In my last post I explained how to choose a wine cellar cooling unit. Now for the fun part: after you have selected your unit, you need to install it. My first piece of advice: select the unit, buy it, and have it delivered before you begin the installation process. The salesman will inform you that your warranty period, generally one year, begins from date of shipment. So, if your unit sits around for a month while you are building your wine cellar, you only have 11 more months of warranty once it’s up and running.
Don’t worry about it. If it’s going to break, an extra month won’t make a difference. It is much more important to have the unit, and to have the exact dimensions, before the framing and installation process begins. I purchased the cooling unit and had it delivered before the framing started. I didn’t want to risk finishing the framing and then ordering the unit, only to discover that it was out of stock or discontinued. With the cooling unit in hand, it was easy to open the box, read the instructions, and create the perfect sized hole.Here’s the process:
Framing for Wine Cellar Cooling Unit
1 Start by framing the hole in the wine cellar wall adjacent to the rest of the basement. Obviously this is much easier to do if you frame the walls from scratch. If you are converting an existing room you will need to strip the walls down to the studs to allow for the proper framing. In my case the wall existed, so we removed the drywall from the inside of the wine cellar to expose the bare studs. Then, framing the hold for the cooling unit was a simple matter.
2 Install electrical outlet. Your cooling unit needs electricity, so you want to install your electrical outlet as close as possible to the cooling unit. So, before installing your drywall, have the electrician install an electrical outlet immediately adjacent to the cooling unit. You don’t want to be running extension cords in your wine cellar; it looks terrible, and isn’t safe. So, determine where the electrical cord from your cooling unit will go, and install the electrical outlet accordingly.
Cooling Unit Electrical
Note that in this picture it appears that the drainage hose is connected to the electrical outlet. It isn’t. Running water into an electrical outlet would be monumentally stupid. The drain hose enters the wall above the electrical outlet. The other end of the drain hose will connect to the cooling unit, but since the cooling unit has not yet been installed, it’s simply taped to the electrical outlet so that it’s out of the way for painting purposes. Obviously there is no electricity connected yet, so it’s not a problem.
3 Consider drainage. I was fortunate; the exterior wall of my wine cellar contained a drain pipe carrying waste water from the kitchen upstairs. So, it was a simple matter to install a drain hose in the wall, and feel it through the ceiling to the other wall and into the drain pipe.
Cooling Unit Drainage
4 Once the hole is framed, install your drywall (in my case, green board). Then, paint.
insert green board cooling unit picture here
5 Now, the easy part. Install the cooling unit. If the hole is the correct size, and the electrical outlet and drainage tube are in the correct location, this step is easy. Simply slide the unit into place, and jam some insulation around the edges so that it’s air tight. The unit is heavy, so two people are recommended for this process.
Basement Wine Cellar Cooling Unit
Note that the cooling unit is entirely inside the wine cellar. You could install it so that the unit is flush inside the wine cellar, but that would mean that the unit would be sticking out into the room outside the wine cellar. If it’s about 5 feet high, you would be constantly whacking your head on it as you walked by. (It would also look ugly). Since the unit is inside the wine cellar, the electrical connection is inside the wine cellar.
From outside the wine cellar all you see is the vent that you install on the wall over the cooling unit:
Cooling Unit - Outside View
The cover is shipped in basic white. You could easily paint it the color of your wall; I didn’t bother.
Wine Cellar Cooling Unit - With Racking
The cooling unit doesn’t look attractive before the racking is installed, but once the racking is installed it surrounds the cooling unit, so it remains visually appealing.
In my wine cellar the cooling unit and the door share the same wall, so I don’t have a lot of space for racking. In a slightly bigger wine cellar racking could be built all around the cooling unit to obscure it even more. I don’t think that’s necessary, so for me, I quite satisfied with the result.