Typical home wine cellars are storage rooms primarily used for storing wine bottles at the appropriate climate and temperature. Most wine cellar designs are made for underground (basement) of the house where there is direct contact with the surrounding soil.
However, many don’t have accessibility to the basement area or other spare space in the house,in which case wine cellar cabinets offer a unique way to preserve your wine collections.

A good quality wine cellar design will allow you to keep your wine safe from possible contamination from the environment and outside influences. You should choose wine cellar design which insures the best possible conditions too keep your wines until you decide to enjoy it. Some wine cellar designs present a stylish surroundings for wine tasting and custom wine cellars are becoming a popular places for dining and other social experiences.

When choosing the best wine cellar design for you, you have to take into consideration following question:
- is your home wine cellar intended to be for maximum storage or as a showcase cellar?
- do you have a constant or growing collection of wines?
- do you need a cooling system? Wine cellar designs vary depending if it’s a passive cellar or one with wine cellar cooling units installed.
- think about what kind of shelving/racking do you prefer?
- do you wish to rack all walls, from floor to ceiling or to what height?
- where will you put your doors and will they swing in or out?
- are there any obstructions such as pipes, windows, light switches which can influence you wine cellar design?
- what material is your floor made of (tile, cement..)?
- do you wish to install a wine cellar cooling unit and what’s the best location for it in your wine cellar plan?

Naturally, you may not know the answers to all these questions. To help you make best decisions and take all the necessary steps in choosing wine cellar design which will serve you best, I’ve prepared a FREE Minicourse “How to Build Home Wine Cellar”. If’s free, so sign up (to the right of the page) today and find answer all your questions!

There are several things you have to take into consideration when building a wine cellar in your basement:

The capacity of wine cellar. Depending of the spare space you have in your basement, I would recommend you plan the largest cellar you can fit into and manage, because frequently wine cellars become too small for their owners’ needs.

Electricity. When you start planning how to build a wine cellar in your basement, don’t forget that your cellar will require lighting and preferably a cooling unit. Therefore, place the power outlet above the space for the cooling unit where it won’t interfere with wine bottle storage.

Cooling unit. Capacity of the wine cellar cooling units depends on the size of your wine cellar. Depending on the size and shape of your basement wine cellar, you may or may not have a lot of choice in where you will place the cooling unit. To dissipate heat away from the cooling unit you need to have sufficient ventilation, since most units are designed to exhaust into an open area.

Walls and ceiling. Use 2×4 or 2×6 lumber spaced 16 apart to build a wine cellar in your basement for constructing your basement wine cellar walls. Extruded polystyrene insulation or fiberglass is used as insulation in wine cellars. Ceiling will need insulation in the same manner as the cellar walls.

Floor. Basement cellar floor needs to be insulated also except if the floor is concrete. In that case you don’t need additional insulation.

Lighting. An important part of overall wine cellar ambiance is lighting. Low voltage track lights or recessed ceiling lights can work well in home wine cellars.

The best first step in „how to build a wine cellar in your basement” is to draw your wine cellar on graph paper.

To learn how to do that, sign up for our FREE „How to Build a Home Wine Cellar“ newsletter to the right.

You’ll need to plan wine cellar carefully before starting to build it, so you don’t damage your walls, structural foundations of your house or ruin your wine collection if you don’t complete the job properly.

Therefore, having proper wine cellar plan is necessary! But don’t worry, you can make these wine cellar plans yourself.

If you are or want to be an average amateur collector you don’t need all the fancy bells and whistles of someone who collects thousands of bottles of vintage wine. Luckily, there are free wine cellar plans which will help you design and build your wine cellar construction.

Before you start buying supplies for your home wine cellar and putting a hammer to nails, look at some of ours build it yourself wine cellar plans. Finding the right wine cellar plans and building your home wine cellar yourself saves you a bunch of money and is a beautiful addition to any home.

To learn more about how to choose the perfect wine cellar plan for your wine cellar, sign up for our FREE „Build Home Wine Cellar“ mini course today!

Home wine cellars come in different sizes and shapes. There are mini wine cellar units (wine cellar cabinets) which store few bottles of wine, to larger cabinets that can store 300 or more bottles. There is no right answer for everyone, it’s best to choose home wine cellar which matches your situation: are you a wine enthusiast who stores only a couple of bottles when your friends come over, or do you plan to have larger (couple of hundreds or even thousands bottles) collection?

Deciding what is needed for a proper home wine cellar depends largely on the spare space you have and what kind of wine you will store. In most home wine cellars, wine can be stored in refrigerating units or on racks. Having an idea on how many bottles you collection will contain will help you choose the best wine cellar design and organize your cellar.

Usually, a storage room capable of storing over 500 bottles of wine is referred as a wine cellar, and area to store less than 500 bottles is called “wine closets” or home wine cellars.

No matter what your level of interest is, there is a home wine cellar option that’s right for your needs. Every home wine cellar should be designed to safely store wine as it ages, ensuring that the wine develops complexity and depth without spoiling.

Although building a home wine cellar may seem like a daunting task, I’ve prepared a FREE Minicourse “Building Home Wine Cellars”in which you will find the answers to all of your questions and which will guide you through all the necessary steps in building your home wine cellar.

The Minicourse is completely FREE, so sign up today and receive first lesson in your inbox immediately!

A well build wine cellar is the proper way to store wines, no matter how small or big the cellar is. Sometimes, home wine cellars can be constructed in a closet or other spare space, or built in a basement. Many wine enthusiast choose to build wine cellar themselves, since it’s not that difficult as it may seem at first.

