference, but the moisture drive differences.
Try an advanced search, at the top of the page, for wine cellar.
Not know any more than I do about this I think that I would chicking out and either get the walls sprayed with foam or use 2" of XPS fosm.
With foam you don't have any descrete location where the vapor level or tempature level changes. The vapor retarder and the thermal barrier is continious across the thickness. So it works the same no matter which side has moistre and which side is hot or cold.
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
Bill,Thanks for the reply. The A/C unit is definitely a question. It's one I'm unsure of at the moment unfortunately. It's one of those where we don't know how warm the room will get during peak summer season. Being that it's already halfway (somewhat) underground, I'd expect it to stay fairly cool and that we won't end up needing one. However if temps do creep up then we will definitely need one. So I'm guessing it's something we need to know up front or atleast have a good idea of up front?The plan is to bring in a dedicated circuit and frame out a hole for an a/c unit just in case we do need it. That way we're ready to go if we find temps do get warmer than we like. We're not 100% picky about temps being 55 degrees. We definitely don't want them going over 65 or so.
BTW, I used "air conditioner" in quotes because I don't think that "real" wine cellars use window AC units.I would at least done some reason on what conditions are desired. IIRC you want to keep the humidity level much higher than with an air conditioner..
.
A-holes. Hey every group has to have one. And I have been elected to be the one. I should make that my tagline.
The "air conditioner" units I've looked at are the Breezaire and the Whisperkool units. They both claim to hold temps in the 55-58 range and will keep the humidity at a constant range. However, neither of the "base" units I've looked at, "introduce" any humidity into an area..they just keep it the same.So if your room needs humidity that's another subject and from what I understand....either you need a more advanced "cooling" unit.....or one of the standard ones I mentioned above.....but might need to introduce your own humidifier of sorts to raise humidity levels. They make these as simple as a humidifier that you'd use if you were sick..and it steams.... or you can get stuff like mini waterfalls, etc.
We build the occasional cellar and drink more than the occasional cab, and in my humble opinion, most our customers would be better served skipping the refridgeration and spending the money on good reds. Anything worth using is outrageously expensive, due to the fact that by their nature, ref. units pull humidity out of the surrounding atomsphere, and will dry out your corks. Adding the extra humidity then causes moisture issues in most res. applications.Ask any wine snob, if the bottle is that good, put it in professional storage, or drink it with someone you like. A wine cellar or wine room is a great luxury and ususally a piece of art in its own right, a great place to crack a bottle and unwind, and even a good place to keep your wine, but only the stuff you plan to drink soon enough that temp./humidity doesn't matter.DCG Your Neighbor's Contractor LLC
"A wrongdoer is often a man who has left something undone, not always one who has done something."--Marcus Aurelius
Interesting... seems obvious now that you state it here, but my FIL bought a wine fridge a number of years ago which holds a few hundred bottles at controlled temperatures. We often wondered what the heck was going on because it seemed far to often that bottles had gone bad. It must have been exactly what you pointed out.... instead of taking good care of the wine... the cooling unit was creating a problem by drying out the corks.
Kinda makes me rethink my own thoughts about how to store these goodies.
hmm..
Duke,Thanks for the input. To cool or not to cool a room seems to be a "not so straghtforward" task as I'm seeing. Going by from what I've been reading (not saying it's 100% accurate), cooling units for wine rooms are not supposed to remove humidity from the room, but keep it constant. The units I mentioned above "claim" to do just that....not remove humidity due to their slower cooling process.Breezaire...http://www.breezaire.com/products.aspWhisperkool...http://www.whisperkool.com/whisper/wk_xlt_features.htmlFrom your post, I gathered that you've installed a few cooling units. Were those cooling units for wine rooms specifically or general window type a/c units? If they were wine room cooling units and you've found that they are indeed drying out the air and removing humidity, then by all means, I'd think twice about spending money on one of these that claims to do one thing and yet, does the opposite?As far as how long someone should keep a bottle of wine... that's a tough question. If, for example, an individual or (husband and wife, family, etc) has a collection that keeps growing... 200...300.....500...bottles....and higher... What would be a reasonable time to expect them to drink those in? LOL 6 months? 1 year? 2 years? I think the potential for storing a few bottles for quite some time is present if you have a large collection (not that I do..but someday).So are you better off only keeping in stock what you know you can drink in the next few months at the most? Is there any possibility that you may keep some wines for a longer period of time? I think it's a tough call. I am by NO means a wine expert, so trying to figure it as much as possible about the (why's, why nots, how to, how not to, etc) before we dig in.Your comment about the "Adding the extra humidity then causes moisture issues in most res. applications." is exactly why I started this thread in the first place as I'm extremely interested in the possible moisture issues.
