Building a cellar

So I am running out of space in the fridge I've been using as a cellar. I'm looking to section off and insulate a portion of my garage to dedicate as a cellar. The construction portion should be no problem, and I'm planning to use spray foam for primary insulation. My main question is, what is a cost effective way to control the temperature within the room? I've looked at wine cellar cooling units and they're well into the thousands of dollars, but I don't think a window unit air conditioner is going to do the job either. Is there a happy medium that anyone can suggest? I'm just looking at roughly a 10x5x8 space that will have a concrete floor and hopefully a high R value. I've looked at restaurant auctions and even considered buying a walk in cooler, but I think I could do it more cheaply myself.

 

I didn't think a window unit would be good enough because they're only supposed to be able to reduce outside temp by 20 degrees. It'll get above 100 in my garage in the summer unfortunately, so I thought I'd need something beefier. Having said that, since making my post, I've found some information on modifying the thermostat of a window unit so it'll produce refrigeration temperatures.

Thanks for the links and responses, just what I was hoping to find!

 

Construction should begin later this month, I'm definitely looking forward to it.

 

The part that is intimidating me is insulation. The Coolbot webpage suggests an r value of 25, which works out to basically 4 inches of spray foam insulation, and will cost almost $1400 for my little 10x6x8 room.

 

They didn't specify the spray foam, I mention it because it seems to be about the best available, especially because I want to create an air tight seal. If I went with cellulose or something I'd need to make sure to caulk all the seams individually.

 

Here's some pictures as requested:

Started out by clearing out a section of my garage

Framed out the ceiling and walled in a 6X10 section, made the walls with luan sheeting just to have a back to spray the foam against.



Here's a shot of the foam:



I ended up spray painting the foam black so that any gaps in my wall coverings wouldn't be as visible, and I added 2 inch angle iron for mounting my shelves. Not shown is that I did top and bottom with the angle iron for extra support of the 2x12's

I made railings out of steel cable tightened with turnbuckles. I set the bottom rail at 2 inches because a 12 oz bottle on its side is 2.5 inches.



Mounted the AC and got the coolbot working, which was very nice given how hot it was working outside. Coolbot setup and installation was a breeze.


I covered the two short walls with reclaimed barnwood.




I found these Styrofoam tiles on ebay while searching for real tin tiles, they were cheap and I figure every bit of insulation helps.




I used old grain bin steel floor for the long walls


I was unhappy with the exposed look of the air conditioner, so I took a half-whiskey barrel that had been used as a flower pot and modified it to mount on the wall and hide the coolbot and AC. I cut an opening for the cold air, and an opening for the air intake. I separated the chambers with an extra piece of luan.




I'm pretty pleased with how it looks on the wall.

And I found the perfect compliment to it with a vintage license plate from Bourbon County in Kentucky.


Completing the bourbon county theme by framing my black Friday poster I got in line at Lincoln Park Binny's



And here's a panoramic view of the whole shebang with the beer inside, but before I got my poster back from the frame shop



All total I'm into this project for around $1500, not counting the beer. $500 for the AC & Coolbot, $500 for the spray foam insulation, and around $500 for the door, tile, light, and wood + hardware. The bin wood and barn floor were free, and I have no clue what they'd cost on the open market.

Thanks for the suggestions and support, I couldn't be happier with how everything turned out. At least until I get my first electric bill.

 

I took it down to 40 before I moved any beer in just to see if it would go that low and it got there from in just a few hours. I'm keeping it around 50 right now, seems to be staying at that spot without running the AC excessively. Garage temp is probably in the 80's during the day right now, so it's heavenly to just go hang out in the cooler. I need to get some kind of meter that I can hook up and see how much it's actually running, especially if we got a hot snap. I've got my Johnson controls temp controller that I had on my outgrown fridge that I'm going to switch over to heating with a couple of space heaters for the winter.

 

I should also add I put some foam-board insulation on the floor, and covered it with the sectioned workout mats for extra cushioning in case something did happen to fall.