Passive Wine Cellar Vapor Barrier

In any wine cellar it is imperative that the proper wine cellar temperature and humidity levels should be established and maintained.

Passive wine cellar vapor barrier.

Passive wine cellars or an underground wine cellar. In understanding the role of a vapor barrier in your wine cellars the first thing you need to take into consideration is the significance of maintaining the ideal storage conditions. In this case the exterior concrete basement wall was insulated on the outside but it can also be insulated from the inside. Basically a vapor barrier creates a separation between the environment outside your wine cellar and the environment inside your wine cellar.

Steps of vapor barrier. I read richard gold s book on how to build a passive cellar and decided that i really needed to insulate and vapor barrier the outer walls. The proper humidity level for a wine cellar is 55 75. The fact that the ground temperature varies between 52 degrees during chicago winters and 64 degrees in the summer confirms the reasoning behind.

By using a vapor barrier and high r value insulation you block temperature exterior to the wine cellar and allow the ground temperature from the floor to enter. This would mean a. I wound up putting in a 6 mil vapor barrier on the two outer walls and the shorter inner wall framing them out with 2 x 4 and filling the space with rigid polyisocyanurate. With a passive cellar you may not have a problem.

The placement of insulation and a vapor barrier in a wine cellar. Insulating a wine cellar provides a heat cold break between the inside of the cellar and the adjacent spaces around the cellar. The door into the wine cellar from the rest of the basement is an outside metal door with a seal. The importance of humidity can not be overlooked in your wine cellar.

This chart helps you to determine the best construction guidelines for building your wine cellar. Usually spray foam is very expensive. Walls are all cement and 9 1 2 inches wide. Humidity in a wine cellar also keeps wine bottle corks from drying out preventing them from losing their sealing capacity.

Humidity refers to the concentration of water vapor in the air. It sounds like you are in the expected range. We can handle everything from passive underground spiral cellars that can comfortably hold 1 000 bottles to. The wine room is 10 x 20 with 9 1 2 ft ceilings.

Hence what i think i have is basically the foundation for a passive wine cellar. If you are using spray in closed cell foam insulation this acts as a vapor barrier as well as an insulator so the 6 mil poly step in the vapor barrier process is not necessary. A wine cellar humidity should generally be between 55 75. Wine cellar construction reference chart.