First, the floor supports the weight of your entire wine cellar collection, so it must be very strong. That’s an obvious reason why wine cellars are built in the basement; you have no worries about the floor collapsing under the weight of 1,000 bottles of wine.

Second, the ground cools in the winter and warms in the summer, so both cold and heat can be transmitted through the floor into the wine cellar if it isn’t properly insulated. You can read my post on wine cellar floor insulation to see how I insulated the floor.

Finally, you will actually see the floor, so it’s important to make it aesthetically pleasing. I have previously commented that it doesn’t really matter what the walls look like, since they will be covered with wine racks. Obviously the floor won’t be covered with anything, so it’s important that it is visually appealing.

We started by framing the floor and insulating it.

Then the floor studs are covered in 3/4 inch plywood for strength.

Then a wire mesh base is installed over the plywood, and the a “cement” base is installed over the mesh.

Then, the floor tile is installed.

As you can see from the picture we chose a dark slate type tile. It does have some texture, but it is flat enough that the wine racks won’t wobble when installed.

In my next post I’ll show you the finished product.

Here’s the floor after applying the insulation:

Yes, it looks just like the walls look. The foam insulation does dry solid, but it is full of tiny air pockets, so you don’t want to walk on it, since you will likely compress the air pockets and lower the insulation value. That’s why we applied the plywood floor as soon as possible:

Yes, this picture also shows the drywall on the walls, but that’s the subject of my next post.

Framing and insulating the walls and ceiling is a good start, but if the wine cellar has as it’s base an uninsulated basement floor, the cold from the ground will gradually enter the wine cellar, so that the floor is much colder than the ceiling, and that’s not good. Obviously moisture can also enter from the ground. We framed the floor using the same method as used for framing the walls.

You may wonder why the wine cellars of 200 years ago could be constructed without the elaborate need for framing and insulation, including insulating the floor. Insulation would not be necessary if the wine cellar was built well below the frost line, where temperatures remain constant. In southern Ontario and the north eastern United States the ground may freeze to a depth of two or three feet in the winter, so the ceiling of an uninsulated wine cellar would need to be at least five feet underground, so the floor of the wine cellar would be 12 to 15 feet underground.

A typical basement in a typical house has windows at around ground level, so the floor of a typical basement may be only five or six feet underground, so most of the basement is at or near the frost line. If left uninsulated temperatures will vary considerably, and that’s not good. Therefore, insulation is essential, and to insulate, framing it a must.