How to prepare your Home Wine Cellar
The low temperature and high humidity of a wine storage environment is a perfect recipe for mold. Not only can mold make you sick, but it can also destroy your home and your wine. A properly designed wine room can guarantee years of use without any issues.
This is a very common area that gets overlooked not only by homeowners, but also by Contractors and can easily cause a bunch of trouble later down the road. If you have any questions at all please call anytime. Its easier to do it right the first time and a heck of a lot cheaper.
In this article we will cover the following:
1) Vapor Barriers
2) Insulation
3) Wall board
4) Texture and Paint
The first thing to assess is where the room will be located and what type of wall structure is present. Common areas are under a stairwell, in a basement or in a closet.
1) Vapor Barrier
If located in a basement, make sure that there are no issues with water pooling during the rainy season. Fill all cracks in the concrete, and then seal the concrete to prevent any excess moisture from entering the room.
If building in a room with traditional stick framing, a vapor barrier is necessary because of the high humidity (50%-80%) and low temperatures (50-60 degrees) required to store wine. 6mil plastic is the most common and most affordable material. Apply the plastic to the warm side of the room if possible. If the walls are already covered on the warm side of the wine room, it will be necessary to wrap all of the studs completely with the plastic, and attach using a staple gun and some canned spray adhesive. Make sure to overlap all seems at least 6″ to prevent any gaps in the barrier and always start from the bottom and work up. Seal all holes, including those from the stapler. If there are any hard to reach areas or difficult corners, a spray-in insulation such as Dow’s Great Stuff will get the job done easily.
2) Insulation
Kraft faced fiberglass-batt insulation, rigid foam insulation, or blown-in micro cell insulation? All of them work well but what are the advantages of each. To begin, the blown in insulation is by far the most expensive, but offers two steps in one; it also works as a vapor barrier. Because of its low air void when dry, this is a great way of guarenteeing that you have a rock solid vapor barrier with a high insulating factor. Blown in insulation fills all the little nooks and crannies with ease, but make sure you are using a well established company that has a history of using this product. We work exclusively with the best in the Northwest and can recommend a tried and trusted company and product for your needs.
The other two options are very similar in performance but a bit different when it comes to installation. Rigid foam insulation is cut to the size of the cavity with a hand saw and held on with a screw and plastic washer. Fiberglass-batt insulation is tucked into the stud cavity with the Kraft-faced side towards the warm side. This adds another vapor barrier to protect the insulation from any additional moisture.
3) Wall Board
Now that the Vapor Barrier is installed and the insulation is complete, its time to cover up the walls. Because of the high humidity environment of a wine room, it is very important to use a moisture rated wall covering, the most popular being “greenboard”. Greenboard is another name for moisture resistant sheetrock, or drywall. The paper that covers the gypsum core is coated with green wax, hence the name. Make sure you contractor knows the importance of this step, installing traditional paper faced drywall will lead to some serious mold problems in a short amount of time.
4) Texture and Paint
Any type of texture will work fine for a wine room. The key is the paint. Using any vapor rated paint will guarentee that mold will never stand a chance and will last a long, long time without premature peeling or flaking.