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Wine coolers can be one of the best options for those who want to store their wine correctly to ensure that they have a great tasting, sweet-smelling and presentable wine to drink.
There are all different combinations of wine coolers such as freestanding wine coolers, integrated wine coolers and built-in wine coolers where your bottle of wine would be stored in a specific function depending on which wine fridge you get your hands on.
Freestanding wine coolers have no installation guide as they can be put anywhere in your household. Whereas, built-in wine coolers are more complicated than just putting them anywhere. But, how are they installed? Keep reading to find out more.
What are Built-In Wine Coolers?
Built-in wine coolers are designed to be installed into a new looking kitchen - usually next to existing counters with free space or cabinetry. However, when deciding where it’s going to be positioned within your property, whether it’s under a counter or in current cabinetry spacing - there will not be a cabinet door as the front of the wine cooler will need to vent.
First of all, having these ventilators on the front of the grille allows for the built-in wine coolers to be visible to the naked eye. Having these luxury wine fridges on display not only generates great first impressions when people visit your household - but the colour of the wine fridge will match the style of your other kitchen appliances.
What Size Will My Built-In Wine Cooler Come in?
Are all built-in wine coolers the same size? Do I need to get rid of some space in my kitchen to cater for the size of the built-in wine cooler? Well, not all built-in wine coolers that you will shop for are the same size, but based on your current free space - you may or may not have to accommodate some more room.
Built-in wine coolers are known for being narrow - however, you can invest in ones that are slightly broader in width. For example, if you were to have between 15cm to 40cm width dimensions sizes - they would need at least 0.25cm ventilation space. This is because being compressed will damage the performance that the wine coolers vent at - ultimately leading to your wine’s taste, smell and appearance deteriorating.
For the back of your built-in wine cooler, you will need a minimum of 5 mm to 1cm of room for your wine fridge to breathe and allow airflow in a natural state. If you find that your wine cooler is touching the back wall, you may pick up some unwanted vibrations - which could cause your wine bottles to start cracking and your wine to taste unlike it should.
How are Built-In Wine Coolers Installed?
How to install a built-in wine cooler? This is a common question for anyone to have when investing in their first wine cooler that requires such fine details. However, we’re here to give you the only built-in wine cooler installation guide you’ll need, in order to understand the process and act on the process of installing your wine fridge.
Before you follow our steps, you’ll need some of the following items: Scrap Wood, Tape Measure, Phillips Head Screwdriver, Manual of your Wine Cooler and Spirit Level. Now that you know what you need, here’s how you get your built-in wine cooler operating effectively.
Power Supply
For the first step, you must check that your built-in wine cooler is within reach of a power supply (a plug). If there is no possible way of it reaching the plug alone - you may want to invest in an extension lead (if you don’t have one already).
If you don’t follow this first step, the manufacturer of your wine cooler model could cancel all warranties - as you’ve failed to treat the wine fridge properly, leading to its potential destruction.
Measurements
As we’ve discussed previously, having the right measurements is essential for your wine cooler ventilation and wine in general. Therefore, using a tape measure to measure out the space you have in our desired area will save you the backlash of ‘winging it’.
Taking into consideration the space for the doors being opened (if a door is needed) is vital as some unnecessary airflow could damage the temperature and humidity that the wine cooler is running at.
Position Carefully
Once you have the space prepared and all the measurements made - you will carefully need to insert your wine cooler into the chosen storage spot. If the wine cooler has mounting plates, you will need to fasten these to the cabinets on each side using the Phillips head screwdriver we told you to buy. Plug your wine cooler in first but don’t turn it on yet until you follow the next step.
Wine Cooler Needs to be Level
If you’re finding that your bottles are rolling, it may be because your wine cooler isn’t level. This could be dangerous for the wine bottles as the contact could smash them inside your fridge causing a huge mess.
For the most part, if they’re not on the correct level, they can be fixed by hand. However, if it was not screwed on properly, you may have to take it off and put it back on to a balanced alignment.
Let it Sit
When you’ve installed it all correctly and there are no issues with anything that you’ve done - you need to leave it for a couple of hours. The reason for this is so the coolant inside the unit can get used to its environment.
After the gases have settled, then you can turn on your wine cooler and let all of your functions run as normal. You now have everything you need to install a built-in wine cooler into your household when it comes to measuring, fitting in and levelling it up.
What are Elite Wine's best selling undercounter wine coolers?
We supply a broad range of undercounter wine coolers, the manufacturer's we use cater for sizes/shapes that most generic, Dunavox produce lots of different sizes with the 400mm wide undercounter and 500mm wide undercounter units being very popular for us.
The most popular 150mm wide undercounter wine cooler is the Climadiff CBU7S1B - With its unique shallow depth of 47.5cm it makes it very easy to incorporate in any kitchen.
Our most 300mm wide undercounter model is the dual zone wine fridge from Avintage, the AVU27TBZ1 - It is a cost effective dual zone unit with almost a 50/50 split between the top and bottom zone so there is plenty of space for reds and whites. The sleek handle also proves popular as it is designed to sit directly underneath the countertop so you can't see the handle - very popular with handleless German kitchens.
The most popular 400mm wide undercounter wine cooler is the Dunavox DAUF-32.78DB - This is also a dual zone model but also has the option to swap between white, blue or amber LED lighting - with it being only 400mm wide, it is in a uniqe width for an undercounter wine cooler.
We are proud to say that we have the only 500mm wide undercounter wine fridge available to us and is available for quick delivery from our warehouse in Chester, the Dunavox DAU-38.100DB has proved extremely popular since its release at the start of 2022 - it is also available in stainless steel or without a handle, which features push2open technology like Liebherr or Miele wine coolers.
The Avintage AVU53TDZB1 is currently our best selling 600mm wide undercounter wine cooler, the sleek black finish and unique lighting which is installed in the shelf rails also means the bottles are lit up much better than other 600mm wide built in wine coolers.