In article >,
"Dark Helmet" > wrote:

> Hello all. 5+ years ago I was an occasional poster and constant lurker on
> this NG, but 4 years in northern Ohio, the land of no wine drinkers, left my
> wine hobby/habit/obsession out in the cold. I now live in the Fresno area
> and have been happily pursuing my passion again. Being 1.5 hours from Paso
> Robles and 2-4 hours from many of the best California areas has been quite
> exhilarating. Paso Robles has been a real treat and a journey of discovery
> of some incredible wines I simply would have missed otherwise. There is
> some truly incredible "stuff" coming out of this area, and prices tend to be
> lower as the name just isn't as marketable yet. Lucky for me.
>
> This new area though, leaves me with a real issue. Since I do not have a
> basement, as most CA houses do not, I now own a large Vinotemp, which fits
> nicely into a space in my dining room. I think it was a 550 unit, and has
> around 300 bottles in it currently. Bottles range from Bordeaux to Rhone to
> Down Under to CA mainly. Two things worry me about this set-up:
>
> 1. Power outages - The temperatures during the summer in Fresno hit around
> 100F daily. I know with the wine mass in there, I have some time during an
> extended outage, but I'm not sure how long.
>
> 2. Cooling Unit malfunction - This worries me the most. If the cooling
> unit dies, I have no clue what to do. The whole cooler sits about 6 inches
> from the wall, which leaves no room to service the unit and moving it would
> be impossible with 300+ bottles inside. Not to mention I have no idea if
> anyone could service it or if I would just have to replace the cooling
> unit - but I fear that is not a short process.
>
> So, I'm looking for someone smarter than me out there who relies on a unit
> like I do - how are you prepared for the above situations? is there a
> simple way to repair a cooling unit? Do you keep a spare as backup? I can
> see having a 3rd party wine storage facility on backup, but I cant see how
> to get the wine there in an emergency. I have seriously thought about
> digging a cellar in my backyard, but it's not really feasible at the moment,
> and might be difficult anyways given the small-ish yard, housing covenants,
> and potential cost.
>
> Just looking for some general feedback.
>
> Thanks all and glad to see a lot of old familar names still posting here.
>
> Dark Helmet (I'm still leary of using anything close to my real name on
> Usenet)

Power outages are easy as we have this problem in southeastern Virginia
and that is solved with a backup generator hooked to a propane tank. We
have hurricanes so can be out of power as much as two weeks. Ours is
hooked into the house's power supply. We have solar panels but I don't
know how well they will fare in a hurricane. Broken cooling unit is a
harder issue as there are few people other than refrigerator repair who
will come out to fix it.