FWIW..
In the last 5 yrs. I have built two wineries , Built a vineyard owner/wine makers home and remodeled a home for a couple who are both winemakers and vineyard owners.
All of the these people simply stored their own wines in their basements. No special equipment, just insulated as best as could be done within the confines of the structure.
Besides .. in a few years corks won't be being used much anyway. Too many problems in supply and demand of the cork, as well as the simple fact it doesn't work as well as a screw top. And yes, screw tops are going on some of the best Pinot Noir available. Edit. I should have made clear that the wineries themselves did have systems in place to keep the storage areas and barrel rooms within prescribed parameters, but the owners own home storage was not that way.
Edited 2/13/2007 2:04 pm ET by dovetail97128
Dovetail, yes I've noticed that regarding the screw caps coming back. I think many people associate screw caps with a bottle of port you used to (and maybe still do) see people drinking on the street out of a brown paper bag. The truth is though, that yes, they can seal bottles better with those.Regarding the two basement wine rooms you built...were the basements full basements..as in completely underground so that they had the earth as their insulation? Full concrete walls? Or were these half and half above/below exterior grade?
jja28,
Both had two walls that were exterior full buried concrete. The other two walls were common to the heated basement. We put the vapor barrier to the heated side in the insulated common walls.
I actually did one other that was a barrel storage/ finished wine storage .
Full basement. About 1/2 and 1/2 for exposure to the ouside, 8" concrete walls, uninsulated. That one ended up needing heat in the winter because the final fermentation was slowed down by the cool temps inside in the winter. That is not uncoommon even in new wineries.
Dovetail, that's some interesting information there. It sounds like there is quite a bit of wine activity in the Oregon area? or did you do this work elsewhere?Being that (at least the first of the two) was underground, it was insulated very well and I doubt the temps rose much at all? The heated part of the basement....was that heated full time as in they used that area as part of daily life? Or more so was it on it's own heating zone, and kept at a cooler temp than the rest of the house?In our case, where we'll have a couple of common walls with the house, and our celing will be common to the floor above, I was planning on the vabor barrier to the warm side there (the current house side). However our floor and 2 exterior walls of our room will be not have anything to the outside. Would you put a vapor barrier on those also or not? Those are the ones I'm confused about as which is the warm side, sinch our room will not heated, so it shouldn't be the warm side?
If you are interested Do a search of Ore. Wines or Vineyards. Ore and parts of Wa. have become like the Napa Valley was 40 yrs. ago. Becoming a huge industry here. All the work for me has been within 30 miles of my house.
I would vapor barrier to the heated side of all walls shared with heated spaces.
Moisture barrier under the floor.
Now the big issue is what is your local climate..how big a temperature/humidity swings will be happening in the space that the other two walls/floor share?
That is a micro climate thing. If you are in the Mid-west it is one answer, a different answer in Georgia for instance. Also how deep underground are you putting this room? Is it going into a 8' basement that has a large amount of mass shielded from the daily temp swings? Do you have "excessive" moisture in the crawl space now?
I would be very tempted to use concrete block to build the two walls shared with the crawl space. You are trying to re-create a cave or tunnel...relatively constant temps and humidity so the more mass you can pack into the space the better it works once brought to the desired temp..
jja28, did you figure out the hot/cold side vapor barrier? I have similar issue, each wall a different situation, adjacent interior/exterior, above/below grade, etc. (even the ceiling a mix of under conditioned/unconditioned space), resulting in hot/cold sides differing per season.
I was planning on the vabor barrier to the warm side there (the current house side). However our floor and 2 exterior walls of our room will be not have anything to the outside.