Confessions Of A Tightwad

   At the house we used to live in, I had built a cellar in one corner of the basement and that worked fairly well. Now that we are at the cabin we need some place to store potatoes, apples, and carrots that is cooler and more humid than the cabin but will not freeze. A root cellar was the obvious choice. Not having any heavy equipment to dig out the hole my son and I did what had to be done. We dug it by hand.

It turned out to be a bigger job than I thought it would be . We hit clay and hardpan at about 2 feet and it continued to the 7 foot depth we stopped at. It meant that every bit of dirt we took out had to be loosened with a pick first. We finally got the 10 x 16 hole dug into the south facing slope of the hill below our cabin dug, now we needed walls. I had intended to build the walls with rock since we have it in abundance but the season was getting late and building  field stone walls is a slow job. Plus of course, I’m a tightwad.

   One alternative type of construction that I have read about but never tried came to mind. It’s called earth bags. It’s just what it sounds like, bags filled with dirt and stacked to form the wall. A bag, think 100#  feed bag here, is filled about 1/3 full,then the top is folded under and the bag placed flat with the fold underneath. Run a row of these , then place two rows of quadruple barb ,barbwire on top  and sandwich it between your next row of bags. It really ties them together.

   After you have your wall as high as you need it, 5 feet in my case, build a form for concrete on top of it. Put in some rebar, drive a few down into the wall too, and pour it full. I made mine 4 inches thick. This helps compress the wall and keeps ever thing in place. I also used it to get every thing square and level as it’s hard to keep it that way building with the bags. After that you need to plaster the walls with portland cement plaster to protect the bags. I have to do that to mine yet when the weather allows. Also make sure you put drain tile on the outside of the walls.

   On top of my concrete curb I built a two foot wall and then a low gable roof. The outside of the wall was water proofed and then I back filled almost to the top of it. I used heavy clay for the top few inches and have every thing sloped away. I used styrofoam to insulate the top part of the cellar. I left the floor dirt to help keep the humidity high. The front wall is built the same but will be faced with rock. I got started last fall but didn’t get done before cold weather hit.

   We have stored potatoes, apples, and carrots in wood crates filled with leaves. So far every thing is doing great. We have had quite a bit of below zero temps. and nothing has froze. The carrots and potatoes were actually dug too early as we had to move back to the cabin sooner than expected. Despite this they seem to be doing good. Most of the apples we bought were hail damaged seconds[ can you say tightwad ] but we have had very little spoilage so far. I think I will have some ventilation issues in the summer but will have to wait to see. So far I am very pleased with the results.

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