Building An Underground Root Cellar

Building material options include native stone concrete cinder blocks earth packed tires or cedar logs for walk in root cellars.

Building an underground root cellar.

Historically root underground cellars date as far back as 40000 years when people discovered that if they bury their food underground it would remain fresh and edible for a long period of time. And yet to be able to build your own underground root cellar you need to know some basic and very important details. The perfect location for a root cellar is nestled into an existing soil bank in a well drained location 10 to 20 yards from your house. Small underground food storage systems primarily consist of buried containers while larger setups typically include a separate building.

Root cellars tap into those cool moist soil conditions and use them to store fruits and vegetables like your refrigerator produce bin. Keep these three details in mind and the cellar can be built using just about any method. Understand that the key elements of a root cellar have to do with temperature humidity and ventilation. The biggest positive aspect of using a root cellar is the simplicity.

For those unfamiliar with the term a root cellar is an underground room that acts like a natural refrigerator maintaining temperatures in the mid 30 s f in the winter and mid 50 s in the summer. A root cellar will save money for many years to come yet if you construct the cellar yourself the cost of building materials is less than a family would spend in one winter buying produce at. Dig a deep enough hole and you ll find that the ground is cool and often moist. Once you have the right location and conditions set up you just store your produce in baskets or buckets and leave as is in the cellar until you are ready to use them.

We decided that our little farm needed a root cellar to store our produce in. Depending on your time energy and funds there are two main types of root cellars to choose from. Pros and cons to using a root cellar. Ideally the door should face north to keep out the sun s.

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