Since ancient times, people used cellars (cellars, underground, etc.) for long-term storage of products. In the modern world, they have not lost their relevance.

But when there is a need for them, the question arises: how to make a cellar with your own hands?

Types of Cellars

Nowadays, there are a large number of types of cellars. Their types are distinguished mainly by the type of construction material, depth level and location.

So there are:

• earthen cellars, brick cellar, stone, wooden, made of concrete and metal cellars;
• level above the ground: land, buried cellars, half-buried, bulk and on the slope;
• balcony cellar, cellar in the house, under the terrace, basement under the garage or kitchen, or a separate storage.

But all these types of storages most often have the opportunity to build only on a summer cottage. Therefore, photos of cellars in the country are so common - as an example of their use.

Some people may be confused by the idea of \u200b\u200ba balcony cellar, but this is the only opportunity for those who do not have their own site to store cheaply a large number of products.

The essence of such a storage in a wooden box with a tight lid, laid with a heat insulator. So that it has the same temperature, an incandescent lamp is used, which is turned on by a relay and a contact thermometer.

Underground under any building erected during the construction of the main structure. This is the cheapest and highest quality option for this type of cellar. The walls are the foundation of the structure, and the ceiling is the ceiling of the basement.

According to the method of construction, the cellar under the building is being erected as an ordinary basement.

However, it happens that for various reasons the repository needs to be built separately. It is on these types of cellars that we dwell in more detail.

Where to build

The choice of the location of the future cellar is very important. It depends on the number of people in the family (the more people, the more the cellar), the level of groundwater (if the glacier is in the water, it is unlikely that something will remain), on accessibility (the more convenient the approach to it, the better).

As an answer to the question of how to build a storage facility, the best option for a family of 4-5 people will be a 2 by 2 meter room, up to 3 meters deep, standing on the highest spot of the site.

Under such conditions, the cellar in the country can be done slowly and efficiently so that it stands for many years.

How to build

There are exactly 2 ways to build a cellar: pit and lowering. With the lowering version, the basement box is built on the surface and only then gradually buried in the ground, getting the soil.

The excavation method is the most common. In this case, they first create a pit for the size of the future cellar with an increased tolerance of half a meter, and already they collect the cellar in it.

Excavation work

Choosing a pit option and digging a pit proper, a problem arises - how to build a cellar further?

To do this, do the following:

Note!

• prepare the foundation;
• to erect walls;
• plaster them;
• waterproofing;
• perform interior decoration;
• build a ceiling;
• arrange ventilation.

Base unit

The base is prepared by leveling the bottom of the pit. Then it is thrown with rubble, sand and broken brick with a layer of at least 20 cm. The resulting layer must be poured with heated bitumen.

From above, it is necessary to lay reinforcement with a diameter of 6 mm and pour concrete mortar. The thickness of the resulting layer should be 10-15 centimeters. Further, when the concrete solidifies on the base, the box is laid.

Wall installation

The walls are made of bricks. Its thickness is 1 brick.

In order for the masonry to be durable, it is necessary to use a wire with a diameter of 4 mm with an interval of 4 rows. Its application in corners is especially important.

Plastering

Plaster the walls from 2 sides (outside and inside). In order for the stucco mortar to hold better to lay the wall, you need to be empty.

Note!

After plastering, it is necessary to wait a month until the solution dries. This period is most desirable for further strength of the plaster.

Waterproofing

To protect the cellar from moisture, you need to cover the walls with hot mastic from bitumen and stick 2-3 layers of roofing felt. The roofing material is overlapped, the first layer is vertical, and the second is horizontal.

Upon reaching the base, it is necessary that the sheets of roofing material are found on it and carefully glued. After this work, the space between the wall of the pit and the box can be filled up.

Cellar Interior

After all the work done, it is time to begin the internal contents of the underground. Everyone defines it himself - you can whitewash the walls, or you can paste them over with tiled plates.

It is desirable to cover the bottom with roofing material, bonded with bitumen, and lay a tile already on top.

Note!

Cellar Overlap

It is possible to cover the resulting box with both a concrete slab and a tree (timber, log, board).

The type of overlap depends entirely on financial capabilities and the availability of material.

Ventilation installation

Airing in the cellar is an important element of its normal working capacity. To create ventilation, 2 pipes are used (exhaust and air intake). One of them is placed at the floor level, and the other is closer to the ceiling.

The diameter of the pipes depends on the volume of the cellar; it must allow air to circulate.

