Passive Wine Cellar Design Home in West Vancouver, Canada
In modern times, wine aficionados make sure that when they build a wine cellar, they invest in a complete refrigeration system setup as well. However, there are certain instances where a wine cellar cooling unit may be unnecessary. This is because the location of where the wine cellar is built has natural temperature and humidity ideal for wine storage. These kinds of wine storage rooms are known as passive wine cellars.
Our team recently completed a beautiful project of designing a passive wine cellar in the basement of our client’s home. This was a very unique project for us because we’ve never designed passive wine cellars before.
Passive Wine Cellars and How They Are Different
Unlike the usual wine cellars that are built in houses with cooling systems, passive wine cellars use ambient temperature from the walls and floors of the room. This means passive wine cellars should be built in locations that meet the temperature requirements for storing wine bottles or in short, be located in underground locations or subterranean basements with ground temperature.
Passive homes produce efficient energy through solar panels which reduces the building’s ecological footprint. These solar designs maximize power from the sun. In return, passive wine cellars rely on the natural room temperature from its natural location, the type of wall, flooring and ventilation. In this article, we will discuss our beautiful experience with our client’s passive wine cellar construction. Read more as we share all the details of this unique project.
Finding the Right Location for A Passive Wine Cellar
It’s been stated that passive wine cellars can only be situated in subterranean basements. Otherwise, it will not serve its temperature purpose of storing wine bottles. Passive wine cellars are mostly common for clients with existing subterranean basements.
In our case, we had our first passive wine cellar construction from one of our clients who just recently bought a house in West Vancouver, Canada. She designed her house with solar panels on top of the roof to supply power for the house. It was then called a passive home.
Furthermore, she had always been a wine enthusiast and loved collecting premium wine bottles. She made sure the house she purchased had a basement and thus, had already conceptualized the wine cellar in that space. It was the perfect location for her and the perfect opportunity for us to design something truly distinctive.
Benefits of Passive Wine Cellar
While normal wine cellars are very convenient for every location because of the cooling systems that allow it, passive wine cellars offer a lot of benefit to the environment by maximizing natural temperature from the ground. Constructing your wine cellar in a subterranean basement allows adequate cooling sufficiency to store wine bottles and let them age properly. Because of the ground and wall insulation, it offers a natural cooling temperature for the room.
Our client’s passive wine cellar provides benefits with its high insulation value, advanced window design, passive natural ventilation, and heat recovery. We also made sure the passive wine cellar design fit its natural concept. The creative lighting design illuminated most of the natural aspects of the passive wine cellar.
Sneak-Peek of The Passive Wine Cellar Construction
When you take a look at the passive wine cellar, it would look like it’s been carved right out of the earth. We wanted to make the wine cellar as natural looking as possible. The most natural element is a large natural stone popping out from the wall which isn’t purely aesthetics, but an effective tool for climate control. We also used flagstones for the flooring to keep up with the natural elements of the passive wine cellar. Even more, it provided a spectacular atmosphere and a very natural vibe.
Using Materials with High Insulation Value to Achieve Passive Wine Cellar Design
The triple-glazed door we installed had very high insulation value because it limited the absorption of heat from the passive wine cellar. By staying in touch with the natural design, we included natural wood racking and lighting infused with exposed concrete walls.
We installed a beautiful wood called African mahogany millwork and it was the perfect combination for the concrete walls. We included in our racking design a quarter round display shelf, horizontal display rows to highlight special bottles, and both individual and bulk bottle storage. The pegs are made of aluminum and mounted directly to the concrete walls. The pegs used are unique because of their square-shaped double deep pegs with a natural aluminum finish.
For the ventilation system of the room, we installed LUNOS eGo with a built-in regenerative heat recovery core for natural cooling as traditional cooling systems were not used for this project. We made sure this ventilation system was sufficient enough to store more or less (650) six hundred fifty wine bottles from our client. The tiny detail our client wanted to add was the tiny flags posted on top of the racks to indicate the countries where the wine bottles belonged to.
Build A Passive Wine Cellar Design in Your Home Now!
It’s always nice to try something new for your house. It’s even better when that unique wine cellar design is more natural and benefits the environment. By constructing passive wine cellars, you do not only create beautiful aesthetics and natural designs, but also promote good environment practices by maximizing cooling solutions from the ground and earth itself. It’s always nice to have a combined purpose in building things.
If you are thinking of having a passive wine cellar design at home, you have come to the right place. Our team designs the best wine cellars that fit your taste. Contact us now at 1-888-400-2675 and let our team talk you through the steps to create your masterpiece passive wine cellar!