Questions for those with an inground root cellar? Ideas please..

[Dexter]

I am currently building a house, and the lay of the land (on a slight rise) allows for a inground cellar. I am reading the Bubel book, but need even more real life ideas as it isn't actually all that ideal of a situation.

(1)The north side of home is both facing the road (would not want cellar to be visible) as well the septic is going out that way, a serious conflict. I may be able to move the septic yet, but that would end up close to the pond or my veggies/orchard... quite a compromise!
East side (2nd best)is furthest from any doors (difficult winter access). Shovelling about 20' of snow on grass, plus a flight of stairs that gets 1/2 the roof snowload dumped on them will get old fast.
West side is 2 car garage.
The south (full sun) there is all the space in the world.

Builder suggest In the SW corner where it will be mainly shaded by decking, but the spring/fall sun is likely low enough to reach under there. Deck is on the second floor.

If it (solid concrete) is a foot deep below the soil level, will the full sun location be bufferred enough to work well? Winter averages quite cold, almost always below freezing and the ground is solid late Nov to late Feb. I want apples to keep until May/June or even better, if possible.

This a significant expense that naturally is going to need to work. Imagine all that $$/work, and it ends up a steamy mess...

(2)And plan is 8'x8' or 8'x10'. I plan to store veggies and orchard fruit. I gather you need to keep them both separate and the plan is to have a room 'within' the cellar for that.
But aprox what percentage should the room be? And what deserves more space, veggies/roots or fruit? That's personal I know, but I haven't a clue. I'm a bachelor and simply planning for the future!!

Any other tips, ideas, or even pics would be hugely appreciated. Thanks!

[NCLee]

How about a root cellar separate from the house? Then put a small storage building over it with a trap door for access. That's what the old timers did around here.

Personally I don't like the idea of most of it being above ground or in an area where the full sun can hit it. For it to work well, it needs to be as earth sheltered as you can get it to keep the temperatures stable. Plus it needs to be well ventilated.

As to the size, make it as large as you can afford to do it. It'll cost more up front, but you'll appreciate the space for years to come.

If you haven't already started construction, put your root cellar under the house with access from the inside, even if you have to put a trap door in the utility room or a closet. You can set it up for dual duty as a root cellar and a safe room. Or under a portion of the garage that doesn't need to have a vehicle parked over it. Under a corner, for example.

Here's a link that may be of interest. http://waltonfeed.com/old/old/cellars.html It has info on old style and "modern" ones, too.

Lee

[Dexter]

Thanks, and also for the link. Will check it out!
It is a small house, so under the garage will not work without extra structural support, and the engineering alone would be a major finacial blow. But I like the idea- builder- no.

The hill I am on is basically a tiny island in the flood plain. So it has to be right up close or will will be affected by the 200 year flood. Not a crisis- except the floods usually hit during fall (100% lost produce would be expected)...

What I will ask the builder today is having it go off the east side, entering from inside the garage. Would hopefully simplify the whole outside entry issues and now no snow clearing!
I do like the idea of opening the door and allowing it to cool off in fall which won't be as possible with no exterior doors, but extra venting could likely fill that gap.

[Paul Wheaton]

Lots and lots to say ...

First, any chance you can post a picture? Maybe a drawing? I'm trying to wrap my head around what you are saying and I must be a bit thick. A picture might help.

As for existing stuff, a few months ago I got to watch as the mighty sepp holzer built one:



Here is my feeble attempt at drawing what he was doing:



I have lots more pictures and drawings at my sepp holzer page. It also includes a root cellar that sepp says that he builds in a day with a bunch of logs.

I've been tossing around some ideas about this general architecture combined with some ideas from oehler structures and annualized thermal inertia. As you are talking about keeping your roots seperate from your fruits, I further wonder if one might be able to do something with a freezer that is behind the root cellar. The key idea is to set the surrounding temperature to something far colder than the annual average that you find five or six feet deep.

And to further use these same ideas for home heat.

Well, I know, a bit beyond what you probably want to hear about. But if you are interested in it, more on this line of wackiness can be found here.

[meanwhile]

I do not mean to be a "wet blanket" but be careful about one attached to your house. The house we bought here had one, in the basement and it was a mess. Wet, moldy, smelled bad, the dirt under it got wet, bugs in there. Yes, we did try to fix it and yes, it was bad system but....all that damp and stink was getting up in the main part of the house. We finally did away with ours. We put cement on the floor, took out the walls and opened up the air vents and it works now just fine as a regular basement. We still store jars, cans in there.

The idea of having a root cellar away from the house is the best tip. Good luck.

[Forerunner]

Our cellars (two, one for root crops, one for fruits) are both north-facing and quite separate from the home. Both are buried under two to three feet of dirt.
Climate here gets to 20 below on occasion. The backs of the cellars never freeze. The tunnel approach gets pretty cold. We adjust what gets stored where by the temps we expect each area to be subjected to.
We had good potatoes from last fall until July this year.
Apples store well until April/May... and, if you want a real treat sometime, try making apple cider from some of your better winter-stored apples.
It's like drinking light apple syrup, and not not overpowering at all.
Richest, sweetest cider I've ever had.

[ronbre]

you mentioned a deck..check out the doors I put in the north side of my deck at this link
good to make progress...
you could use doors like this to enclose the opening of your root cellar..and then you would have easy access..if you were to enclose a space under the deck and put a nice access door like this..you could store a lot of stuff and not have to dig into the ground and worry about septic or water infiltration..i had thought of using one of the areas under our deck as a root cellar myself..by using thick insulation around the area..adding shelves..and have a door where i could open and reach in and pull out the food..how much more convenient than some.

my grandparents used to have a door in the side of a hill..

[kabri]

Originally Posted by Paul Wheaton

Lots and lots to say ...

Here is my feeble attempt at drawing what he was doing:


[/URL].

Paul, I'm curious, is there a specific reason why the air intake is directly below the vent on the top? We are in the process of having our cellar built. It will share 1 wall with our house foundation, but won't be "in" the house. We're at the stage of pouring cement and the placement of the lower vent hole needs to be decided now!!! I was thinking the low vent should be at the opposite side of the room, to encourage air to pass thru the entire room to escape via the upper vent. Am I over-thinking this?

[Paul Wheaton]

Nearly all root cellar plans have an in and an out - one above the other. Usually to the great outdoors.

The page I linked to shows an alternative plan I drew up, but I don't know if it's just silly.

[MSMH]

This is a unique type of multi-purpose building which can be used for a root cellar, and it is easy to make using earthbags.

http://www.motherearthnews.com/Do-It...rden-Shed.aspx

Be sure to look at all the "images" in the Image Gallery to see how it is constructed.