How to build a cellar with your own hands on a garden plot

People have learned to build a cellar a long time ago - when there were not only refrigerators, but even electricity. Natural conditions that favor a good microclimate, a constant temperature - all this contributes to the long-term preservation of vegetables and fruits (both their presentation and taste). Owners of suburban housing, especially those who grow their fruits and vegetables, without it simply can not do, and therefore anyone living in a private house will sooner or later have to think about how to build a cellar. Under the house or garage, the cellar is usually built before the construction of the building itself. Therefore, we will consider the issue of creating this economic room in the garden (dacha) section.

How to build a cellar with your own hands

First of all, you need to determine the site of construction, based on the level of groundwater. The easiest way to do this is to drill a well at the site of a future cellar with a depth of at least two and a half meters. After that, it needs to close the pipe and make sure that no water appears in it. If there is no water, you can start work. Otherwise, you will have to find another place, preferably on a small elevation.

After this, they begin digging the foundation pit. Usually its optimal dimensions are 2.5 meters in width and length and as much in depth. The pit can be excavated either manually or with the help of an excavator.

The bottom of the pit should be carefully punched, and then pour a gravel cushion 30 cm high, of which 20 cm is sand, and 10 cm is gravel. Over the cushion lay a metal fittings with rods 8 mm thick, after which they pour it with a layer of a mixture of sand and concrete in a proportion of 1: 3.

How to build a cellar with your own hands with the observance of all technologies? For this, it is necessary to provide waterproofing to protect the floor and walls from moisture ingress. For this purpose, any waterproofing materials are used . Usually a roofing material is used, which is laid on frozen concrete, and then coated with tar. If the width of the roll is smaller than the width of the cellar, it is lapped and the edges lifted, then to glue the roofing material to the walls.

As a material for the walls can serve as concrete or brick. And how to build a cellar with your own hands using the monolithic construction method? For this, first of all, it is necessary to install a reinforcing cage of rods with a diameter of 10 mm, and then build a formwork on both sides of the reinforcement. The width of the future wall should be at least 10 cm. After this, you can proceed to fill the mixture, which should be tamped to avoid the formation of voids. The drying time of the mixture in dry sunny weather is about ten days. Formwork can be dismantled not earlier than in three weeks.

Glue the roofing material to the outside of the walls, you need to fill them with a layer of clay to improve protection against dampness and tamper. Overlaps can be made either with reinforced concrete slabs or with wood. The latter option is much simpler both in technical and financial terms.

Now it remains to install a roof (one-sided or two-pitch) with a hole and build a ladder. The roof must be insulated. This can be done with turf or artificial insulators (natural material is still preferable). From above it must be covered with slate.

And how to build a cellar with your own hands, so that the products in it are stored for a long time and dampness does not form? Naturally, this requires ventilation. To this end, you can use any tube with a diameter of about 10 cm. You can install even two at different ends of the cellar. The lower edge of one tube is 20 cm from the ceiling, and the other - 20 cm below the floor. From the outside of the cellar, they should rise above the roof level by about 30 cm. For interior decoration, it is best to use a hardwood tree.

Caring for the cellar

Knowing how to build a cellar (in a house or a garden plot) is not yet a guarantee that the products in it will be kept long enough. The cellar must be cleaned annually, ventilated and disinfected. The simplest way to disinfect the cellar is to wash it with a lime mortar, prepared by calculating: 1 bucket of solution for 5-6 buckets of water with the addition of copper sulfate (per 1 bucket of solution - 1 kg of vitriol). All works on disinfection must be completed at least a month before the next harvest.