Air Conditioner

( standard air conditioner )

alt.food.wine - Mark B ... I have had a Breezaire cooling unit in my cellar for 5.3 years, and it has performed admirably in a tough environment (FL). Lately, however, it has occasionally been making some racket (whirring and whining).

alt.food.wine - Fred ... I have a similar Breezaire unit in similar conditions (FL). A couple of years ago, my cooling unit started to sound like a truck going around a curve. I unplugged the unit and called a friend over to check it out. We plugged it back in and it purred like a kitten. Later that night the truck was back. We determined that ice was forming on the fan blades and the noise was the fan hitting the ice. I arranged to get it serviced in California and a loaner unit was sent out. During the switch, a bunch of liquid came out of the unit. When it arrived in California, it worked perfectly. I paid to ship the loaner back and ship my unit back to me. It has worked great since. Check to see if moisture might have collected in your unit. It has been extremely humid here lately.

alt.food.wine - Dave F... The noises you are hearing may be an indication of eventual failure of one of the two fans in your unit. A couple of things to check. (1) The intensity of the air being exhausted out of your unit should be the same intensity of the cool air being exhausted from the unit inside your cellar. (2) If the humidity inside your cellar starts to rise from its normal level, it might be a sign of fan trouble. I had both those problems with my Breezaire unit as well strange noises coming from the unit. The semi-good news is that Breezaire stands behind their products even after the warranty has expired. My seven to eight year old unit failed last May. They replaced the fans free of charge. Of course, it was easier for me because I live in San Diego. However, it certainly would be worth a few dollars to call them and see what they say.

alt.food.wine - Bill ...I converted a hall closet into a wine cellar in 1990. I installed a Breezaire, and have never had a problem with it.

alt.food.wine - Joel R ... I just had a breezaire unit in my 300 bottle wine cellar give up the ghost... the fans work, but all it does is click when it should start compressing and generate cold air. I've only had this for about 2.75 years. Seems kinda soon for it to fail. (There is a five year warranty - I'll be calling about how to get it repaired on Monday.)

alt.food.wine - Mark S ...I recently built a "cellar" in one of my closets and used a Koolspace Model 400 as the cooling unit. I did have a small problem with condensation which cleared up once the room was filled with wine. I guess the "mass" of the wine allowed the unit to work more efficiently. I also live in Florida where the high temp and humidity give the unit a good workout. The second problem was with the thermostatic control. When the unit was set at 57 degrees, the actual room temp was closer to 65 degrees. Once I set the unit to 50 degrees, it worked perfectly, cycling on and off as it should. The Koolspace people were very nice and sent me a new digital probe. I have yet to install it as the unit is working great now (I have a Radio Shack thermometer/hygrometer in the closet which shows that the temp is 59 degrees all the time). If I ever have to pull the unit out, I might change the probe then. Despite these problems, I am very happy with the Koolspace cooling unit. If you want to see the cellar, I have pictures of the entire construction process posted on a great wine site www.stratsplace.com. They have a section with pictures of home wine cellars which was of great help when I built mine. Good Luck. Recently .. I have been having trouble with my Koolspace unit recently. The unit does not seem to cool the room to the preset temp. I try to keep temp around 57 degrees. The compressor does not shut off most likely due to the units inability to cool the room effectively. The air coming out of the machine is also around 58 degrees which seems a little high (I have the unit set at 50 degrees in hopes of getting the temp down).

alt.food.wine - Mark B ... My Koolspace Midikool 400 unit does not seem to keep the room cool enough. The temp in the room stays about 62 degrees even though the digital thermostat reads a constant 57 degrees. I find that I am lowering the set temp to bring the room temp down.

alt.food.wine - David Y ... I'm happy with my KoolSpace unit, but I think using an outside window for venting the cooling unit may cost you money. I don't claim to know the entire wine-cooling-unit market, but the least expensive units I've seen want to be *indoors-only* units. i.e., they are designed to vent into another room rather than to the outside. My KoolSpace manual is very clear in that regard.

alt.food.wine - Bob ... Besides insulating the ceiling and walls look into insulating the floor. When the ground gets warm in the summer heat will come up and challenge the unit. I have a KoolSpace setup like yours and bought my unit out of the wine advocate and it works well.

