Presenting my root cellar !

This threads his a part of my BB Community Sand Badge.

Here's my root cellar! Cedar beam comme from a mill in my village. The longest as been to haul earth with the wheelbarrow, pfiou! Been using it for 3 winter now and i love it, couldn't live without it.

Took me 3seasons part time on weekend, but would've have probably took 2-4 weeks. Maybe 1-2 day if i done it with friends and an excavator...

Some work is to been done to cut cold air around the door, but it's already doing what's it is suppose to do. Even if it's mainly not in the ground.

Very cool (maybe literally?)

Is the dirt berm against the wood structure going to be okay? I'm worried about moisture and rot.

Probably not. I had not easy access to sufficient rocks, so i tried it. I figured by the time it will break down and be problematic, i should have 10-15 years or more. Not sure how to do the entrance better in my case.. but at least it work ! If someone have suggestion, i'm all ears.

I hope you can get 10 years out of it, I'm guessing it depends on your climate and rainfall and how well that berm will drain off instead of in.

As long as you're factoring in rebuilding into your designs, I'm sure it will turn out alright.

Paul referred to Mike Oehler's underground house designs when he designed wofati. I think (though I might be wrong) that they ended up using some kind of plastic liner to create an umbrella to shed water off the structure.

I haven't done any earth/underground style building so hopefully someone else with more experience will give you some feedback. If not for now than for when it does come time to rebuild.

For now I'm jealous of your root cellar! Having one would make storing potatoes, sweet potatoes, pumpkins, carrots, etc so much easier.

I did use the umbrella principle for the root cellar and partially on the berm with plastique waste from a farm. It should help. And the drainage is very good, some part of the berm have even move down because the slope was to much for the dirt structure to handle. Did have some mushroom on the wood of the berm since it was not cedar, but even in the forest, decaying wood structure can last very long...

Yes, very easier storing vegetable with a root cellar! I've now been around the year with my produce partially because of this method ! With this and fermenting and canning and dehydrating, it's crazy the food we can store naturally. Hope you'll have your's one day 1