I am building a 14’x10′ wine cellar in an attached garage. The walls and ceiling will be t+g oak. The floor will be pavers on Delta. Two of the walls are interior (within the garage), one is against the house and one long one is a south facing exterior wall. All are 2″x4″. The ceiling is 2″x10″s with a flat membrane roof deck above.
The cellar will be mechanically maintained at 56 F year round, but the exterior temperature here varies between just below freezing and the mid-seventies over the seasons.
How would you suggest insulating and where would you place the vapour barrier? Sorry to complicate things, but because of the isolated location spray insulation is out.
Thanks.
Replies
spray foam insulation. Icynene is an open cell and corbond is a closed cell, the closed have better r value but you pay for that.
No vapor barrier needed with foam.
Edited 3/11/2008 12:42 pm ET by DDay
Thanks for the reply, but as I said in my post, because this is in a isolated location spray foam unfortunately isn't an option.
They cost more but you could get a DIY kit. Someone with more knowledge on it than me can chime in about using rigid insulation and sealing the seams. For the efficiencies of different insulation options, check http://www.buildingscience.com they have some great information about everything in buildinghttp://www.buildingscience.com/index_html
I'm assuming you mean to store only bottled wine, not carboys.
In any case, I would think that a wine cellar should breath, particularly in humid Vancouver.
I would cross-hatch the walls to create a deeper cavity (with less thermal bridging) and insulate with dense pack cellulose and NO vapor barrier.
Solar & Super-Insulated Healthy Homes
Interesting, I'm inclined to take your advice. The whole vapour barrier discussion comes from the client who has been poking around sites that sell cooling units for wine cellars. They all say to put the vapour barrier on the exterior of the wall, which right or wrong would be extremely difficult as it is an existing garage I renovated the exterior of last summer, and I'm damned if I'm taking down all my carefully detailed cedar siding.