The material of the pipes can be different (metal, plastic, asbestos cement). For the winter, the pipes must be closed with burlap both outside and inside.

If your cellar will be a separate building and no other rooms will be equipped above it, it is advisable to build a cellar - a roof that performs protective and design functions. It will save the cellar from precipitation and can be harmoniously fit into the landscape of the site.

DIY cellar photo

Specifications

Making metal cellars

Modern technologies allow owners of suburban areas to buy a finished cellar made of various materials. Due to some features and properties, the metal cellar is in great demand relative to other materials. And such popularity is due to the many advantages that metal has.

The advantages of metal cellars

• Practicality and durability. The metal has high strength and excellent resistance to mechanical stress. That makes it possible to operate the cellar year-round for several decades.
• Tightness 100%. The waterproofing of the metal cellar must be done correctly using high quality materials. Only under such conditions will the structure be sealed for the entire period of operation.
• The ability to install a cellar anywhere in the site. Properly selected sheet steel thickness can withstand heavy groundwater movement. Therefore, a metal cellar can be installed in any type of soil.
• Stable microclimate. Excessive heat inside the host unit can cause condensation to form on the walls. To prevent this from happening, a forced-air and exhaust ventilation system is installed in the cellar, which prevents the formation of humidity and helps maintain a certain temperature.
• Long food safety Due to tightness and stable temperature, root crops and other stocks can be stored for a long time.
• The formation of mold and other harmful microorganisms is excluded.
• A metal cellar for a summer residence is available to everyone, since its prices are reasonable.
• In case of leaks, this cellar can be easily repaired.

The MosStroyMontazh company manufactures metal cellars with strict adherence to established technologies. Responsible attitude to each stage of production allows us to offer designs of exceptional quality. It should be noted that welds are performed by professionals, after which the seams are additionally treated with protective equipment. To avoid corrosion, the metal used is treated with an anti-corrosion coating. If you make a metal caisson for a cellar with your own hands, then you need to have certain knowledge in this area. Otherwise, there is a risk of leaks in the cellar, which will lead to damage to the products that are stored inside the hozblok.

Installation of metal cellars takes place after high-quality waterproofing is completed. All installation work is carried out by a professional team with many years of experience and qualifications. We offer to buy a metal caisson for a cellar at a great price and with a multi-year warranty. Our products have the necessary documentation confirming the high-quality production of structures.

We will send the material to you by e-mail

On the territory of the suburban area it will not hurt to erect a cool room for storing pickles, fruits, vegetables and other food products. In this regard, it is worth considering how to make a cellar in the country with your own hands. Performing all the steps step by step, you can create a reliable and durable storage.

Even a small design allows you to store many products

The cellar is usually located in a separate place on the street or under a residential building. Its main purpose is to store food. Due to the device, shelves and other devices it is possible to increase the functionality of the room.

Classification of cellars by the level of penetration:

• underground structures are arranged in dry places;
• semi-underground structures are erected in humid places with an average occurrence of groundwater;
• aboveground structures are made with too close groundwater.

Note!   On a site with too high humidity, a special pillow from a sand-gravel mixture should be arranged. It will allow to separate the structure from groundwater.

The construction of the cellar does not require the permission of any supervisory authorities, however, the developer must in any case determine its location, taking into account some nuances. You should choose the most dry area, remote from the trees.

Do-it-yourself cellar at the cottage step by step: basic work

After choosing a suitable location for a summer cottage, you can begin basic work. The listed stages are relevant for underground and semi-buried structures. As for aboveground structures, they have a slightly different construction technology.

Pit preparation

When digging a pit, the following points should be taken into account without fail:

• the depth of the pit is determined by the construction of the building;
• the area of \u200b\u200bthe dug pit should be slightly larger, since a certain part of the space will be occupied by walls and floor;
• it is possible to avoid the shedding of earth from the side walls by means of a formwork device;
• the seized soil should be left for deboning and decoration of the structure.

Important!   Special attention is paid to the construction of a cellar with your own hands under the house. In this case, the need for laying floors completely disappears, since this function is successfully performed by the floors of the first floor.

Floor device

The most suitable option is to fill the bottom plane with concrete mortar. To do this, all the garbage is removed from the pit. The surface is leveled and compacted, after which it is covered with a layer of sand of 15-20 cm. A waterproofing membrane and a reinforcing mesh are laid on top, then concrete is poured.

Thus, wondering which floor in the cellar is better to arrange, you should first pay attention to the concrete base.

The construction of the walls of the structure

The side parts of the structure must withstand the pressure of the soil. Basically in their construction are used:

• concrete mix;
• building blocks;
• brick;
• wood.

