However, these use a Breezaire cooling unit, and I’m not willing to buy anything that involves that company, based on my first-hand awareness of their unethical business practices.
Aside from seeing if they would sell me a wine room without the cooling unit, is anyone aware of other comparably sized pre-fab wine rooms that leverage cooling unit from a more reputable company?
Jim, I had one of those for about 30 years. Very happy with it. Not fancy but functional.
Back then they had 2 BreezeAires in the 1900-bottle unit. The first Breezeaire sprung a coolant leak around 10 years. I had it repaired. The second did the same a few years later and I put in a CellarPro. If you can get them with a CellarPro from the get-go, I’d go that route. The CellarPro is quieter and more reliable.
Not great insulation so it probably used more energy than a properly insulated cellar. But once full the cooling units didn’t cycle very often. Mine was in our finished basement which rarely got over 72 degrees in summer so a big temp drop wasn’t necessary.
It was pretty easy to assemble. Pieces fit well. Nothing broken or missing. Takes 2 guys to put the walls and ceiling together. After that, just you, your screwdriver, the racking and lots of screws.
Racking fit most 750s but some Champagne and some of the fatter California bottles had to go on top. Just enough space in the aisle to stack a few cases against the back wall and still get to the racks.
You are correct… when I viewed via my phone, it only showed the standard option (Breezaire). Go figure.
Thanks to the others as well.
One reason I’m looking at this rather than some kind of custom wine room is that I expect to move in 2 or 3 years, and I expect that with care, I could disassemble and move this. If anyone has an opinion on that, happy to hear.
We left ours behind when we downsized. I think it could be taken apart without any more trouble than putting it together. The bead of rubbery sealant where the walls and ceiling meet would have to be replaced but the rest of the parts should hold up. It might take a few days to a week if not distracted by all of the other moving hubbub. I wouldn’t want to try moving the big wall, ceiling, and floor pieces without professional help.
Removing the wine, disassembling the cellar, then reassembling and replacing the wine in short order right after a move is not a pleasant thought.
The other thing I did was have an electrician put an outlet inside the unit so I could put some lighting inside.
Jim - we had friends who had a huge house but didn’t want to retrofit a room for their cellar. They bought a restaurant walk-in cooler which worked perfectly.
Those are modular and you can take them apart when you move. And the cooling units are fixable by any qualified refrigeration repair company.
They don’t look as nice but they’re made for harder use and you can probably pick one up at a supply house for used restaurant equipment.
Jim, a friend has 2 old modular wine rooms (made by Vintage Keeper) that you build up together to double the size. He’s disassembled, moved and re-built it himself into basements at least twice. It’s all panels, so he uses a small moving van to move the panels and wine at the same time.
Not an easy task from what he’s said but moving all the wine is more of an issue (a solid weekend’s work).
I assume any rooms built today would be pack-able in a similar way - so yes, doable by yourself.
Joshua, even in normal times restaurants have a high failure rate, so all sorts of used equipment can be found from restaurant supply houses if you hunt around. If I was going the wine room route I’d definitely think seriously of a commercial walk in: They come in a variety of sizes; they’re installed and ready to go in a tiny fraction of the time of a custom built cellar and are much more serious pieces of gear than any of the “wine rooms” sold to collectors and drinkers like us, the 4” of insulation being just one example of that.
