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Finally the inevitable happened and my Eurocave unit died a few days ago
Of course these things seem to happen always at the most inconvenient time of the year with temperatures rising to +30C this week. If you know that my wine cellar is actually in my attic (since most people have no cellars in the Netherlands), you can imagine that I'm now a bit stressed. Luckily my attic is about 6 meters high and I have the "cellar" in the north-east corner, this together with a mobile airco unit hopefully works until I replaced the proper unit.

Since the Eurocave unit that I have is not in production anymore and they do not have an alternative that I could exchange without hassle I decided to look for alternative brands and now ordered an American Whisperkool SC3000i (http://whisperkool.com/sc-3000i/) .

Although I ordered it already (directly from the US since it appears to be not sold in Europe) I was still wondering if anyone has any experience with this particular brand/type.

rgrds,
Dries

Whisperkool is a new manufacturer to me. I recently had to replace my 15 year old Eurocave unit and had similar problems finding a replacement that was the right size. I did find one eventually, but temporarily forget who the manufacturer is.

An HVAC tech couldn't fix your old unit? I have never heard of American Whisperkool either, but that does not mean much.

I looked over whisperkool and cellarpro

after talking to a few cellar builders on the spectator forum they recommended the cellarpro over it so that's what i'm using.

had a friend in texas that just had his whisperkool fail after 3 years. Turns out he didn't tilt it enough and water sat at the bottom of the unit and rusted something internall causing it to fail.

If I remember correctly, Roy installed a Whisperkool unit recently when his old unit failed.

Good to hear that at least it is a known brand. I did not consider repairing the old one. It must be approx 20yrs, is very noisy and consumes a lot of elektricity....

AHB wrote:I did find one eventually, but temporarily forget who the manufacturer is.

Climadiff is the name of the manufacturer of the unit I bought to replace my old Eurocave.

How many are using a natural cellar to store their wine?

mosesbotbol wrote:How many are using a natural cellar to store their wine?

you mena like a basement or a cave or something specially built like uncle tom has?

mosesbotbol wrote:How many are using a natural cellar to store their wine?

My 13th floor flat does'nt come with natural cellar, I have a Miele unit.

mosesbotbol wrote:How many are using a natural cellar to store their wine?

Some of my stock is held at Octavian. That must count as a natural cellar.

But for storage at home, I use a 180 bottle capacity wine storage unit.

i personally have a room that's 7' x 6' in my basement. I use r 13 insulation all around and have installed a cellarpro cooling unit as it got as high as 72 during 10 days of 98+ F termperatures.

it's now at a steady 55-58 degrees.

g-man wrote:

mosesbotbol wrote:How many are using a natural cellar to store their wine?

you mena like a basement or a cave or something specially built like uncle tom has?

More the former, but either one. It seems like more people have fridges than old fashion basements. I keep my wine in a basement that has seasonal swings, probably hits near 70 degrees, yet the wines are showing really well. The oldest wines in my storage have been there 15 years.

I heard about some chateau cellars in France that aren’t that cold as we all strive to achieve and wines speak for themselves. I did not think Niepoort’s cellar was anything particularly cold and wines were fine. I wonder where the real line is on temperature and humidity? I talked to a Jura winemaker that has wines in their cellar over 150 years (drinking fine) and he said it was critical to have temp swings if you want to age beyond 40 years.

mosesbotbol wrote:

g-man wrote:

mosesbotbol wrote:How many are using a natural cellar to store their wine?

you mena like a basement or a cave or something specially built like uncle tom has?

More the former, but either one. It seems like more people have fridges than old fashion basements. I keep my wine in a basement that has seasonal swings, probably hits near 70 degrees, yet the wines are showing really well. The oldest wines in my storage have been there 15 years.

I heard about some chateau cellars in France that aren’t that cold as we all strive to achieve and wines speak for themselves. I did not think Niepoort’s cellar was anything particularly cold and wines were fine. I wonder where the real line is on temperature and humidity? I talked to a Jura winemaker that has wines in their cellar over 150 years (drinking fine) and he said it was critical to have temp swings if you want to age beyond 40 years.

Oxidative wines perhaps?

I use r 13 insulation all around and have installed a cellarpro cooling unit as it got as high as 72 during 10 days of 98+ F termperatures

Whilst I havn't been dashing round the world's classic cellars with precision temperature recording kit, I have been taking the opportunity to note cellar temperatures when I get the chance.

It does seem that you have to go a long way down in the ground to achieve year round temperature stability, and that although they may appear cool in high summer, the cellars of the classic continental wine makers, in France, Portugal (and elsewhere..) - actually get quite warm.

My best guess is that most of them exceed 20C (70F) in the summer, and some in Gaia may sometimes get as high as 25C - but this doesn't seem to do much harm..

Day/night fluctuations seem to be a much greater worry than absolute temperatures, and the peril of intraday temperature fluctuations, caused by room chillers periodically cutting in and cutting out; should not be underestimated.

uncle tom wrote:

I use r 13 insulation all around and have installed a cellarpro cooling unit as it got as high as 72 during 10 days of 98+ F termperatures

Whilst I havn't been dashing round the world's classic cellars with precision temperature recording kit, I have been taking the opportunity to note cellar temperatures when I get the chance.

It does seem that you have to go a long way down in the ground to achieve year round temperature stability, and that although they may appear cool in high summer, the cellars of the classic continental wine makers, in France, Portugal (and elsewhere..) - actually get quite warm.

My best guess is that most of them exceed 20C (70F) in the summer, and some in Gaia may sometimes get as high as 25C - but this doesn't seem to do much harm..

Day/night fluctuations seem to be a much greater worry than absolute temperatures, and the peril of intraday temperature fluctuations, caused by room chillers periodically cutting in and cutting out; should not be underestimated.

even 3 degrees is considered too much fluctuation?

Received the new unit yesterday and will install it today.
Right on time since I'm going on holiday for 2 weeks as of tomorrow

g-man wrote:even 3 degrees is considered too much fluctuation?

During one day? Not to me.