How do you store your wine [+ Fridge/Cabinet recommendations]

I have a $20 off voucher for Appliances online if you want it - just PM me and I'll send you the code
 
I have a $20 off voucher for Appliances online if you want it - just PM me and I'll send you the code
Thanks VPS.

Finally, I got Euro Appliances 165 Bottle Dual Zone Wine Cooler from Costco, Now They are doing special, with $200 discount, Total is $1499.

Does a compressor man tall wine fridge have a life span? I google it said generally can last 10-15 years. Is this true? Mine last 13 years. I expected it should last forever.
 
So we finally did a renovation of our house. Had a “room” under the garage which housed the airconditoning compressors. 30 years on, the new conpressors are 20% of the size of the old ones and fit on the side of the house. This left me with a room of about 4m x 2m x 1.8m. Double brick and single brick walls, with the single brick half buried in soil. Concrete slab floor and no roof.

I got the builders to raise the brickwork to 2m and then insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels. Also the door, together with airtight seals. Installed a Winemaster C25 for cooling and racking and shelving plus some LED strips for lighting. Now holds >1000 bottles.

Sold my Vintec and Winemaster fridges on Facebook Marketplace.

Going well so far. I can post some photos if there is any interest.
 
So we finally did a renovation of our house. Had a “room” under the garage which housed the airconditoning compressors. 30 years on, the new conpressors are 20% of the size of the old ones and fit on the side of the house. This left me with a room of about 4m x 2m x 1.8m. Double brick and single brick walls, with the single brick half buried in soil. Concrete slab floor and no roof.

I got the builders to raise the brickwork to 2m and then insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels. Also the door, together with airtight seals. Installed a Winemaster C25 for cooling and racking and shelving plus some LED strips for lighting. Now holds >1000 bottles.

Sold my Vintec and Winemaster fridges on Facebook Marketplace.

Going well so far. I can post some photos if there is any interest.

Would love to see some photos. Congrats on the new cellar :)
 
So we finally did a renovation of our house. Had a “room” under the garage which housed the airconditoning compressors. 30 years on, the new conpressors are 20% of the size of the old ones and fit on the side of the house. This left me with a room of about 4m x 2m x 1.8m. Double brick and single brick walls, with the single brick half buried in soil. Concrete slab floor and no roof.

I got the builders to raise the brickwork to 2m and then insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels. Also the door, together with airtight seals. Installed a Winemaster C25 for cooling and racking and shelving plus some LED strips for lighting. Now holds >1000 bottles.

Sold my Vintec and Winemaster fridges on Facebook Marketplace.

Going well so far. I can post some photos if there is any interest.

Yes please
 
So we finally did a renovation of our house. Had a “room” under the garage which housed the airconditoning compressors. 30 years on, the new conpressors are 20% of the size of the old ones and fit on the side of the house. This left me with a room of about 4m x 2m x 1.8m. Double brick and single brick walls, with the single brick half buried in soil. Concrete slab floor and no roof.

I got the builders to raise the brickwork to 2m and then insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels. Also the door, together with airtight seals. Installed a Winemaster C25 for cooling and racking and shelving plus some LED strips for lighting. Now holds >1000 bottles.

Yes, photos please, also do you mind sharing specs/ball park costs of these items?
- insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels
- the door + airtight seals.
- Winemaster C25 for cooling
- racking and shelving
- LED strips for lighting

(I'm starting a house build and wanna budget in a wine cellar as well...just gotta work out how many bottles of future wine purchases I gotta give up for the cellar :)
 
Yes, photos please, also do you mind sharing specs/ball park costs of these items?
- insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels
- the door + airtight seals.
- Winemaster C25 for cooling
- racking and shelving
- LED strips for lighting

(I'm starting a house build and wanna budget in a wine cellar as well...just gotta work out how many bottles of future wine purchases I gotta give up for the cellar :)
I will post some photos tomorrow. I don’t have all the prices but here are some:
Joinery (racking/ shelving and LED strips) was about $7k. I had to compromise on what I wanted to get this down to this amount.
The Winemaster was about $4k plus installation.
The remaining work including insulation, door seal, brickwork, electrical, etc took the total to about $20k.

Not cheap but comparable to Vintec per bottle and it’s much easier to access the wine so was worth it for me.
 
Yes, photos please, also do you mind sharing specs/ball park costs of these items?
- insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels
- the door + airtight seals.
- Winemaster C25 for cooling
- racking and shelving
- LED strips for lighting

(I'm starting a house build and wanna budget in a wine cellar as well...just gotta work out how many bottles of future wine purchases I gotta give up for the cellar :)
So here are some photos.

Our house is on a steep block and the garage is separate from the house itself. Because of the slope, there is plenty of space below the actual garage and there was a room which housed the old air-conditioning compressors. The outer walls are double brick and the inner walls singe brick i repurposed that room for the cellar and you can see the results.

