Your wine collection is a treasured investment to which you simply can’t put any amount. Whether you’re just starting a wine collection, buying wine to hold on to for several years, or you already have a wine cellar of hundreds of bottles, good wine storage is critical.
And it all starts with a reliable wine cellar cooling system.
Understanding Wine Cellar Cooling System and Its Importance
Wine cellar cooling units help in maintaining a constant level of humidity and temperature, which is very important in creating an ideal environment for your wine cellar. This should ensure that your wines age finely throughout the years.
Most people don’t realize how often humidity and temperature change in a room every day and how hard it can be to keep wines in an optimal environment.
The ideal humidity for wines should be 50%–70%, which is a good range for a healthy cork. A dry storage cellar can cause the cork to dry out, which leads to a shrunken or a crumbly cork that most ardent wine collectors don’t want to experience. Meanwhile, a cellar that’s too humid can cause the corks to become moldy and lead to contamination.
Proper cellar temperature is also crucial. If your wine becomes too hot, it can become “cooked” or spoiled, depending on the length of exposure; too cold, and your wine could freeze. And freezing can cause expansion, which could partially push out the cork, thus exposing the wine to oxygen. Significant temperature fluctuations can also be dangerous in the maturation process.
So as temperature helps in the aging of your wine, humidity keeps wine corks in the best condition. And a reliable wine cellar cooling system can help keep both factors consistent. With that said, here are five things to consider when choosing the best wine cellar cooling system:
1. Look For A Reliable Provider
Your wine collection is highly valuable to risk having a cooling system from an unreliable provider. So the first thing you need to consider is who should you trust?
Browse through various providers available to you. A reliable company should specialize in engineering and manufacturing wine cellar cooling systems as well as professional installations. One of the most reputable brands available is Wine Cellar HQ. Winecellarhq.com has a range of smaller cooling units to customized units that can best suit your wine collection.
2. Understand Different Types Of Cooling Systems
Manufacturers often offer wine cellar cooling systems in three types:
- Self-Contained Systems: A self-contained system is also known as the non-ducted or through the wall cooling unit, which can stand alone and is best suited for wine cabinets and small wine rooms. These units require enough ventilation in order to maintain desired temperatures in your cellar.Self-contained systems house both the condenser and evaporator together for a compact design that’s easy and quick to install. Also, this kind of cooling system doesn’t involve any ductwork or refrigeration lines since it is essentially a single self-contained cooling unit and can be mounted and vented via the wall itself.Because of their simplicity, ease of installation, and maintenance, self-contained systems are the most cost-effective and popular types of wine cellar cooling systems.
- Ductless Split Systems: This kind of system keeps the fan coils and condensing unit separate, making it suitable for cellars where proper ventilation isn’t directly available.In this setup, the evaporator coil will be placed inside the cellar. Meanwhile, the fan, compressors, and coil of the system will be located outside or in the adjoining room to your cellar. This should provide the cooling unit with a proper amount of ventilation. A flexible refrigeration line or hose should connect the interior unit with the exterior one.
- Ducted Systems: Ducted wine cooling systems are the best options for wine aficionados who don’t want any kind of unsightly unit or equipment inside their cellar. A ducted system allows the unit itself to be installed far away from your cellar but still provides excellent air conditioning.Ducted systems are most suitable for large and expansive wine cellars featuring a large amount of curated fine wines you plan to hold for years. However, this setup can be quite complicated and thus require professional HVAC installations.
3. Noise Levels
Fans and compressors on the hot side of a cooling unit generate heat and produce noise pollution. Ideally, this part of the unit should be located far away from your common living spaces.
However, if your cellar is too close to a room in your home, then you shouldn’t get a self-contained system. This system can be quite noisy since it has all its parts in a single unit. Instead, you should go with the split or ducted system, which allows you to mitigate the noise by placing the noisy, hot-exhaust-emitting part of the unit in its own location.
4. Vibrations
A few wine enthusiasts believe that vibrations could have a significant impact on the aging process. The production of sediment and solids is a natural part of wine aging. However, vibrations can stir sediments into the wine, taking away flavors and aromas and potentially causing a rough-tasting wine. Plus, the constant vibration can increase chemical reactions, which speed up the aging process.
If that’s a concern, then self-contained units which are installed along wine racks aren’t an option. You should go for split or ducted systems, since they keep the busy parts of the unit away from your wine cellar. That way, you wouldn’t have to worry about any vibrations disturbing your aging wine.
5. Sizing
Most units will have a nominal size, corresponding to the generic cellar volumes. However, these sizes are based on:
- the length of ducting,
- kind of cellar insulation,
- whether it’s a residential or commercial cellar, and
- ambient temperature outside the wine cellar.
Don’t rely too much on the size, since the actual conditions in your cellar may require a less or more powerful unit.
A better way to choose the size is based on the thermal load of your cellar. This is the amount of energy needed to cool a given space to the desired humidity and temperature in an hour, which is measured in British Thermal Unit per Hour (BTUH).
Once you have a thermal load for your wine cellar, you can select the right size cooling unit for your project.
Conclusion
Choosing the right wine cellar cooling unity should provide you with years of consistent humidity and temperature that should help keep your collection aging finely. Make sure to follow the tips discussed here in order to get a cooling unit that fits your cellar’s needs.
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