Root Cellar

[HiTechTed]

Has anybody here built their own root cellar? I have seen some plans on the internet but I wanted to see if anybody here has done it, and can share ideas. About 15 feet from the back door of our house, the land rises and there's a nice hillside that I believe I could excavate to build one. I'm thinking maybe 8x8 with the ceiling only as high as necessary for us to walk around in it without bashing our heads. It would have 2 feet of dirt covering it from my guestimation.

I think it would be a worthy project, and I always assume that given the crafty people on this site that somebody out there has done something similar. It would also come in handy as a storm shelter, since we only have a crawl space. Since it's close to the house I could run power to it for lights or whatever.

Any ideas are welcome and I can post pics of the proposed site tomorrow if needed.

 

[skipmarcy]

I'm doing this very project now, although my room is a bit larger and taller. I excavated the hillside out with my Mahindra and then hired a backhoe for trenching the utility, french drain, footer trenches out. I've gotten my slab poured with rebar every 4' or closer coming up about 5' high. I'm going to try the dry stack method of wall construction - I'm doing 8" block and using the surface bonding cement and then will core fill the walls completely and pour a 6" thick roof on the place and then cover with a couple of feet of dirt. My room will be approx 17' x 14' inside and I'll have an exterior closet attached about 5' x 6' to keep the generator, gas, chainsaws etc. in. Mine is mainly for a storm shelter but of course will be great storage for our canned foods etc. I wanted to build something large enough to have a bed in so when threatening weather is around, like tonite, we can go and get some sleep. Our severe weather seems to mostly come nights around here when all you can rely on is the radar & weather radio. We're working people and can't stay up all nite watching the radar etc. and then go to work the next day. The two extensions you see in the slab are for retaining walls that come out and will be backfilled - my hill wasn't quite deep enough to get the facility back as far as I would have liked but it will do just fine with what I have planned. The drain pipe is regular 4" slotted pipe with the poly sock over it that I got at Home Depot. I'm using creek gravel over & around it and will backfill my walls up some with creek gravel to keep drainage going good long-term - our dirt is mostly clay with chert rocks mixed in.

 

[crbr]

looks good.......

Run dual drains (side-by-side) while you're there. Tie them in to the downhill single at the corner...



.

 

[MikeD74T]

If you're building to store fresh fruits & vegetables build more than one. Not all F&V can be stored togeather. You might look to a precast company in your region. May have imperfect septic tanks, etc that could be had cheap. Miked74T

 

[HiTechTed]

Well skip, yours is far more ambitious than anything I thought of but I can understand why you would need that kind of room. Nice job, btw. I have considered the septic tank route and I plan on investigating that a little more.

Maybe I could expand on my size a little, then make 2 separate areas with a door between them, for different veggies and fruits. I just need to do a lot more research on it. I can't run drainage like skip did so I'll need to figure that out as well. The ground around here is quite rocky and drains exceptionally well, so it might not be much of a problem. I've seen people put the septic tanks right into flat ground and cover them with a shed, so surely there's some way to take care of the drainage (either that or their cellar is now a water filled tank)...

 

[BoFuller]

I'm wondering if I can utilize my crawl space for a root cellar? There are too many boulders to be able to go with a full basement, but when I get to digging the trench for my stem-wall foundation, I thought I might be able to clear out enough space on the downhill side to make a root cellar or two.

Any pros or cons to this idea?

I would also consider putting my water heater down there. And maybe even my furnace.

The foundation will be for a 30 X 30 cabin.

 

[Iplayfarmer]

I'm wondering if I can utilize my crawl space for a root cellar? There are too many boulders to be able to go with a full basement, but when I get to digging the trench for my stem-wall foundation, I thought I might be able to clear out enough space on the downhill side to make a root cellar or two.

Any pros or cons to this idea?

I would also consider putting my water heater down there. And maybe even my furnace.

The foundation will be for a 30 X 30 cabin.

My suggestion: Dig out anything that you reasonably can. It's better to have space and not need it than need space and not have it.

You'd probably want to have some kind of barrier between the water heater/furnace and the root cellar. Root cellars are meant to be cool and humid. Both a water heater and a furnace will heat the place up.

 

[crbr]

thanks for the pictures

 

[Fi-Q]

I have / will have one in mu basement. It is 6c7, but haven t had timw tu finiah / tirn into / use it as a root cellar yet. Building the house, ao there is a lot more priority than the root cellar. I bought a book on the subject. The very little a tuen page & read it, it s seems like a great book on the subject. Think I nought it on amazon:

Root Cellaring - Natural Cold Storage of Fruits & vegetables.

Just checked amazon, 10$ and it have a 5 star rating. There is a section on building the vellar and diffrent type.....


Eventually, i will read this book

 

[forgeblast]

Great book btw Fi-Q I have it and can recommend it.
There is a tv show Alaska the final frontier, a family homesteading out there they use their root cellar, and its under the house but insulated by the blue ridged foam, and they have shelves and hooks in there. nice set up.