I'm trying to decide where to put a passive cellar. Orginally I thought the place was the NE corner of our basement. Pretty much all below grade. The problems with this are (a) we have to run dehumidifer in summer as Betsy keeps music there, which raises basement temps to upper 60s and obviously dries it out, & (b)it's not that far from furnace. I figure both of these are solvable with good insulation and vapor barriers, but it will also take up a hunk of our small basement. So now I'm thinking re one end of the area under our front porch. I think it used to be the old coal bin, I use it for storing garden stuff, etc. This space has stone walls on 2 sides that have ground behind them , and a stone wall that separates it from basement. Concrete floor. Above there is just the wooden porch. I'm sure that if I put an insulated ceiling (joists with roll insulation between) across the tops of the walls on that end, and insulated the (now open) side with an insulated wall and door, it would be cool enough in summer. The other advantages is that it would just need one wall with door and ceiling, putting cellar in basement would require two walls plus ceiling. The question is, would that be enough to keep wine from getting too cold in winter? Around here (just north of NYC) we usually hit single digits a few nights each winter, with a scattering of days with highs in the teens. We sometimes have winter cold spells where it doesn't go above freezing for a week. To make the space useful, the ceiling would be at ground level (or very slightly above). Any experience with using this kind of space for wine? Thanks for any opinions. Dale
Dale Williams Drop "damnspam" to reply