Wine cellar door... need advice.

[Howie Bernstein]

Hi.

I'm going to be building a 2-4 x 6-8 door for my wine cellar. Inside will be around 55 degrees, outside around 70. I have a bunch of 6" x 3/4" Ipe leftover from my deck, as well as some large 2-2 1/2" thick redwood burl slabs.

I would like to do a shaker style two panel door, with the resulting door to be about 3 1/2" thick. I was thinking of gluing up some overlapping doors where the rails and stiles alternate so that they form large lap-like joints.

So going from the interior (inside the wine cellar) to the exterior...

Layer 1: Ipe, full height stiles, inset veneer ply panels
Layer 2: Western red cedar, full width rails, rigid foam panels
Layer 3: Red Oak, full height stiles, rigid foam panels
Layer 4: Western red cedar, full width rails, rigid foam panels
Layer 5: Ipe, full height stils, protruding redwood burl panels

I don't have a full shop, so I'll probably do some biscuit joints for each layer, but rely on the overlap of the layers for overall strength and stability.

I'm an amateur woodworker.

Questions...

1) Am I insane?
2) Will the door be too heavy?
3) Are there better choices for interior woods?
4) Is an oil finish a reasonable choice for a finish?
5) What other questions should I be asking?

Thanks,

Howie

[Jamie Buxton]

Whew, that is going to be a massive door. Generally ones that heavy are not hung off the jamb with knuckle hinges, because the weight will distort the jamb or pull out the screws. Instead, their weight is carried directly to the floor with pivot hinges. (Look at the hinges on big doors in retail stores to see examples.) Rixson is one of the big names in pivot hinges. www.rixson.com

Look into the lock set before you build the door. The readlily-available hardware will not fit a door that thick. Thick-door lock sets are available, but do cost quite a bit more.

With that much insulation in the door, the big heat (and humidity) leak may be the weatherstripping around the edge. You should plan that before you make the door.

[Howie Bernstein]

Good point about how the door will hang. Thanks for the rixson link. I should probably do some calculations to figure out how heavy it would be, and maybe consider making it a little thinner.

Did you have some suggestions about seam insulation? I was thinking I would just get some kind of weatherstripping attached to the jamb, and maybe some sort of door bottom sweep.

Thanks,

Howie

[Jamie Buxton]

Did you have some suggestions about seam insulation? I was thinking I would just get some kind of weatherstripping attached to the jamb, and maybe some sort of door bottom sweep.


I think you should think of this as an exterior door. A wine cellar has significantly lower temperature than the living space in your house, and significantly higher humidity. You want to minimize the leaks around the door. Weatherstrip the door just like you'd weatherstrip an exterior door. For the sides and top, I like the stuff often called kerf-in. (http://www.mdteam.com/products.php?category=1763) You do have to build the door stop molding to accept it. For the floor, I'd use a threshold like on most front doors, and the door bottom strip intended to go with it.

[Tom Hargrove]

I echo Jamie's comments about an exterior door. That is what was installed on my cousin's wine cellar.

I would also be concerned about all the layers of different materials which are being exposed to different temperatures and humidity levels, and problems with warping. If you want to dress the door up, perhaps you could by an exterior slab door, and the add "show" layers to the inside and outside. This should avoid differential shrinkage/expansion problems.

[Howie Bernstein]

I think you should think of this as an exterior door.

Yes, absolutely. I had been looking at the mdteam website, and that jamb weatherstripping looks good. For the bottom, I was looking at this: http://www.mdteam.com/products.php?category=202 or something like this: http://www.mdteam.com/products.php?category=1659.

I'm still having some difficulty finding handle/lock hardware for a thick door. Any hints on suppliers there?

Does "exterior" mean I shouldn't use an oil finish?

Howie

[Howie Bernstein]

...I would also be concerned about all the layers of different materials which are being exposed to different temperatures and humidity levels, and problems with warping.

Yeah, me too. I have some 5/4 white oak sitting around... I was thinking of using that instead of the softer cedar for the interior. But do the interior layers really get exposure to the cold and humidity of the cellar?

Using a slab door for the inside layer is an interesting idea. What were you thinking a solid core, or a fiber core? Would that be stable enough to hold the other layers straight?

Howie

[Jamie Buxton]

Rather than using a conventional lock set, you could consider making your own, from wood. This is the entrance to a wine cave, right? How 'bout closing the door with a big wooden sliding bolt? It would be surface-mounted on the face of the door, not mortised inside like conventional lock sets. Think about those movies about the Middle Ages, where they're barring the castle gates against the invaders. They're dropping big timbers into pockets on the inside of the gate. Your bolt doesn't need to be a separate timber, but that's the style: exposed surface mounting. Or think about how ordinary doors were secured 200 years ago, before the industrial revolution made metal mortised locks affordable.

Of course, making the design look a little old doesn't get you out of making it function in a modern way. You still want it to seal properly against the weatherstriping.

[Tom Hargrove]

I would think either a particle board or mdf core door would work, with relatively thin "show" skins. The skins don't need to be more than 1/4" to 1/2" thick. The challenge with a wine cellar door is that the cellar side faces a completely different environment than the outside, which will put stresses on a wooden core, especially when wood is glued to it, and one side is subject to a different environment than the other side.

I am not trying to change your mind, but the coolest wine cellar door I ever saw started as a pre-hung exterior door and jamb. The owner then applied corks that were split in half (I think they used dabs of silicone caulk) to the skins as the wine was drunk. It was a "roadmap" of what had been consumed over time from the cellar, and could be changed as more wine was consumed. The owner started in the center with a diamond shape and worked out to the edges.

I have to go now. A nice little Chianti is calling my name. . .