Flooring

The first type of flooring is wooden beams. Bearing elements are stacked with edges on opposite walls, after which they are sheathed by boards. A waterproofing membrane is spread on top. The second option is the use of ready-made reinforced concrete slabs. They are distinguished by durability, therefore they are popular. They are laid on the end parts of the walls, and then covered with earth.

Creating quality ventilation

Constant air exchange will make it possible to avoid mold and rot in the room, and will also help maintain optimal temperature conditions. For the ventilation device, two pipes must be installed. One of them will be inlet, and the other - exhaust.

For ventilation, plastic pipes of medium diameter are suitable. However, their size depends on the volume of the room. Supply elements are usually located on one side 20 cm from the floor, and exhaust - on the other 30-40 cm from the ceiling.

The problem with high groundwater: do-it-yourself cellar

The following dilemma may arise for a certain category of developers: if groundwater is close - how to make a cellar? It’s worth mentioning right away that this is entirely possible. For this, first of all, it is necessary to make a ring drainage of the site on which construction is planned.

Perforated elements are located below the soil depth along the perimeter of the pit. Their slope should be approximately 2 cm per linear meter towards the well or the sewage pit. Pipes should be covered with rubble and wrapped with geotextiles.

If the floor and walls are made of reinforced concrete, then you should make high-quality waterproofing inside and out.

As a sealed room, you can use a large plastic container. It is completely buried in the ground. By arranging a plastic cellar in the cottage with your own hands step by step, you can avoid mistakes associated with waterproofing the structure.

Related article:

Do-it-yourself work after building the cellar: photos + additional recommendations

Ensuring unhindered ascent and descent is carried out using. Its width should not be less than 40 cm, otherwise moving can be very difficult. It is allowed to make a slope of up to 75 degrees. The material may be wood, metal or concrete.

To store supplies, it is necessary to build special shelves or racks. Usually, a bar 100x100 is used for their manufacture. The height of the structure depends on the height of the room.

The basement under the house is not the best place for long-term storage of blanks. The temperature there is elevated, and closer to spring the vegetables in it will flabble. Therefore, beginning homeowners have a reasonable question sooner or later: “How to make a free-standing cellar with your own hands?”

Types of Cellars

In fact, the cellar is a rather deep hole in the ground with fortified ceilings and walls.

The degree of deepening of such a storage may be different:

• deeply buried:   completely underground under the entire height of the cellar; It is not difficult to maintain a temperature comfortable for vegetables and preservation at any time in such rooms - the soil layer reliably protects them from heat and cold;
• riding (ground) cellars:   they can be erected on any kind of sites, but most often such structures are used with a close location of groundwater, when it is not possible to deepen the cellar too deep; to protect such structures from heat and cold, they are thermally insulated by filling with soil (embankment);
• half-buried:   a cross between a horseback and a deeply buried vault; the lower part is buried in the soil, and the upper is located above the ground.

When choosing the type of cellar, you must focus on the depth of groundwater.   They should not rise higher than 50-60 cm from the bottom of the cellar.

Independently, without the help of specialists, determining the level of groundwater is not easy. You can navigate to neighboring areas. Go around the neighbors and ask them what types of cellars are used in this area. More accurate measurements can be made by drilling test wells. Before measuring the water level, the finished well should stand for 1-2 days.

At the location, all underground storage can be divided into 2 types:

1 Freestanding

2 Wall:   in order to save free space, it is allowed to attach the cellar to the walls of sheds, garages and other outbuildings; cellars can also be located inside such rooms; but in order to avoid excessive heating of the air, it is not recommended to attach the cellar to heated rooms.

Location selection

The safety of products and the durability of the building itself largely depend on the place chosen for construction.

Do not build a cellar on:

• in an open area, lit by the sun - it is better to choose a place in the shade
• near large trees, which with their roots can damage the structure

For the structure, the most elevated place is selected.   In this case, the likelihood of flooding by groundwater when rising in the spring decreases. Plus, sewage rain or melt water will not accumulate on such a site.

The vegetable store is located on an elevated site

In order to avoid collapse of buildings, the foundation pit of the cellar should be located no closer than 0.5 m from the foundation of the buildings.

When building a vegetable storehouse under an unheated room, you will not only save space on the site, but also ensure ease of use - you will no longer have to clear snow with every trip to food supplies.

The walls and roof of the building will provide additional protection against cold winds and scorching heat.

