Thread: vapor barrier

I bought a house that had been foreclosed on. The prior owner stripped it of everything possible including the cooling system and racking in a wine cellar room in the finished basement. I am finally getting around to putting new racking in and replacing the cooling system. The cooling system he had was a thru-wall system that vented to an adjoining room. When he took it out he covered the hole in the wall with drywall and painted it. He did a marginal job so I could tell where the cutout used to be. I was worried that he didn't replace the insulation and vapor barrier so I cut it open to verify and found that there is no vapor barrier in the entire wall. Further investigations shows no vapor barrier in any of the walls or ceiling.

So my question is can I still cool this room, but maybe not to 55 degrees, or is that just asking for problems? Would 60 degrees in the wine cellar still cause problems? Is there any amout of temperature variation that won't cause problems or should I just not cool the cellar? The rest of the basement is finished and air conditioned/heated. The wine cellar is insulated (2x4 walls with batt insulation) if that matters.

Thanks in advance for your help!

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I’m no wine expert, but I believe you would definitely want the vapor barrier installed to control the humidity.

Here’s a link to a website that goes over this stuff: http://www.bracksco.com/buildwr/buildwr7.html

Originally Posted by Lee Olmscheid

I bought a house that had been foreclosed on. The prior owner stripped it of everything possible including the cooling system and racking in a wine cellar room in the finished basement. I am finally getting around to putting new racking in and replacing the cooling system. The cooling system he had was a thru-wall system that vented to an adjoining room. When he took it out he covered the hole in the wall with drywall and painted it. He did a marginal job so I could tell where the cutout used to be. I was worried that he didn't replace the insulation and vapor barrier so I cut it open to verify and found that there is no vapor barrier in the entire wall. Further investigations shows no vapor barrier in any of the walls or ceiling.

So my question is can I still cool this room, but maybe not to 55 degrees, or is that just asking for problems? Would 60 degrees in the wine cellar still cause problems? Is there any amout of temperature variation that won't cause problems or should I just not cool the cellar? The rest of the basement is finished and air conditioned/heated. The wine cellar is insulated (2x4 walls with batt insulation) if that matters.

Thanks in advance for your help!

Personally I think you are going about this wrong. Although it has been years since the last time I made wine, I agree that the room should be cool. I would research to find out the ideal desired temperature. I don't know how much effect the humidity will have.

I don't like the idea of exhausting the AC into another interior space because in essence you will be adding heat to that area. If it was me, and it mattered, I may consider cooling the area with a mini split system.

How Temperature Affects the Aging of Wine

STORAGE TEMPERATURE & AGING

As to no vapour barrier in ceiling there are paints which can be applied in lieu of a vapour barrier.