Cave root cellar
Our neighbor, Frank Hoyt Taylor, took
advantage of the backhoe rented by a friend for grading a
house site to dig a root cellar into his north-facing
hillside. When the excavation was completed, it became
clear that Frank had opened a hole into a cave, so he decided
to gain some extra geothermal cooling by running pipes from
the back of his root cellar into the cave.As with Emily's basement cut-off, I'm going to refer you to $10 Root Cellar if you want to read all of Frank's construction tips. That way, I'll have room in this post to sum up his results.
The weakest link in Frank's root cellar is the front wall and door, both of which are open to the elements (although insulated with foamboard). Ice does occasionally form on the inside of the exposed front wall, but temperatures in the main root cellar stay steady for most of the year between 50 and 55 degrees.
The real beauty of
Frank's root cellar is the way he has created a very low-budget
geothermal system by tapping into a naturally-occurring
cave. The cool-air intake involves four drainage-tile pipes,
two of which go directly to the outside and two of which dip into
the cave. Unfortunately, the outside-air pipes were crushed
when the backhoe pushed soil 
up against the back of the root cellar, so
Frank feels the root cellar could benefit from more
ventilation. He is considering adding vents at the bottom of
the wooden door, but is happy with the outlet vent at the top of
the cellar.
Frank built the root
cellar with the help of his friend Jim around 2003. The pair
didn't keep track of their labor (which was extensive) and didn't
have to pay for the backhoe since it was already on-site.
Those caveats aside, they estimate they built their cave root
cellar for about $200.
Frank enjoys the way
cave salamanders share space with homegrown potatoes, and he notes
that the structure could double as a tornado shelter if
necessary. When the backhoe-driver came to check up on the
cellar a few months after construction, he opined "That root
cellar is worth a fortune," and Frank agrees.
| This
post is part of our $10
Root Cellar lunchtime series.
Read all of the entries: |
Or explore more posts by date or by subject.
About us: Anna Hess and Mark Hamilton spent over a decade living self-sufficiently in the mountains of Virginia before moving north to start over from scratch in the foothills of Ohio. They've experimented with permaculture, no-till gardening, trailersteading, home-based microbusinesses and much more, writing about their adventures in both blogs and books.
Want to be notified when new comments are posted on this page? Click on the RSS button after you add a comment to subscribe to the comment feed, or simply check the box beside "email replies to me" while writing your comment.