New wine storage racks & New Cellar

[Racer Chris]

Today marked a significant milestone in my wine cellar progress.
After weeks of applying and sanding joint compound, I finish sanded the walls & ceiling this morning, then washed everything down before lunch.
Then I rolled a coat of primer on all surfaces.
Picture to come shortly.

[Racer Chris]

Freshly primered walls

edit: (not sure why the picture didn't attach. I'm having some trouble connecting with my iphone)

[Racer Chris]

[DavidG]

Progress, looking good!

[Racer Chris]

Walls & ceiling painted
Door hung
Tile pattern chosen

[Racer Chris]

I’m sore everywhere. But the tile is installed.
And I have new respect for those who do this for a living.
I’ll know if I did a good job as soon as I can walk on it.

[Racer Chris]

So, I cheated. The baseboard trim and crown molding aren’t ready yet, but I moved the wine in yesterday.

[Racer Chris]

[AKR]

That looks really great.

[jckba]

Nice job all around Chris and really a fan of that sleek, efficient Bordeaux original wood case racking you designed.

[DavidG]

Superb, Chris!

[JimHow]

That looks like something Mr. Koch would be proud to have.

[Racer Chris]

That looks like something Mr. Koch would be proud to have.

When I'm thru prototyping and ready for production I'll need someone to help with marketing. I'm a ways off though. At this point I have trouble making enough tabletop 12 bottle racks to meet demand, lol.
At least now I have a display area.

[Racer Chris]

I made one of my tabletop units on Saturday, so it seemed like a good chance to get a few new pictures at home before I ship it this week.
It looks like I need one of these for myself.

[Racer Chris]

I moved the fridge outside the wine cellar, turned it back on, and I’m keeping mostly whites/champagne for the time being.
I built a 120 bottle rack to put in its place.

[JimHow]

Wow, great stuff!

Foley Neo-Industrial Wine Rack Ware

[Gerry M.]

Those racks are super sleek! Definately something you should be proud of!

[Racer Chris]

Foley Neo-Industrial Wine Rack Ware

He he.
Regardless of whether I ever sell any or not, I'm having all kinds of fun with the idea.

[JimHow]

...The BWE line.
I can definitely picture those in like those 4,000 square foot Greenwich and Chappaqua homes.

[Racer Chris]

Those racks are super sleek! Definately something you should be proud of!

Thank you! I had a good feeling when the idea crystallized.

I'm gonna try something crazy with the next assembly. I'm planning a wall unit that has outriggers to hold mags and champers. But they don't like the angled hoops so much, so I'll be using (wider) horizontal hoops on the outboard ends and 5 degree across the middle. I won't know if it looks good until I build it and hang it.
As soon as its built though, I'll be able to pass the Danby Fridge on to my brother Charley.

It won't be long before I have to start thinking about temperature control. For now the bottles are around 55-56F, but the basement temp nearby has already reached 62.

[Racer Chris]

...The BWE line.
I can definitely picture those in like those 4,000 square foot Greenwich and Chappaqua homes.

When you see my ad in Architectural Digest...



I've been thinking about using the term "bespoke" in my marketing. The term was once reserved for custom tailored suits but my wife recently showed me a real estate program where bespoke lavatory fixtures were being displayed.

[JimHow]

Yes yes “bespoke,” “the How Collection,” we need to get Martha Stewart on board.

It’s like those eyeglasses websites:

“Stefan”

“Mr. Vino”

[AKR]

...The BWE line.
I can definitely picture those in like those 4,000 square foot Greenwich and Chappaqua homes.

When you see my ad in Architectural Digest...



I've been thinking about using the term "bespoke" in my marketing. The term was once reserved for custom tailored suits but my wife recently showed me a real estate program where bespoke lavatory fixtures were being displayed.

'bespoke' was also popular among us scumbag derivatives sales/traders/structurers

[Racer Chris]

'bespoke' was also popular among us scumbag derivatives sales/traders/structurers

That's stretching the meaning of a word pretty far.

[AKR]

it was our way of politely saying 'high fee'

i meant us in the 'we' sense above, not in the usa sense

[Racer Chris]

Another marketing term I've thought about is "Craft Built". A bit more humble than "bespoke", and probably more accurate as well.

[Racer Chris]

The air conditioning season has begun in southern New England. This weekend local temps are finally getting above 30c.
Our new minisplit AC was brought online Thursday, just in the nick of time. Finally, indoor comfort without the noise of window air conditioners.
I’ve also been preparing a cooling system for the wine cellar, that reached 16c a few days ago. I’m starting with my smaller chilling device hooked up to the rack under the quartz counter. If necessary, I can add a more powerful unit, hooked up to the other lowboy rack.

Peltier chiller

The foam box holds a one pint water reservoir and a small water pump. The duct hose is attached to a muffin fan that blows thru a finned heatsink bonded to the Peltier’s hot side. The cold side has a copper tube. The water pump circulates water thru the chiller, then to the bottle hoops of the wine rack, and back to the reservoir.
A digital temp controller in the wine room turns the 12v transformer on and off. I have the temperature probe resting amongst the wine bottles.

[Racer Chris]

The 5 day heat wave we had in May made it obvious the single chilling unit would be insufficient when summer arrived.
So I hooked up the second unit to the other lowboy rack on the far wall.

This weekend brings the start of summer and another heat wave. So far so good. Current basement temp is approaching 74F while the wine is a cool 60-62.

Amazing that half a dozen of these things running about 25% of the time will move enough energy to maintain 750 bottles at cellar temp.

Now that the cellar is fully functional I have time for little things like prep the door exterior trim

[JimHow]

You da man, RC.

[Racer Chris]

End of summer update:
This morning, for the first time since July 1, my cooling systems both cycled off - having actually reached their setpoint again after operating continuously (24/7) all thru the long hot summer with 4 heat waves and extreme humidity.
Once the basement temp reached 75 back in July, it never went below that again until last weekend, and whenever the temp climbed above that point, my cellar went up an almost equal amount. I saw 79 degrees for a few days in August just outside the cellar and inside it was 69 up near the ceiling.
I also had to deal with humidity, which got up to 90% briefly and some of the wood boxes began to grow fuzzy stuff that smelled. So I put my closet dehumidifier in there on a timer and had to run it 20 hours a day to keep the level near 80%. At least the mold and odor stopped, but the dehumidifier increased the cooling load on my chillers, probably by one degree F.

At the peak of cooling season, I was able to keep the majority of my wine below 64F and the rest was below 68F - for roughly the cost of three 100 watt lightbulbs running continuously. And now that the heat has broken, it should return to much closer to 60F with only part time running. It was only 71 degrees in my basement this morning.

Next year I plan to have a more sophisticated dehumidifier which will cool the cellar air and supplement the chillers to achieve better temp stability at the height of summer. It will use the same thermal technology as the water to air heat exchangers.

[Blanquito]

...in like those 4,000 square foot Greenwich and Chappaqua homes.

So, in the garage?

[Racer Chris]

I made a little cart for the boxes on the floor

And a Wall Rack to hold another 100 standard bottles and up to 16 magnums. The magnum hoops also serve well for champers and fat Napa Cab bottles. Halfs fit well enough on the regular hoops too.