You wine cellar will not only be a place to store and protect your wine, but it will become a important room in your home with your personal style and statement. By building wine cellar you will protect your investment (your wine collection) and also add a wonderful space in your house meant for social occasions.

If you have the space, build your own wine cellar in your basement or other spare space since it’s the best choice, making it more special place to enjoy wine and good company.

If you can’t build a wine cellar because of the lack of space, incorporating a wine rack in the basement, beneath a stairwell or in any other place will give you a great alternative. I’ve prepared a free mini course on how to build a wine cellar which tells you everything you need to know to construct a beautiful wine cellar in your home. I’ll teach you everything, from how to choose the best place in your home to build a wine cellar in, how to build rack, to the best humidity levels and best temperatures for your wine. If you’re a wine enthusiast who love your wine, give this free mini course a try.

To build wine cellar in your home is a great investment and one that will allow your wines to age and gain complexity as intended by the winemaker.

How to build wine cellar in your home? Join my FREE Mini Course!
You’ll learn about the wine cellar construction method, insulation, installing a vapor barrier, wall lining, doors, windows, lighting and more. Everything you need for a custom built home wine cellar! The Mini Course is FREE, sign up today (to the right of the page)!

Wall Framing: 2″ x 6″ @ 16″ on center

Ceiling Framing: 2″ x 8″ @ 16″ on center

Vapor Barrier: 6 mil polyethelene on warm side of walls and ceilings. Check your local building codes.

Wall Insulation: R-19 minimum

Ceiling Insulation: R-30 minimum

Flooring: Moisture resistant material such as brick, tile, stone, or hardwoods.

Do it yourself custom wine cellar construction can be quite easy and cost efficient solution, but there are some devastatingly destructive pitfalls that you need to be aware of in order to avoid them. If these pitfalls are overlooked during wine cellar construction, custom wine cellars can be faulty.

The five things you need to focus on are: dampness, material (woods) used in wine cellar construction, flooring, very design of custom wine cellars and insulation.

Custom wine cellars are all about form and functionality. You should plan you custom wine cellars construction accordingly to promote best storage environment for your wine collection, along with best possible solution for you to enjoy your new cellar yourself.

There are almost endless possibilities for wine cellar construction and you’ll be able to create a custom wine cellar for everyone to look and share you collection.

If you’ll like to learn more subscribe to my free “Build Home Wine Cellar” mini course in which you’ll find deeper information and plans for constructing custom wine cellar. I cordially invite you to sign up today, and receive your first free lesson immediately!

Wine cellar cooling units are necessary to maintain proper humidity level and temperature for your wine collection. There are basically two types of wine cellar cooling units: units that vent to the outside, and the units that vent to the inside. Wine cellar cooling units that vent to the outside require duck work to exhaust the heat from the wine cellar to the outside area, and that usually call for professional installation. For big home wine cellars, this is necessary.

However, if your home wine cellar is only a part of your basement which is a much larger room on itself, a massive wine cellar cooling unit is not necessary. If your wine cellar is a small room that occupies one part or corner of your basement area, you can install a wine cellar cooling unit that vents from the cellar into the larger room (the rest of your basement) where the heat will be properly dispersed.

When choosing a wine cellar cooling unit, don’t over do it but be aware of any specific in your wine cellar design. For example, if your wine cellar has a window or a glass door, you will need to purchase a cooling unit with bigger BTU output that you would otherwise need to, to compensate for the loss that comes from that window or glass door.

If you don’t go in and out of your wine cellar frequently, the wine cellar cooling unit will work only for about 5-10 minutes an hour, if that. When you install your cooling unit, it will probably take a few hours of constant operation in order to bring the temperature down to the optimal level. Once your wine cellar is cooled down, cooling unit will have no trouble maintaining the optimal temperature without working continuously.

If you want me to give you more guidelines on how to choose the best wine cellar cooling unit click here.

If you would like to learn how to install a wine cellar cooling unit in your wine cellar, sign up for my FREE “Build Home Wine Cellar” E-mail Mini Course and you will receive all your answers in your inbox!

There is a variety of wine cellar cooling units available in the market today, but only a few types:
- wine cellar cooling units with duct system (split system) that exhaust the air to the outside
- wine cellar cooling units that don’t exhaust the air to the outside, nor do they require duct work.

Obviously, split system cost more and operate much like central AC system in your home. Wine cellar cooling unit is usually recommended to be installed 18 inches from the ceiling of the wine cellar, in order to achieve the maximum cooling effect and to give the unit adequate overflow and ventilation.

Compare the wine cellar cooling units we have on our page; each of the cooling unit is made to exact standards and tested by experts.These sophisticated wine cellar cooling units do more than just cool the wine cellar,they control temperature and also humidity. There are many wine cellar cooling units in the market, but here we have selected just the best ones:

Breezaire

CellarPro

Wine Guardian

Koolspace KoolR/ChillR

Proper room preparation is the key to controlling temperature and humidity that affect aging and storing of your wine.

The minimum insulation for a ceiling is R-19 and a vapor barrier.
Floor, if concrete, needs a vapor barrier only, but all above ground floors need to be insulated with R-19 and a vapor barrier also.
The warm side of the walls of your wine cellar is where you should install vapor barrier. I recommend you use a 6 or even 8 mm plastic sheeting for the best effects.

After the vapor barrier, you should install insulation. If it’s not possible to put the vapor barrier on the outside, then the plastic should be installed within the cellar room. Commonly, one should wrap the entire interior, but leave the plastic sheeting loose in the stud cavities, so that the insulation can be placed between the studs.

Remember, all the walls and the ceiling must me wrapped in plastic vapor barrier for a complete effect.