When building a land cellar, the exit is located on the shady side. If this is not possible, more thorough thermal insulation of the vestibule and the front door will be required.

Construction of a deeply buried cellar

The construction of any type of underground storage should not be carried out in spring, when groundwater rises too close to the surface, but closer to the end of summer, in August. All work must be carried out in dry weather. During rain, the pit must be closed with a film.

1 After choosing the location of the store, digging a pit is started. The depth of a full cellar should be 2-2.5 m.

2 When preparing the pit, it is necessary to take into account the thickness of the floor, as well as the height of the bedding (pillows) of rubble, which serves as protection against moisture. The thickness of this layer is 25-30 cm.

3 The optimal size of the vegetable store is 8-12 square meters. m. For a small family, 4-5 square meters are enough. m. To the estimated length and width add 0.5-1 m for the installation of walls, waterproofing and arrangement of clay castle.

4 Digging the pit is done manually - the excavator can damage the edges of the pit, and the thermal insulation of the storage will be broken. The earth is removed in layers, carefully aligning the edges.

5 In case of loose soil, it is better to make a pit with a slope (between the floor and the top, the difference in each direction should be 30-50 cm). In this case, the earth will crumble less.

6 In the corners, it is better to immediately hammer the supports from the channel. In the future, floor beams will be laid on it.

7 Part of the land will be needed to fill the top of the cellar, so do not carry the soil too far.

8 After reaching the desired depth, the pit should stand for some time - you need to make sure that it will not be filled with groundwater. If the water leaked into the pit a little, the places of its penetration are covered with clay. With severe flooding, further construction, unfortunately, will be impossible.

It is hoped that water from the flooded cellar can be pumped out annually in the spring, not worth it. You will only wash the ducts, constantly expanding them, and more and more water will come every year. If a dug pit began to flood, it is better to throw it with earth and build a land cellar.

Preparing a clay castle

The best floors in the cellar are adobe.   Our ancestors knew about the features of clay to retain moisture and not let it into the room.

To this day, a clay castle is one of the best options for protecting the foundation, even during the construction of residential buildings. By the way, leaks in the basements of buildings erected in the 18-19 centuries, arise only after laying new modern communications and the destruction of adobe surfaces.

A clay lock is a layer of clay 20-25 cm thick, laid along the contour of the building with the capture of the perimeter of the walls.   The ideal option would be to combine modern and traditional methods of protection.

First, rolled bitumen material (for example, roofing material) glued with heated bitumen is laid on the floors, they are poured with cement, and a clay castle is built on top of it.

Clay sufficient must first be soaked for several days with water. With an excess of sand, 10-20% of lime is added to it. It is better to tamp clay in the formwork, filling it with small layers. To seal it, they trample it underfoot, occasionally turning it over with a shovel.

If a natural layer of clay is found at the bottom of the pit prepared for the cellar, it must be dug up with a shovel, capturing a portion slightly wider than the intended walls. Then the floors are well washed with feet, again digged with a shovel and trampled.

The walls are also insulated with a clay castle.   To do this, the space between the brick or concrete wall is filled with carefully rammed clay. The thickness of such a castle is from 25 cm.   It is more convenient to fill the space with clay as the walls are erected.

They ram it with a piece of log or a special rammer in the form of a flat heavy base and a handle attached to it.

The usual sandy bedding (cushion), which absorbs water well, is undesirable with mud floors. It is better to replace it with a layer of rubble spilled with bitumen, which is covered on top with rammed clay.

Ventilation

Regardless of the type of cellar, ventilation is always provided for in it.   Indeed, in addition to moisture coming through the capillaries from the soil, vegetables and fruits stored in the room will also release water during breathing.

There are two ventilation ducts in the cellar.   The first exhaust is located above the ceiling with the output outward to a height of 10-15 cm (see photo). The end of the pipe, located outdoors, should rise above the ground by 0.5 m.

When located above the cellar of an outbuilding (garage, barn, etc.), the exhaust duct is led out onto the roof of the building above the ridge. The pipe should rise above it by 0.5 m.

The second supply channel, which serves for the influx of fresh air, is equipped at a distance of 20-25 cm from the floor. The supply and exhaust pipes are mounted only on opposite walls. Their minimum length is 2.5-3 m. In order for the circulation of air masses to be uniform, the diameter of the channels must be the same.

They are laid already in the process of erecting walls. For this, special openings are provided in the masonry or concrete in which the pipes are inserted. Top channels are equipped with visors that protect against rainfall and the penetration of rodents.

