Posts Tagged Downside

Building A Wine Cellar – What You Should Know

Posted by outside_voices on Sunday, 28 November, 2010

Many people dream of having their own wine cellar. Not only because it can increase the value of your home but for the pleasure of sharing wine aged in your own cellar with family and friends.

A few things to consider are:

How am I going to use the cellar?

Will the cellar be purely for storing wine, or will it also be used for entertaining and displaying your wine collection?

What are the most important components of a wine cellar?

Insulation – it is recommended to have a minimum of R12 or if possible R19. To the extent the cellar shares an exterior wall, R30 insulation is preferable for that wall.

Moisture barrier – it is imperative to use a vapor barrier when constructing a wine cellar. The most common vapor barrier is 6 mil poly sheeting, which should be wrapped around the entire wine cellar on the outside of the insulation.

Airtight seal – when the door is closed it is crucial that the wine cellar has an airtight seal. The door should have weather-stripping and a door-sweep to prevent air from entering the cellar when the door is closed.

How do I select a wine cooling unit?

Through-the-wall or self-contained cooling systems are the easiest to install and the most affordable. The downside of through-the-wall cooling units is that they take up space inside the cellar, and noise from the cooling unit can be heard inside and outside the wine cellar.

A great self-contained unit for smaller cellars up to 300 cubic feet is the WhisperKOOL 1600.If you are building a larger wine cellar, say up to 1,000 cubic feet then you will need the WhisperKOOL 4200 self-contained cooling unit to properly cool the room.

Split-system cooling units are designed so the evaporator is located inside the wine cellar ad the condenser outsidie. The advantage of split systems is that the condensing unit can be located in a remote location, which mitigates noise from the compressor, and split systems don’t require having a big hole in the wall. However split-systems require professional installation, which is expensive.

There are four different WhisperKOOL split systems available depending on your requirements.

How do I select wine racks?

Individual bottle storage: each bottle is cradled in its own cell, either single or double deep. Difference size cells are designed to accommodate various types of bottles, such as Bordeaux, Burgundy/Champagne, Magnums and splits.

Diamond Bin Storage: The advantage of Diamond Bins is that they can accomodate any size bottles however because the bottles rest on each other they are best reserved for long-term storage.

Tabletops: With individual bottle or bin storage below, tabletops provide excellent spaces for opening bottles and pouring wine.

These are a few of the factors that you should consider when building your own wine cellar.

Daniel White Speaks About Buying Inexpensive Crown Molding

Posted by outside_voices on Monday, 19 April, 2010

When performing the final touches that’ll embellish your home plus pull it all along for the look you are aiming for, installing crown molding isn’t any small feat. Yes, it appears simple to put in and could break up plain, bland rooms, but there’s more to cutting the lengths into the sections you want and tacking them up with finishing nails. These crown molding tips can assist t make sure the task does not drive you crazy. 

Initially, you should to select inexpensive crown molding which will not overpower your area or appear too thin and out of place. The experts have several nice crown molding tips for creating the proper choice for your rooms. A good rule of thumb is to choose a molding based mostly on ceiling height, allowing 1 inch of molding height per foot of ceiling height. If you have got 8 foot ceilings, pick a crown molding that is eight inches in height. The design of your area and home comes into play too; do not select a sleek molding for a Victorian house, plus avoid fancy moldings for a contemporary decor. 

Don’t be too precise along with your measurements and desires, plus necessarily obtain added lengths than you believe you need. As crown moldings are made from wood or wood particles, bringing the supplies home and letting them sit in the area they are going to be installed for 10 days or thus can help permit the wood to adjust to the area temperature and humidity for a better fit.  

Out of all the crown molding tips, this one has to be in the top 10: Prime plus stain your lengths before you set them up for an easy, quick job. You will not need to be careful regarding getting primer or stain on your walls or stress regarding drips. 

The most important downside individuals run into with crown molding is carrying out the proper cut so everything fits and you simply have to make the cut once. Most individuals tend to cut crown molding the identical way as they do baseboard molding, by laying the piece on the flat side. We’ll let you in on 1 of the best crown molding tips: There’s a relationship between the angled designs of crown molding and the overall wall it will be affixed to.

 

Advantage Of Active Solar Heating

Posted by outside_voices on Friday, 26 February, 2010

There are 3 main drawbacks of active solar heating with the 1st being that the primary costs concerned are on the high side. The second drawback of active solar heating is that use of an active solar heating system is restricted to its location as well as power density while the 3rd most critical downside of active solar heating is that the solar cells can only produce direct current ( DC ) which then should be converted into alternating power ( AC ) before it can be helpful to the patron. During this transformation from DC to AC, there’s loss of energy to the tune of between 4 and 12 %.

More Advantages Than Disadvantages

More and more households in America are being heated by active solar heating systems as there are clearly a load more benefits to such systems that help offset plenty of the drawbacks of active solar heating. The real reason why even more homes have not switched over to use of active solar heating systems are the opening costs concerned as well as saying with the requirement for adequate quantity of daylight to make the active solar heating system advantageous.

If however you are prepared to invest roughly between 6 to 20 thousand bucks to install an active solar heating system then probabilities are that you won’t pay much heed to the drawbacks of active solar heating and will go on and employ this form of solar electricity. In truth, the marketplace for active solar heating systems continues to grow and industries too are expending larger effort in researching and finding less expensive solutions and therefore the future looks bright.

One thing that does help you disregard the disadvantages of active solar heating is that these systems are easy to use and the accompanying DIY instruction manuals make it easy to educate consumers as to how they can install their own active solar heating system and so save on the high costs involved.

The other major downside of active solar heating is that there’s need to install the system where there’s abundant daylight and so in case you should chance to be living in areas like in Alaska, using an active solar heating system may not make much sense.

Also, once you have installed the active solar heating system on your roof it becomes part and parcel of your home and so when selling your home you might have to part with the active solar heating system which is certainly one more of the disadvantages of active solar heating to take into account.

Examples of active solar heating can be seen in the use of such solar heating systems being employed in places such as Fairbanks, Alaska where sunlight is not readily available. Nevertheless, an active solar heating system can still provide good service despite the constraints in regard to sufficient sunlight.

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Evans D. Smith