Passive Cellaring

malliemcg · Post by **malliemcg** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 9:38 am

Greetings,

I'm currently in the process of turning an internal cupboard into a cellar, before I started I took some temperature measurements to get a "baseline" of what I am working with.

Baseline shows 15.5C min to 21.5C max minimum reached at approx 6am and max reached around 4pm (this is a house where someone is home most days so a heater is run during the day etc, and in summer I'd expect the A/C to be used frequently and would as a result expect this range to be somewhat typical.

Thus far I have covered the inside of this with Sisalation (shiny stuff on one side, plastic on the other - somewhat water vapour resistant). So far indications are that it has pulled down the top end to 19.5 and the bottom end up to 16C, this is still far too much of a swing, for my liking, however humidity was up from 40% to 60% which is a good change I think.

The intention is to do the following in addition: R6.5 "pink batt" stuff in the roof, and on build up the floor with the same. Possibly also the two ends of this cupboard also. At which point examination of changes will need to be examined. I think I will also need to beef up the insulation around the door. Have covered the door w/ sisilation and sealed the edges, but am thinking of building around the frame some kind of foamy goodness that the door would "seal" against.

I am wondering when empty how much of a swing in temperature would be acceptable over a 24 hour period. I would assume when it has 200 odd bottles in it, there would be a large thermal mass compared to an empty room. What sort of "empty" temperature swing would be safe/better for some mild aging of wines (5-10 years). I realise a static temperature would be ideal, but we are working with an existing space within a house and a budget under $500, perfection not required, but am shooting for less than a 1C daily swing.

Room is 0.6m x 2m x 2.5m

Current conditions under the stairs are pretty good with a daily swing of less than 0.5C and an annual variation of about 4-5C winter to summer. (16-21) not perfect but I feel good enough for 5 years, given the tiny daily variation, however I won't be here much longer...

Red Bigot · Post by **Red Bigot** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 10:11 am

With the extra insulation and the thermal mass of the bottles the daily temp range will be less and perfectly acceptable for 5-10 year cellaring of suitable reds.
I've drunk many 10 yo or more red wines from Canberra passive under- house cellars and have not noticed any detrimental effect of 3-5C daily variations or more. Max temps though were never over 22C even in Summer, minimums down to 8 in Winter. The most recent was a 1990 Michael Shiraz on Saturday night, it was in perfect condition for the age and spent all it's life in two different under-house passive cellars.

bacchaebabe · Post by **bacchaebabe** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 12:44 pm

My cellar is passive and while I get a seasonal swing from about 16 to 21, the daily change is negligable. My wine always seems to be fine.

To get a better idea of temperatures, it might be a better idea to fill an empty bottle with water and measure the temperature of the water rather than the ambiant air temp, especially once you've completed all the insulation. I think you'll find the daily variation won't be quite as extreme and this really is the key issue over all others.

dkw · Post by **dkw** » Mon Aug 31, 2009 10:07 pm

Why not try polystyrene foam sheet (beadboard is another name) like the stuff used in commercial coolrooms? It has an R value of around 3 or 4 per inch of thickness. It will take up less space for the same R value, and it won't compress over time (hence it will maintain R value unlike the batts). Fire retardance might be a problem - it's bad news from that point of view.

Cheers,

Dave.

malliemcg · Post by **malliemcg** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 7:35 am

What about stinkiness from the Styrafoam in an enclosed space - what's the chances of that breaching the cork and getting into the wine.

Red Bigot · Post by **Red Bigot** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 9:41 am

malliemcg wrote:What about stinkiness from the Styrafoam in an enclosed space - what's the chances of that breaching the cork and getting into the wine.

It's very, very, very unlikely that any smell from styrofoam will affect the wine. The ceiling of my cellar under the concrete slab is covered in styrofoam sheets and I don't notice any smell from them. I recently helped a Canberra friend line his cellar completely (ceiling and walls) with a better more solid and finely-grained styrofoam sheet, 75mm thick and there is no smell perceptible.

malliemcg · Post by **malliemcg** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 10:03 am

RedBigot: Where did you get that stuff andhow much did it set you back a square meter?

orpheus · Post by **orpheus** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 12:18 pm

I think that this is called "extruded polystyrene", and it has a much higher R value than normal polystyrene. It's much denser.

I used it to line my wine cupboard (which holds about 300 bottles or so, racked), and it is very effective. It did smell for a few weeks, but none of the bottles I have opened seem to have been in any way effected.

I don't remember where I got it, but it is easy to find; just google "extruded polystyrene" using google.com.au.

Red Bigot · Post by **Red Bigot** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 1:52 pm

malliemcg wrote:RedBigot: Where did you get that stuff andhow much did it set you back a square meter?

My friend found it and organised purchase/delivery, I've emailed him for details. It's not cheap, cost him about $1,600 I think to do the whole room.

Red Bigot · Post by **Red Bigot** » Tue Sep 01, 2009 4:11 pm

The product is : Foamular Metric 250 Goldboard 75mm SL. The price for a sheet is about $79, with up to 40% discount for quantity buys. Twenty-seven cost $1630 including approx $200 delivery from Sydney to Canberra.

http://www.austech.com.au/products/Foamular.aspx

dkw · Post by **dkw** » Wed Sep 02, 2009 10:42 am

Hi there,

sorry, the R values I quoted you came from a US website, and they use different units. The conversion for comparison with Australian values is to multiply the US value by about 0.17 (same result if you divide by 6). The numbers then match RB's. Extruded polystyrene has about a 50% higher R-value for the same thickness as ordinary beadboard.

Cheers,

Dave

malliemcg · Post by **malliemcg** » Sat Nov 07, 2009 2:53 pm

I tracked down some of this formular stuff. Except it was blue and made by someone else. The daily swings in the empty room were reduced from 5C / Day to 2C / Day when empty. Have transferred all the contents now and will recheck the temperature monitor in two weeks and see what happens with it full. I'm hoping/expecting with it having some bottles there the thermal mass should prevent big swings. No racks in at the moment, have lots of 6 pack boxes filled, stacked and written on/recorded what goes where with longer termers being at the most difficult to reach.

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