Root Cellar

[DocHeb]

I'd like to have a "root cellar" in the basement of my new home - some place to keep my garden produce, canned goods, flower bulbs, and maybe some wine. I though about placing an air-conditioner (one of the type normally used in windows) through a partition, walling off a corner of the basement. The exhaust heat could be vented into the utility room where the noise wouldn't be a problem. It would be well insulated. The plan is to keep this room about 50 - 55 degrees, and the air conditioner should keep the humidity down. Any thoughts about this?

 

[Anonymous Poster]

Well, your idea would work, but you're basicly building a walk in cooler, and doing it in the most energy expensive way.
You said new home, so, why not do it energy efficiently?
A couple hundred feet of pipe buried 5 feet down in the yard with water circulating thru it would give you a source of free cooling, pump the water thru a convector type heat coil, and you use less than 1/4 hp to do the same job ou could do with an air conditioner burning 10 times as much power.
If the inside walls of the room and the ceiling were insulated with styrofoam, you'd probably only need to pump water in the hottest summer weather.
By the way, the air conditioner would be far more efficient thru an outside wall.
Just a thought

 

[Chuck52]

If you have part of your basement fully below grade, you could probably just insulate a space from the rest of the basement and the ceiling and it would maintain a "cool" temperature. I have such a room in my basement which was used as a root cellar, but I need to replace the door that got warped during a very wet spell. Franz's suggestion sounds neat, and takes advantage of the constant ground temperature too, but you may not even need to get that complicated, depending on how constant you want the temperature in this room.

Chuck

 

[Knight9]

I've been planning a similar process myself. Here are a few resources with a few tips:
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://waltonfeed.com/old/cellar4.html>Root Cellar Basics</A>
<A target="_blank" HREF=http://www.organicgardening.com/library/rootcellar.html>Organic Gardening Root Cellar</A>

The repeated issues seem to be:
1) air circulation (fresh air vent in and stale out). Keep shelves away from walls a few inches and bins/boxes of produce off the floors a few inches. Keeps the air flowing.

2) humidity (constant source of humidity but not too damp)

I have a nice section of my basement slated for this very item. I will construct a 2x6 wall to section it off from the rest of the utility room. I'm planning on an insulated door also to prevent heat infiltration.

Good luck.

Kevin

 

[TWINKLE_TOES]

DocHeb,
Great idea/w3tcompact/icons/smile.gif I have a readers digest book "Back to Basics:How to learn Traditional American Skills" It's a great book, I have given one to all my friends and relatives. They share my view.
In the book there are plans for exactly what you have in mind. The book is available used (new condition) from Amazon for under $10 from Thrifty Scholar.
Al