alt.food.wine - RM ... Not wanting to spend gobs of money on a cellar, I selected the Koolspace-100 model (holds approximately 100 bottles). Hey! At least it's expandable to 225 bottles! I ordered the unit on July 17th directly from the company and spoke to the receptionist and Steven, the consumer service rep there. I asked if he could RUSH the order to allow it to arrive during the first week of August to coincide with my vacation. Although there's a 3-4 week backorder, he said he could do it. Sure enough, it arrived today, August 3rd. Oh joy and much merriment! It's easy to put together (took me ~1 hour or so) and the only tool needed that wasn't included was a screwdriver. Recommendation: Don't follow my example of putting it together in a house with a broken AC and an outside temperature of 100. Needless to say, I was literally drenched in sweat. Cold shower time. Filled the temperature-monitoring vial with water and stocked the cellar. So far so good, the temperature is dropping. Slowly mind you, but it's working. =) Thanks to those of you that recommended this system.

Bill B .. wrote us ... My WhisperKool 1600 failed yesterday. Unit trips the 20-amp circuit breaker when it attempts to run. The unit was in service only 29 months. My system installer, has not returned my call of February 5 seeking service advice. The Yellow Pages yielded a local repair shop that serviced wine cellar systems. Test of the unit indicated compressor failure. Vinotheque Wine Cellars (the manufacturer of the unit) sent on February 6 (by Airborne 2-day air) a free replacement compressor for which I paid $37 shipping. Repair shop called today (2/12) to say unit is being tested and should be ready in a day or two. Repair charge was estimated originally to be $250; I have not seen the bill.

While I am not pleased with the service delivered by the original the WhisperKool unit, Vinotheque did respond promptly with a new compressor. And my unit may not be representative of the typical WhisperKool performance.

FWIW, the repair shop has several BreezeAirs laying around. The technician said they were having serious problems with their rotary compressors. And, another brand, CoolAir I think, sells for about 60-percent of WhisperKool. If my repair expense had been much higher, I would have chucked the WhisperKool and bought the CoolAir.

alt.food.wine - Steve M. ... I ended up going with the WhisperKool 4200 and it seems to have the extra power to keep the room cool. The room is well insulated, but one wall is drywall over foundation and I think the earth is sucking some of my cold out. My next job is going to be to seal any leaks I can find.

alt.food.wine - Jeff L. ... I too have a Whispercool 4200 in Los Angeles were it gets over 100 in the summer and in the fall. I keep the wine at 57. The cellar creeps up to 60 but no higher. That is the cellar creeps up, the bottles stay at 57-58.5 degrees. I measure the cellar with a digital gauge and I have a thermobottle to measure the wine's temperature. The cellar varies more than the wine.

alt.food.wine - Doug H. ... I built a wine cellar in my home in North Carolina. It is hot and humid here in the summer, commonly 90 degrees/90%. I installed a whispercool 4200, carefully following the insulating directions. It is not up to the task of keeping my cellar at 55, in fact on hot days, the temp will drift up to 62-62.

alt.food.wine - Jason B ... Well, FYI, I just got the WhisperKool 8000 for my cellar. I have only had the thing for about a week, but my observations are this: 1. A little noisy, but not bad. Quieter than others I have heard 2. Really does a good job of keeping the entire cellar at 55 deg. with minimal variance. 3. The analog dial kinda sucks. I wish they gave you the digital one by default. 4. The dial goes from 35 to 65, but they strongly warn against going below 55, claiming it will cause the unit to die early. Then why the heck does the darn temp. pot. go down to 35? 5. It's nice having the evaporator and defroster features. I don't think the Breezaire has that, but I could be wrong. 6. It seems to run quite a lot and I thought I had my cellar fairly well insulated. It's 11x13x8. I do know that I have two cold air returns that are exposed that need to be covered up. Well, that's about it for now. Like I said, I only have had this unit about a week or so. It seems to work fine for me. Also, don't pay the full price from the magazines. They will give you a deal if you ask.

A reader Writes ... One thing to keep in mind when buying a Whispercool unit is that the warranty starts running when it leaves the factory. In other words, if a wine distributor buys the unit from Whispercool, and you buy the unit from the wine distributor a year later, there is no warranty. I had a problem one month after purchasing my unit and the Whispercool folks were only too quick in informing me the warranty was up. My merchant ultimately swapped out the unit and I don't know what he did with the original. Bottom line: Next time I buy it won't be Whispercool.
A Disappointed Collector