Passive Wine Cellar Vapor Barrier

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.

Passive wine cellar vapor barrier. The proper humidity level for a wine cellar is 55 75. Usually spray foam is very expensive. The importance of humidity can not be overlooked in your wine cellar. There are two steps in the vapor barring method commonly used for a wine cellar construction vapor barrier with spray foam and insulation with fiberglass batts.

Steps of vapor barrier. 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. Wine cellar construction reference chart. With a passive cellar you may not have a problem.

A wine cellar humidity should generally be between 55 75. Humidity in a wine cellar also keeps wine bottle corks from drying out preventing them from losing their sealing capacity. 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. The door into the wine cellar from the rest of the basement is an outside metal door with a seal.

In this case the exterior concrete basement wall was insulated on the outside but it can also be insulated from the inside. Passive wine cellars or an underground 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. Insulating a wine cellar provides a heat cold break between the inside of the cellar and the adjacent spaces around the cellar.

Hence what i think i have is basically the foundation for a passive wine cellar. The placement of insulation and a vapor barrier in a wine cellar. While it doesn t prevent the warm air in your home or business from traveling to the cooler environment in your wine cellar insulation does that it plays an important role overall in controlling the. 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.

We can handle everything from passive underground spiral cellars that can comfortably hold 1 000 bottles to. This would mean a. The fact that the ground temperature varies between 52 degrees during chicago winters and 64 degrees in the summer confirms the reasoning behind. This chart helps you to determine the best construction guidelines for building your wine cellar.

If you decide to go active you should strongly consider adding a vapor barrier should be behind the insulation if you put up a vapor barrier would definitely include the lower part as. In any wine cellar it is imperative that the proper wine cellar temperature and humidity levels should be established and maintained. The wine room is 10 x 20 with 9 1 2 ft ceilings. Humidity refers to the concentration of water vapor in the air.