In my previous posts I discussed the framing of the wine cellar walls and framing the wine cellar floor, but I have not mentioned framing the ceiling. I have not mentioned it because in my construction I am converting a room in the basement, so there is already a ceiling (the floor of the upper floor).
Framing is not necessary, since the floor joists that hold up the upper floor will serve as the area to attach the drywall, and to put the insulation.
As you can see from this picture, our house has various electrical wires, gas lines and plumbing running through the joists. It is necessary to review what’s there, and determine if anything needs to be moved before you proceed. In our case it was possible to frame around everything, so no major moving was necessary.
One final question to ask yourself: Will I ever need to access this area, or run additional wires? In the picture you can see four grey cables taped in a bundle; those are the cables from our television satellite dish. Once the ceiling is constructed, they will be inaccessible. If you think you will ever need to run wires through the ceiling in the future, you could consider running a conduit through the ceiling before you close it.
A conduit is simply empty plastic pipe, open at both ends, so that you can easily run wires through it. I suggest running rope from one end of the conduit to the other, so that you can pull your wires through it in the future. In our case it wasn’t necessary.
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Nice blog! I too am in the construction phase of my wine cellar. I couldn’t help but notice your ceiling picture has a gas line with an inline union. I was told that by code, unions need to be made available for inspection, and that they often are a source of leaks. I hope you kept your union accessible via some kind of trap door. Bought my cooling unit at Rosehill, and will buy my racks there once the walls are up. I didn’t see any mention of lighting — I’m using LED fixtures on the ceiling and LED strips underneath the racking…all are warm white.
Excellent point about the gas line with an inline union. Yes, I have a “trap door”. Actually it’s a square hole in the ceiling with a spring loaded plastic square shoved up into the hole. You can buy them at any building supply store for under $5.
As for lighting, I used standard lights in the ceiling. I didn’t put anything under the racking. I didn’t go fancy, because I just go into the wine cellar, get my wine, and leave, so I need just enough light to read my bottle numbers. If I was spending time in the cellar I would have gone fancier.