Wine Cellar Construction Using Natural, Eco-Friendly Materials

Building a wine room with eco-friendly materials have to done with the help of wine cellar construction specialists.

Coastal Custom Wine Cellar are wine cellar construction specialists that create eco-friendly wine cellars for homes and businesses. We recommend using green building materials because they can add unique features to your wine room and help sustain the environment. Nautical timbers and wine barrels are two popular materials used in the construction industry and this article will tell you more about what to expect when using these materials in your wine cellar. 

Wine Cellar Construction Using Green Building Materials: What You Must Know

Coastal Custom Wine Cellars aims to create efficient and stylish wine rooms for homeowners and entrepreneurs. During the planning stage, we will suggest adding unique features to our client’s wine cellar design.

The use of environmentally sustainable products in various business sectors has been highly encouraged by the environmental movement for many years.  Eco-friendly products are materials that do not pose a threat to the environment in terms of their production, utilization, and disposal.  They also pertain to products that are made from recycled materials.

Using green building materials when building a wine cellar (or any structure, for that matter) helps minimize the need to produce new raw materials and consequently reduces the amount of waste products thrown in landfills or burned in incinerators.  In addition, creating new products out of recycled materials can significantly decrease the amount of waste that otherwise negatively impacts the environment.

As more people clamor for environmentally sustainable products, many companies from different business sectors have responded to their demand.  For instance, wine cellar construction specialists have been promoting the use of green building materials in the design and construction of custom wine rooms.

Applying a green building concept to a wine cellar design not only creates a one-of-a-kind appearance but also helps sustain the environment. The two primary sources of recycled wood materials are antique nautical timbers and retired wine barrels.

Nautical Timbers Wine Cellar Flooring

Nautical Timbers Flooring – Green Building Materials

Wine cellar flooring is an integral part of a wine cellar. The material used has a significant impact on its visual appeal and functionality.

Nautical timbers are often used as flooring materials. These reclaimed wood products come from the ballast and cribbage found in the hulls of ships that navigated the world during the 1940s up to the early 1970s.  Back then, ballast and cribbage were used in sea vessels to provide stability.

However, improvements and modifications in ship ballast systems rendered these heavy timbers obsolete.  Rather than discarding them in landfills, antique nautical timbers are reprocessed into new wood products that can be used as flooring materials in custom wine cellars.

Reclaimed nautical hardwood flooring products come from over 70 different wood varieties, originating from Africa, Asia, and South America.  Antique nautical timbers are carefully re-sawn to maintain a natural patina and character.

To provide additional strength and structural integrity to the reclaimed product, a plywood backing made from Baltic Birch is attached to the re-sawn timber.

Considering that they are made from age-old forest trees, antique nautical timbers possess excellent strength and enduring quality.  Part of this wood material’s appeal comes from its worn outlook and the various marks and dents on its surface, permanently etched there by time.

Nautical timbers emanate a very distinct appeal and character. If you use them even within a simple rustic wine cellar with hardly any stylish design, nautical timber floor will do the magic. They can instantly transform your plain wine cellar into an astonishing, warm and homey vibe that’ll keep you coming back. You don’t have to stain them to achieve a beautiful color. Most of the finishings will only involved coating the wood in lacquer, wax, or any other protecting agent.

Wine Cellar Construction Parts with Barrels

Another popular green building concept that is being integrated into most custom wine cellars design is wood components from reclaimed wine barrels.

A typical wine barrel is used for about three to four years before being discarded in a landfill or sold as firewood.  Retired wine barrels are given another purpose in life by recycling old barrel components into new materials that can be used as countertops, wine racking, and flooring products.

The three primary parts of a wine barrel that are dismantled and reprocessed are the cooperage, wine infusion, and stave.  Cooperage style is the outer part of a barrel end that attractively displays winery logos and other cooper markings.  Infusion is the wine-stained interior of the barrel.  The natural discoloration of this barrel component comes from the staining of the wine during the aging process.

The stave barrel component is the side part of the barrel that beautifully features hoop markings from the metal bands that wrapped and held the stave planks in place.  Adding design elements made from retired wine barrels create a distinctive look in residential or commercial custom wine cellars, considering that no two reclaimed wine barrel components are alike.

Wine Barrel Art Pieces

Wine Barrel Carvings – A Unique Green Building Concept

Wine barrelhead carving is another green building concept that comes from recycling authentic wine barrels.  This wood product consists of a quarter-sawn barrel end and with four to five inches of surrounding hoops.

To ensure the dimensional integrity of the tenth barrelhead piece, polyurethane glue is injected into the joints to prevent cracks from opening up and the hoops from coming apart.  The piece is also attached to plywood backing, for added structural support.

Different designs can be carved into reclaimed barrel heads, such as winery logos, coats of arms, and even landscapes.  Wine barrelhead carvings can be mounted on wine cellar walls as a decorative element or hung outside an establishment as signage.

Wine Barrel Flooring, Wine Racks, and Tabletops

Another popular way of reusing reclaimed wine barrels is for wine cellar flooring. If you want to add a vintage appeal to your wine cellar, wine barrel flooring is an excellent option. Any part of the wine barrel can be utilized for the flooring.

In one of our wine cellar construction projects in Orange County, California, we used Cooperage-style wine barrel flooring. We use the top parts of the reclaimed oak barrels, exhibiting the winery logos and cooper markings on the wood planks. Reclaimed wine barrels are known for their stability, making them an ideal material for wine racks and tabletops.

Using repurposed wine barrels for wine cellar flooring also involves more than just dismantling the barrel and nailing the planks onto floor straight away. The staves and cooperage still undergo a process of refinement, flattening, and preservation so the planks become more durable and warp-resistant for a long time. Take not that the flooring  will still be exposed to the same cool and humid environment as the wine racks and doors, so they need to be in a condition that’s able to withstand the micro-climate inside.

Additionally, wine barrel flooring will depend on the state of the original floor. If you’re having a floating floor where insulation will have to be injected beneath the floorboard, you have to make sure your repurposed wine barrel flooring will work with the insulation to help seal the cellar and prevent cold air molecules from escaping through the floor. Since cold air is dense, the molecules are more concentrated at the bottom, and if there is no adequate insulation and seal on the floor or the bottom of the door, you might potentially be losing plenty of cold air and humidity from your home wine cellar.

Interview with Peter Forbes — Passionate Wine Cellar Accessory Maker

Incorporate Green Building Materials in Your Wine Cellar

When building a wine cellar, designers and installers should not only focus on creating a storage environment that will help preserve wines but also on utilizing green building materials that will help sustain the environment in general.  The use of reclaimed nautical timbers and wine barrel components in designing and building a wine cellar is an eco-friendly, yet creative approach, that will help promote the importance of reducing waste and conserving resources by reducing, recycling, and reusing waste materials.

Enjoy wine collecting while being friendly to the environment! If you are looking for a professional wine cellar construction expert with years of experience using reclaimed wood, you may reach us at (949) 200-8134!