The paint still needs some touching up. I’ve got custom shelves on the bottom half for wine still in boxes and racking above. I wanted the diamond shaped shelving instead of racking but it was too expensive so just got the wire ones, which are fine. I got a different racking system for the spot behind the door where the bottles lie sideways. Some sparkling bottles don’t fit the normal racks so will probably use those more.
You can see I still have quite a bit of space to fill 😉
The floor is concrete slab and the builder had some leftover engineered floorboards which they laid on top.
I also too a photo of the edge of the door so you can see the depth of the insulation. That covers the walls and ceiling with plasterboard over the top.
For the outside wall which gets the sun - this is double brick with the insulation then inside that.
The one weak spot is the seal around the door. It’s more or less airtight but there is a bit of a gap in the insulation. The hood over the door stops most of the direct sun onto the door and so I think is adequate.
 

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I'm considering in my floorplan to have a wine room, 1.7x2.7

I don't want to spend too much on creating the room, as I only expect to live in this house for 3 to 5 years. When I sell it, I can remove racks and can be labelled as a storage room.

I was thinking of just having wine racks on either side of the room.
I can probably fit 2 X 99cm/L in length racks.

That would be 440 bottles, and only 1 level.

The wine racks I bought from Catch or Ozsale I'm unsure if I can stack them. I'm thinking on the top layer a plank of wood and that way I can fit 800 bottles + have 77cms extra space, plus floor space.

I'd love to do an insane fitout, but I think I'll do that in my next home.

insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels
- the door + airtight seals.
- Winemaster C25 for cooling - best option?
- racking and shelving

This room will have no window, it's literally an extension of the garage.


Hoping someone has done something similar!

I'm buying a Wi-Fi temperature gauge, to record daily temperature in my family homes seller. Obviously the temperature doesn't move much but I am concerned that in peak summer that the Cellar can get up to 23 or 24 degrees.
 
I'm considering in my floorplan to have a wine room, 1.7x2.7

I don't want to spend too much on creating the room, as I only expect to live in this house for 3 to 5 years. When I sell it, I can remove racks and can be labelled as a storage room.

I was thinking of just having wine racks on either side of the room.
I can probably fit 2 X 99cm/L in length racks.

That would be 440 bottles, and only 1 level.

The wine racks I bought from Catch or Ozsale I'm unsure if I can stack them. I'm thinking on the top layer a plank of wood and that way I can fit 800 bottles + have 77cms extra space, plus floor space.

I'd love to do an insane fitout, but I think I'll do that in my next home.

insulated the walls and ceiling with 75mm polystyrene foam panels
- the door + airtight seals.
- Winemaster C25 for cooling - best option?
- racking and shelving

This room will have no window, it's literally an extension of the garage.


Hoping someone has done something similar!

I'm buying a Wi-Fi temperature gauge, to record daily temperature in my family homes seller. Obviously the temperature doesn't move much but I am concerned that in peak summer that the Cellar can get up to 23 or 24 degrees.
Have a look at my earlier post in this thread for what we recently did. It’s pretty similar to what you are looking at doing. Happy to provide any more details of my experience.
 
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Have a look at my earlier post in this thread for what we recently did. It’s pretty similar to what you are looking at doing. Happy to provide any more details of my experience.
That's what I'm looking at, and someone else was looking to do the same on here

It won't be as pretty, but I just want it for storage on a budget.

How much was the C25? Is there huge advantages over a small split system?
 
Last edited:
That's what I'm looking at, and someone else was looking to do the same on here

It won't be as pretty, but I just want it for storage on a budget.

How much was the C25? Is there huge advantages over a small split system?

I think the major downside is the wall space and hence wine rack space it can take up. If you have the place for it, seems good. I was wall space limited and went with the PC15.

I'm sure I've posted my setup somewhere in this thread too.
 
That's what I'm looking at, and someone else was looking to do the same on here

It won't be as pretty, but I just want it for storage on a budget.
Ok. Not sure about your budget, but I am planning at least 10 yrs in the house and I think the cellar will add some value when we do sell. If I was only going to be here for 3 yrs or so I probably would not air condition or insulate.

Having said that, the polystyrene panels are not that expensive - it’s the installation that costs. If you are game to install the panels yourself then it’s probably worthwhile. You also need to think about the floor. If it’s concrete slab then all good, but if it’s on joists then you need to think about insulation for the floor as well

My previous solution was to go down to the fish markets and get some of their polystyrene boxes. Each holds about 15-30 bottles and they are excellent insulators. The biggest drawback is that they are a total pain to get into once they are filled and stacked.

Finally, one point on the C25 - it’s a “through the wall” unit so you need somewhere indoor or well sheltered that the back of the unit can vent into and there is also a tube for condensation to drain which needs to go somewhere. There is a ducted version called IN25 if through the wall doesn’t work for you. There are other brands as well.
 
