WINE GUARDIAN®:
The only ductable self-contained environmental control system
for residential and commercial wine cellars

Application Notes - 1st Anniversary Edition, April 2009

 

Dear Wine Guardian Distributor:

We are really excited about some marketing activities Wine Guardian is undertaking and wanted you to know what we are doing to help you sell more Wine Guardian® equipment worldwide. In addition to these quarterly Application Notes (you can read back issues at www.wineguardian.com/newsletters.html), we are:

Writing and placing news releases via PRWeb. This information has been published in media outlets around the world, including luxury lifestyle magazines, investment firms' newsletters, business-to-business mags, HVAC installer and home builder web crawlers, and numerous wine blogs (did you know there are more than 800?). Since February, we've had thousands of readers to these sites. The releases are now posted to our Newsletters page so you can conveniently direct your clients there for reference.

As a result of this publicity, Wine Guardian can now be found on Page 1 of several search engines, including Google News, and by several keywords.

We would be glad to help promote your special news about an interesting Wine Guardian application, too, and we are always looking for unique stories in our various promotions. I hope you notice an uptick in WG inquiries as a result of these efforts. It would be helpful if you could let us know the origin of your Wine Guardian leads so we can track and adjust our marketing outcomes in real time. As always, call or email me if you have any questions of would like more information.

Cheers!

Mike Militi
Wine Guardian Sales Manager

 

Cheers

Product Profile:

Supply and Return Grille

Supply and return grille locations within a wine cellar are crucial to the proper performance of the HVAC system and the wine cellar in general. Improperly placed grilles and diffusers are one of the major causes of airflow short cycling. Airflow short cycling occurs when the supply and return grilles are too close to each other. Their close proximity makes the air travel from supply grille almost directly to the return grille and much of the air bypasses the wine cellar. The result can be a thermostat that never reaches setpoint, or a unit that operates longer than it should, resulting in improper humidity control, temperature control and the possibility of freezing the air conditioning cooling coil. The supply and return grilles should be placed at opposite sides of the wine cellar, ideally with the supply grille located in the ceiling and the return down low along the wall. What you are trying to do is create a sweeping motion of the air forcing it from one side of the room to the other. Cold air at the ceiling will mix with the warm air from the cellar that naturally rises to help create an even mix of temperature from top to bottom within the space. If you are not using the grilles that are supplied with the Wine Guardian then each grille should be sized appropriately for the amount of airflow it will deliver or pull from the cellar and have enough free area as possible. Properly sized grilles are important to provide for quiet operation and reduced system static pressure losses. Below are the CFM requirements for proper operation.

1/4-ton WG	207 CFM
1/2-ton WG	400 CFM
1-ton WG	485 CFM
2-ton WG	715 CFM

 

Improper wine cellar supply/return
grille placement

Improper condenser inlet/outlet
grille placement

Heatload Calculations

There are several ways to determine the air condition unit requirements for any wine cellar application. Most notably there is the cubic foot method that has been used for many, many years and for all intents and purposes gets you in the ball park for most residential type applications. However, the method assumes a well-constructed cellar with adequate insulation and vapor barrier and limited in/out traffic and bottle turns. Items such as continuous lighting, the amount of glass (insulated or uninsulated), proximity to other warm environments, and insulation values can really change the amount of air conditioning, or heating, required for any wine cellar environment. These variables make it almost impossible to size an HVAC system strictly by the cubic foot method.

The Wine Guardian Cooling Load Calculator brings the best of two methods together in one program. The calculator is divided into two sections. The "Sample Selections" section allows you to approximate the correctly sized Wine Guardian unit by using the cubic foot, square foot or number of bottles for any wine cellar space - and comparing it to the residential, restaurant or retail/commercial application. The second section is the "Cellar Calculator," which is an in-depth question and answer spreadsheet where you are required to provide insulation values, square footage, amount of glass, number of door opening, bottle rotations, length of ductwork, lighting levels, etc., and the program provides the appropriately sized Wine Guardian based on the varied inputs. HVAC equipment that is undersized will have trouble cooling the cellar to the desired conditions, will run longer, or constantly, and as a result cost more to operate. Oversized equipment may not run enough to control humidity levels in the cellar, resulting in poor humidity control. We encourage you to use our Wine Guardian Wine Cellar Cooling Load Calculator. It's the only way to determine the perfect sized Wine Guardian unit for the application.

Wine Guardian Heat load calculator

 

Meet the Father and Son Entrepreneurs Who Created Wine Guardian

The founders of Air Innovations, father and son Larry and Mike Wetzel, have spent most of their careers designing and manufacturing specialty air conditioning and refrigeration equipment. They are also both passionate about collecting fine wines. It became only a matter of time before they applied their expertise in both subjects to building a better wine cellar cooling system.

The result was Wine Guardian®, a commercial-grade unit sold in North America and Europe, first introduced by the company in 1998.

The Wetzel family's first wine cellar was hand-dug by Larry and a teenaged Mike under their 1820's farmhouse foundation, utilizing the natural coolness and humidity from the earth and stone surrounding it. From that date forward, wine cellars became an essential part of their future residences.

The first attempt at providing artificial cooling came about in Larry's 1989 house renovation and involved using a home air conditioner - still the basic framework for many wine cooling units today. It soon became apparent that the unit couldn't adequately keep the recommended 55 degrees nor provide the proper humidity. It was also cumbersome and noisy. After studying what was available for purchase, the Wetzels determined they could build a better product, and soon Wine Guardian was born.

Larry has WG-controlled 900-bottle cellar in his Cazenovia, New York home and another 200-bottle cellar in his second home on Nantucket. Mike recently installed a 600-bottle cellar in his home on Skaneateles Lake, one of the wine-producing Finger Lakes in Central New York. He is using a ducted, water-cooled Wine Guardian with humidifier. It is installed in an adjacent mechanical room, mounted over the door to conserve space.

 

Air Innovations President and CEO Mike Wetzel (left) lived in Strasbourg, France for several years and is particularly knowledgeable about the wines of the Alsace. Larry Wetzel, chairman, is an active member of the international burgundy wine organization, the Confrérie des Chevaliers du Tastevin



The vineyards of New York State

The Wine Guardian Team

Mike, Debbie and Russ are standing by to help answer any product, application or customer service related question you may have. Our normal business hours are 8 a.m. to 5 p.m., Eastern. Service can be reached 24/7. Toll free 800-825-3268.

Mike Militi - Sales Manager 315-452-7409
mmiliti@airinnovations.com

Debbie Pelow - Customer Service 315-452-7433
dpelow@airinnovations.com

Russ Warner - Parts & Service 315-452-7434
rwarner@airinnovations.com

WG Team