This not the answer you are looking for. I was told by a trained sommelier that, unless you are aging really upscale wines like Pommerol, wines that cost $50 a bottle and up, and keeping them until they are "ready to drink," a highly controlled storage unit is unnecessary. So, unless you're investing literally thousands in a collection of fine wines and keeping them until they reach their peak, you need not worry too much about storage conditions. (Just make sure you keep your wine at a reasonable room temperature.) But this advice does not take into account the optimal serving temperature for red table wine, which is, if I remember correctly about 60 degrees Fahrenheit or a little lower (i.e., a French, Italian or Iberian wine cellar climate) and about 10-15 degrees cooler for white table wine, and refrigerator cold for champagne and sweet wines like Sauterne. Cheers!

Springtime homes - I really really appreciate your feedback, however you are not entirely correct. I have been reading up on how to set this up and the upper 1/3 to 1/2 of the foundation needs to be insulated to prevent heat transferring from the upper parts of the soil and the exterior foundation. Unfortunately we are forced to either have this at the west or east side of the foundation (one wall) so that creates additional difficulties. It is the bottom portion of the wall and the floor itself that keeps the room cool. The room itself will be close to air tight due to a vapor barrier and a well insulated exterior door entering the room. The walls shared with the house and the ceiling will be VERY will insulated, to the highest R value that we can fit into the space! :) I'm really curious if there is anyone on GardenWeb who has built a passive wine cellar themselves and if they have any specific tips beyond what is standard. There are 3 main questions I have as well. 1. For instance. I wonder if there is a way to separate the concrete floor from the rest of the basement while the foundation is being laid so that there is not any heat transfer through the concrete in the rest of the basement? 2. If one (or two) of the exterior walls are completely under the house and not shared the the rest of the homes foundation, then would their be any difference in how you insulate the concrete from the exterior? 3. And, should I plan for two or three exterior walls? The problem with planning three is that it would make it very difficult to then add a cooling system if this didn't end up working.

You are going to have a lot of problems. You're sealing the concrete wall with the insulation? "I started with 1 layer of the 4” XPS over the ceiling and then covered all the walls with 1 layer of 4” XPS foam leaving 1’ of bare concrete at the floor on the exterior North and East walls)." What's on the other side of the concrete? Dirt? Or is it an attached house like a row house? If it's a detached house and it's just dirt on the other side, which seems to be the case because you said it extends 7 ft below grade, you will have a great deal of condensation and eventually mold. The concrete walls are not completely dry and sealing them the way you did allows no place for the moisture to go. Don't seal those walls off. "As for venting, no. It is a fully inclosed concrete box. Monitored humidity is a constant 70%." So the ceiling is concrete too and your entry stairs are over that? If so, no wonder you have condensation. On the other hand, you have the makings of a great wine cellar. I wish I had that. Depending on where you are, the soil temperature can vary quite a bit between winter and summer but you're in a cool area so you should be fine. If you have 70 percent humidity in the concrete room, why are you insulating with a vapor-proof material and then sealing off all possible avenues for the moisture to escape? You can't do that. What happens to the temperatures if you don't seal the ceiling and concrete walls and just insulate the walls exposed to the basement? I think you'd be far better off with that approach. If the concrete walls give you a stable temp, why insulate them? Also - the door is R10 and the rest of the insulation is R20? If you really want R20, put insulation on the door too. Otherwise, you have a huge section of your wall that has a lower R value than everything else and you will effectively have insulation of R10. To start, I would take down the insulation from the concrete and monitor the resulting temp in the room. It seems like you can actually get a pretty good temperature and perfect humidity with what you have, doing minimal work. Good luck.

Since you are installing a cooling system, it suggests that the temperature without the cooling system is warmer than desired. If this is correct, then the best thing you can do is insulate all the surfaces with the highest R-Value insulation that you can afford. The good news is that the floor will have the coolest temperatures of the six surfaces in your cellar, so if you don't insulate the floor, it will have the least thermal impact on your cellar. By way of example, I used our thermal load worksheet to calculate the thermal load of a 10x10x10 cellar assuming R25 in the walls, R30 in the ceiling. 85F peak temp outside the cellar. and 55F desired temp inside the cellar. If I assume uninsulated concrete in the floor, the thermal load of the cellar is 3005 BTUH. If I assume R25 in the floor, the thermal load declines to 2765 BTUH. If you'd like me to plug in your actual cellar dimensions and/or want to add additional factors (eg ducting, heat source inside the cellar, altitude), let me know and I'll be glad to redo the calculation. I hope this helps!