Too large as a small diameter is undesirable. In the first case, the room will be too cold, in the second - the small size of the channel will not provide sufficient air exchange. Ideally, the pipes should not have any bends. Any extensions and narrowing are not allowed.

The size of the pipes is calculated depending on the dimensions of the room.   For every 1 m2 of a cellar of a standard 2-meter depth, 26 cm2 of channel section should be provided. If the storage depth is large, the pipe diameter is increased proportionally.

To prevent water vapor escaping to the outside, the channels are insulated at the exit points with soil.   You can put on the outside casing, laid with insulating material.

In large vegetable stores, forced ventilation is arranged. In simple systems, an electric fan of low power is installed in the hood for this. In more complex versions, it is installed in both the supply and exhaust channels.

In winter, the supply air holes must be carefully plugged with a cloth.

Wall decoration

The most popular materials for their decoration are concrete, brick or concrete blocks.   For concrete pouring, formwork is being prepared, into which the reinforcing cage is built. All concrete work must be carried out within one day.

Otherwise, cold bridges are formed at the joints, through which heat will escape. Such joints are also dangerous due to an excess of surface tension - the wall will turn out to be fragile.

When erecting brick walls, the masonry is in one brick.   As a solution, clay-sand or cement mixture is used. Outside, the walls are waterproofed with a double layer of bitumen and roofing material. The remaining space between the ground and the wall is covered with earth and rammed.

Walls can be finished with asbestos-cement slabs.   Wood is undesirable. Its service life in a humid room will be short. If this is necessary, you can use the method that was used by our ancestors. At the corners of the walls, stakes are hammered into which boards or slabs cut along the length and dried for 1-2 years are laid.

Cellar Overlap

For the manufacture of flooring, you can use concrete, wood or a combination of both. It is much more convenient and simple to fix the wooden ceiling and lay the insulation between the wooden beams.

In this case:

1 Ruberoid is laid over the walls.

2 Then, at a distance of 0.5 m from each other, logs or beams of timber 150x100 mm, pre-treated with an antiseptic, are laid.

4 Wooden flooring is covered with a layer of waterproofing. As it can be used thick polyethylene. The film is spread so that it is on the ground.

5 Now we lay the reinforcement in the form of a lattice, prepare the formwork and pour it with concrete 4-5 cm thick.

6 After the concrete has completely dried (it is necessary to wait at least a week), a double insulated, tightly fitted cover is attached to the hatch. A brick is laid along its perimeter or concrete is poured.

7 When used as a concrete slab, they are laid on metal beams. The seams between the plates are sealed with cement mortar; then this overlap is poured with bitumen. A ruberoid is spread on top of it, and then a layer of insulation.

8 It is undesirable to use mineral wool as a heater - in a damp room it will get lumpy and completely lose its heat-insulating properties. The best option is polystyrene. The joints between its sheets are glued with sealant or duct tape.

9 If the underground storage is built separately, to protect from the sun in the summer and snow in the winter, it is better to provide a small structure with a gable roof (cellar) above the cellar. Its door is equipped on the north side. Such a room can be used as a place for storing gardening tools.

For reliable thermal protection, the walls of the cellar are buried in the soil by 60-70 cm, and outside they make a blind area of \u200b\u200bclay and gravel.

Ceiling insulation

To ensure optimal room temperature, the ceiling must be insulated.

To do this, a lattice structure (lathing) of timber is attached to the beams, between which foam plastic or any other heat-insulating material that does not absorb moisture is laid.

To fix it, sheathe boards or fiberboard, which is screwed to the bars.

1 Earthen filling (embankment) should reliably keep the cold in the summer, and warm in the winter. Its optimal thickness is 35-45 cm.

2 Before embankment, the ceiling is covered with a 5-cm layer of clay-straw mixture. A thick film of polyethylene or roofing material is laid on top of it.

3 Earth, especially in the upper part of the ceiling, may settle over time. In order not to have to make an additional embankment, a special fence should be provided to protect against soil slipping along the slopes.

4 To strengthen the embankment it is necessary to immediately cover it with turf or sow it with undersized grass, for example, lawn. The intertwined roots of plants will not allow the earth to slide down.

Like any other building, the horse cellar can be made outwardly attractive, decorating it to your liking. Site design will benefit from this.

The main stages of the construction of the cellar without walls

Mounted cellars with full embankment take up too much space on the site.   In recent years, site owners have found a different solution. Instead of an embankment, they began to build cellars with double walls.

Outwardly, they look like ordinary buildings. However, due to the massive walls laid by the insulation, a temperature comfortable for vegetables is maintained in such a storehouse.

