I live in an apartment in the SF Bay area with a built in wetbar. I have my wine in it and I want to insulate it so when I have the heater on it won't fluctuate the wine temp that much inside and it can stay at a steadier 60 degrees. Any suggestions how to go about this and what to purchase?
How to insulate a built-in cabinet for wine?
- Thread starter Jseagull
- Start date
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you could get some foil back Styrofoam 4 x 8 sheet, 1/2 thick would work, you can cut it with a knife, run it on the inside top bottom and sides, beings it is a apartment, I'd use a hot glue gun, so if you leave you can pull it all off and dump in the trash, ,, no damage done,
Dawg
Dawg
as Dawg said foam board is easy to work with, corners can be taped.
Consider having a temperature controller for the heat, Christmas brought an ink bird (rated at 220 volt) which would allow setting a narrow temperature band. At work I use controllers with a PID tuning program and solid state relays that can cycle on/off every second and can stay within 0.1 C. ,,, An undersized heater which runs 75% of the time will be more consistent (ex a flat heating pad) than a large space heater cycling on/off four times an hour.
If you want cooling mechanical refrigeration requires cycle time for the pump. A thermoelectric (ex twelve volt car beverage cooler/heater) will allow you to cycle quickly ,,,, and could have polarity reversed to act as a heater.
Good luck on the project, Omega engineering is my favorite place for build your own pilot plant parts and their how to section in the back of the catalogue has good info on how parts work.
Consider having a temperature controller for the heat, Christmas brought an ink bird (rated at 220 volt) which would allow setting a narrow temperature band. At work I use controllers with a PID tuning program and solid state relays that can cycle on/off every second and can stay within 0.1 C. ,,, An undersized heater which runs 75% of the time will be more consistent (ex a flat heating pad) than a large space heater cycling on/off four times an hour.
If you want cooling mechanical refrigeration requires cycle time for the pump. A thermoelectric (ex twelve volt car beverage cooler/heater) will allow you to cycle quickly ,,,, and could have polarity reversed to act as a heater.
Good luck on the project, Omega engineering is my favorite place for build your own pilot plant parts and their how to section in the back of the catalogue has good info on how parts work.
JohnW
Senior Member
If you haven't already done so put a thermometer inside and crank on the heat for a while to see how much the temp changes. You may be fine without doing anything as you have a lot of mass (wine bottles) in the cabinets. If it changes more than you feel acceptable, line it (except the back) with Rmax Thermasheath-3 1 in. x 4 ft. x 8 ft. R-6 Polyisocyanurate Rigid Foam Insulation Board from Home Depot or something similar. Seal the joints with mylar tape. You will also need some foam tape or something similar to seal the doors. I used this stuff along with a thermoelectric cooler to chill my wine cabinet but eventually gave up as it made lots of noise and just wouldn't cool well enough.
