My beer cellar has grown beyond the capacity of your typical refrigerator so I'm exploring another (relatively cost-effective) option of converting a small closet (approx. 4'x5') in our basement, which currently houses all of my bottles, into a sort of cool room with a constant temp throughout the year. The problem is that our house is on a sloping site so the basement gets a lot of sun on one side in summer and indoor temps down there can exceed 80F. My plan is to insulate the closet and install some sort of cooling system, perhaps a small air conditioner, which I will run in summer when needed. However, there are no windows and it's too small for any portable floor unit that I could find, so I'm wondering if anyone has come across any other types of air conditioning/cooling devices that would be appropriate for this type of application. If need be, I could run a vent through an adjacent room to a nearby window but I would prefer not to have to do that. Any help would be greatly appreciated. Happy New Year! Jay
You could get a wine cellar cooling unit that mounts in the wall or ceiling and then insulate the room. Or get a dedicated fridge/freezer or wine cellar fridge some of the ones ive seen hold hundreds of bottles and arent too expensive on craigslist.
The wall mounted cooling unit sounds exactly like what I'm looking for and it would need to be self-evaporating since I can't really drain it. Any more specific info on those or advice on where to get one? Looking online now.
Every once in awhile i see them on craigslist. Looks kinda like a fancy ac mixed with a bathroom fan and have temp and humidity controls.
a 4x5 closet is so small that installing any sort of cooling appliance will be overkill. is it more practical to rough out a vent opening from the closet into the conditioned space above? with some insulation and a bit of natural convection you might be able to incorporate the closet into the living space for almost no energy. i cant think of any electric cooling unit designed for a space so small.