Ok. Not sure about your budget, but I am planning at least 10 yrs in the house and I think the cellar will add some value when we do sell. If I was only going to be here for 3 yrs or so I probably would not air condition or insulate.

Having said that, the polystyrene panels are not that expensive - it’s the installation that costs. If you are game to install the panels yourself then it’s probably worthwhile. You also need to think about the floor. If it’s concrete slab then all good, but if it’s on joists then you need to think about insulation for the floor as well

My previous solution was to go down to the fish markets and get some of their polystyrene boxes. Each holds about 15-30 bottles and they are excellent insulators. The biggest drawback is that they are a total pain to get into once they are filled and stacked.

Finally, one point on the C25 - it’s a “through the wall” unit so you need somewhere indoor or well sheltered that the back of the unit can vent into and there is also a tube for condensation to drain which needs to go somewhere. There is a ducted version called IN25 if through the wall doesn’t work for you. There are other brands as well.
How difficult is installing these panels? My best mates a Tiler, other friends are Carpenters etc
It's on concrete, probably just place carpet in that room.
I would assume without a cooling unit, the temperature could be anyone's guess? I can have the unit between the room/garage(Otherwise, I believe I can run a unit through the ceiling)


I think the major downside is the wall space and hence wine rack space it can take up. If you have the place for it, seems good. I was wall space limited and went with the PC15.

I'm sure I've posted my setup somewhere in this thread too.

I'll have probably be building with 3000mm ceilings, I should have room. I have no idea how large this unit is this!

The room isn't large, 1.7 by 2.7. I doubt need a large unit to cool the space.

My brother has his "cellar" under his stairs, and just has a small S/S running 24/7.

I'm not on a budget, building the room actually costs me nothing. I was going to have an extended garage.

It's basically insulation, and a cooling unit. The wine racks I got 110 bottle racks for $125.(Easy to resell if need be down the future too)

When I do sell, I just prefer to remove it all and leave it empty.
 
How difficult is installing these panels? My best mates a Tiler, other friends are Carpenters etc
It's on concrete, probably just place carpet in that room.
I would assume without a cooling unit, the temperature could be anyone's guess? I can have the unit between the room/garage(Otherwise, I believe I can run a unit through the ceiling)




I'll have probably be building with 3000mm ceilings, I should have room. I have no idea how large this unit is this!

The room isn't large, 1.7 by 2.7. I doubt need a large unit to cool the space.

My brother has his "cellar" under his stairs, and just has a small S/S running 24/7.

I'm not on a budget, building the room actually costs me nothing. I was going to have an extended garage.

It's basically insulation, and a cooling unit. The wine racks I got 110 bottle racks for $125.(Easy to resell if need be down the future too)

When I do sell, I just prefer to remove it all and leave it empty.
The C25 can cool a room with max volume of 25 cubic metres so your room of 1.7 x 2.7 x 3 is 13.77 cubic metres but will be quite a bit smaller once you install the polystyrene panels. The C25 is the smallest unit made by Fondis and is 381h x 540w x 524d. I don’t know if there are smaller units made by other companies.

I don’t think the panels are hard to install - just cut to size and glue on to the existing walls. It would take some dexterity but no special skills needed. I had the interior gyprocked over the panels so as to preserve them from pests etc but that is not essential.

My understanding is that it is major variations in temperature as well as high temperatures (>30 degrees) which are most detrimental to wine. I think the polystyrene panels will solve most of that problem for you with the air conditioning taking the conditions from good to ideal. I guess when you leave you could take the air conditioner with you. They cost about $5k plus installation - I reckon you and your mates could install the unit too.

Here is a link to the instructions which goes through what you need to do for insulation and installation:

 
The C25 can cool a room with max volume of 25 cubic metres so your room of 1.7 x 2.7 x 3 is 13.77 cubic metres but will be quite a bit smaller once you install the polystyrene panels. The C25 is the smallest unit made by Fondis and is 381h x 540w x 524d. I don’t know if there are smaller units made by other companies.

I don’t think the panels are hard to install - just cut to size and glue on to the existing walls. It would take some dexterity but no special skills needed. I had the interior gyprocked over the panels so as to preserve them from pests etc but that is not essential.

My understanding is that it is major variations in temperature as well as high temperatures (>30 degrees) which are most detrimental to wine. I think the polystyrene panels will solve most of that problem for you with the air conditioning taking the conditions from good to ideal. I guess when you leave you could take the air conditioner with you. They cost about $5k plus installation - I reckon you and your mates could install the unit too.

Here is a link to the instructions which goes through what you need to do for insulation and installation:

Thank you for the information

These panels, are they better than insulation within the wall? They're extra insulation?

Current cellar doesn't get above 24-25 degrees in peak conditions, so maybe it's manageable.

I just wonder if a $1,000 SS unit will do the job?

Lots of research for me to do, appreciate all the feedback.
 

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