Building My Wine Cellar

Some years ago I realised a long-held dream and built an fully-insulated passive wine cellar in the basement area under our house.

Because our house is built on a sloping block in Sydney we had space underneath a section of the house. We cut through from the lower level of the house into this space. We removed fifteen tonnes of clay and rubble from this area before the wine cellar construction could begin.

We struck rock when we were within 15cm of the floor of the lower level of the house. So that’s where we stopped excavating! The house is too old to bring in jackhammers to excavate rock so the wine cellar is just one easy step up from floor level.

The wine cellar is now complete. Our wine collection has a home and all wines have been catalogued in a cellar management system.

Here’s the story of that wine cellar in photos.

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