old root cellars

[elwood]

My family and I recently purchased an old farm house on 4 acres. It has an old root cellar. No door currently on it. Anybody have ideas for how I can safely store items in it. I do not know if my canned items will freeze or not. I reside in Nebraska so it does get cold here in the winter. Thanks ahead of time

 

[freemotion]

I have no great experience, I'm sure someone will jump in....but that is a great find! I would start by putting a double door on it with insulation, build some sturdy shelves, and get a thermometer with a hydrometer (did I get that right?) and see what the temp and humidity is in each zone of your cellar. Different veggies need different temps and humidity. There can be quite a difference from top to bottom and front to back, as I discovered in my own cellar, when I did this to find the right spot to build my root cellar.

I did store some rutabagas and mangels and pumpkins with great success even without building the door on mine yet.

The humidity required to store many veggies is too high for the metal in canning jar lids. Ones I had stored in the same area of my cellar rusted out. One tuna can even disintegrated in a few months....

Oh, and

 

[Beekissed]

My family and I recently purchased an old farm house on 4 acres. It has an old root cellar. No door currently on it. Anybody have ideas for how I can safely store items in it. I do not know if my canned items will freeze or not. I reside in Nebraska so it does get cold here in the winter. Thanks ahead of time

Elwood, welcome to the forum! I would go with Free's advice about putting up a double-thick or very insulated door first. Does your cellar have dirt mounded up around the sides? Does it have a building on top of it, called a cellar house? Is the ceiling insulated?

Do you have a pic? Its so hard to tell if a cellar is structurally functional without a good description or pic. If it has a sturdy insulated door, good mounding of dirt along the sides, a well-insulated ceiling and good ventilation~it should do very well for food storage in a cold climate.

 

[elwood]

I will try to get a pic soon. The cellar is old but structuraly sound. It is buried or has dirt mounded on it. It has a vent out of the top. As for insulation just the dirt and concrete. Is there a way to insulate further?

Thanks for the welcome it is good to find a site with so many knowledgable people.

 

[Beekissed]

If the top is covered with a foot or two of soil, you shouldn't need any other insulation. Well, except a good, thick door. I've even seen folks who built a sturdy wooden door and nailed foam board insulation on the inside of it.

I had to put some insulation in the rafters of my old cellar because it only has a cellar house on top of it, which doesn't make for good insulation at all. If it were topped with soil, I wouldn't have had to do that.

Good luck with your cellar! Feel free to join in on our Squirrel Challenge and fill that puppy to the brim, take a pic and enter our contest!

 

[patandchickens]

I'd also suggest you don't go too berzerk storing stuff in there next winter (your first winter there), at least nothing that you'll be upset to lose... but leave a max-min thermometer in there and check it every coupla weeks, so you get a sense of what kind of temperature regime it wants to have. (You can modify that a little with ventilation and clever management, but only to a point).

Then the *second* year you will have a much much better idea of what'll store well in there and what won't, and what you will have to do in the way of management.

Good luck, have fun,

Pat

 

[mrs.puff]

Okay, so I have a cellar. If you have a stone cellar, it might stay warm enough all winter to be okay. If it is wooden (which mine is) you need to have it insulated, depending on how deep it is. You will probably be okay as far as keeping stuff from freezing. That's the whole point of root cellaring.... they keep stuff from freezing. The farmer wouldn't have built it if it would freeze the jars.

You should be careful about humidity. Mine is very humid and the jars collect a lot of condesation, which can rust the lids if they are in there too long. I oil my lids with mineral oil, and this helps to retard the rust.
You should also NEVER store anything on the floor, even if you have it in a basket or something. Think floods. Most old cellars can get some water in the bottom in very rainy weather.
If you are storing thing that are NOT in jars or cans, be sure to store them in vermin-proof ways. Like hanging bags from the ceiling by a wire. It's very hard to keep out mice.
Lastly, if the cellar is doubling as your storm cellar, put in some method of latching the door from the INSIDE, or make the door swing in, and make it a little larger than the opening. You know, so the door can't get sucked open.
That's everything I can think of right now. Hope all that helps.

 

[Beekissed]

I use OneBite rat bars for my cellar for the occasional adventurer.....it works quickly and they can't carry it off and store it for later use. They must nibble the food/poison off the bars to obtain it....kills em very well!

My granny always said the mark of a good cellar was a damp floor!