With the help of an embankment, only one or two sloping roofs of such a vegetable storehouse are insulated with earth. The thickness of the layer of filled soil - up to half a meter. As in the previous case, a vestibule is provided in such a storehouse.

The door leading to the vault is carefully insulated.

A cellar in a private household is simply necessary - it will help to save a large number of products prepared for the winter, which simply can not fit in an ordinary refrigerator. This room can be located under the house, or it can be placed close to it, on the territory of the site. To know how to build a cellar on the street, you need to study all the stages of this process, from digging a pit to a roof device.

A very important condition is the choice of time of year for the construction of the cellar. Recommended by do work   in summer, in dry weather, so that the pit remains dry and dense during construction.

Types of Cellars

The cellar on the street can be arranged in three main ways:

- completely located underground, in a dug pit, and having a roof over the entrance;

- dug in an elevated place on which an embankment is made from above;

- a ready-made insulated case, which is installed in the pit and is covered with soil.

Having purchased a ready-made version of the cellar case, you don’t have to worry about the process of erecting walls and waterproofing them, you only need to prepare a foundation pit and strengthen its bottom.

To determine which of the existing options is most suited to the conditions of a particular site, and in terms of the amount of upcoming construction work, you need to consider each of them in more detail.

Cellar on level ground

This option to build a cellar is quite laborious, but if it is not possible to purchase a finished building, and the territory of the site does not have a pronounced elevation, then it will be the only one that is applicable in this case.

When resorting to this method to build a cellar, you need to take into account the height of the groundwater in a given area and in a specific area where a foundation pit will be dug. If the site is not enough, then the soil water can ruin all the work done or, appearing later, render the products stored in the cellar unusable.

An approximate water level is determined by looking into a nearby well in the spring when heavy snowmelt occurs. In summer, in places where groundwater passes high, a moisture-loving grass grows, such as horse sorrel, horsetail, sedge and other similar varieties - there it is more juicy and high.

If there is a desire to more accurately determine this parameter, then you can call a specialist who professionally calculates the best place for digging a pit and its possible depth. In any case, you do not need to choose a place in the lowland where water may stagnate.

When arranging a cellar in this way, the pit must be planned with a depth of at least two, two and a half meters. With the process of digging the pit and you need to start work.

Pit preparation

The place chosen for the cellar must be thoroughly cleaned by removing the soddy fertile layer, thereby marking the area for digging. The work is done manually, as the equipment will violate the edges of the pit, which is undesirable for this particular version of the cellar device. To make it easier to dig, it is better to extract the earth in layers, loosening each of them and carefully leveling the edges of the pit, as far as possible.

If the soil on the site itself is loose, then the pit digs with a slope - then the earth will crumble less. In this case, the top of the pit is marked 30–50 cm in each direction more than its bottom should be.

At a sufficiently high level of groundwater, the pit is also made wider and deeper by 40-50 cm, and this space is filled with waterproofing material, which will keep the walls from damp. Clay extracted from the pit can serve as a waterproofing of the walls and floor of the cellar; it is poured into the bottom of the pit after completion of digging and around the walls already erected. The upper fertile soil layer is suitable for transferring to the garden beds or flower beds, and the rest of the soil can be used, for example, for filling the lower layer of the “alpine hill”.

Cellar Materials

For the construction of the walls of the cellar, it is best to use natural materials that will not emit harmful fumes. The explanation for this is simple - in such a room there will be not only canned closed products, but also vegetables and fruits in special open boxes. They are capable of perceiving and absorbing odors and all kinds of substances unnecessary for the body. It is also not recommended to use metal in open form in the construction of the cellar, since it will serve as a conductor of cold, violating the optimal temperature necessary for storing food.

Therefore, for the arrangement you need the following:

- for walls choose brick, foam blocks or concrete slabs;

- for the floor, cement and sand are necessary for the manufacture of the mortar, reinforcement for strengthening the poured screed, sand and crushed stone for the “pillow”;

- for the ceiling requires ready-made concrete slabs or boards for formwork and foundations for pouring concrete, as well as reinforcement to create an appropriate reinforcing belt;

- from the outside, clay waterproofing can be supplemented with roofing material, fixing it to the walls with mastic;

- for the roof you will need wooden blocks and boards, roofing material for waterproofing, roofing material;

- plastic pipes for ventilation will be required;

- the manufacture of the hatch and door prepare lumber;

- interior wall decoration involves the use of stucco or planks for cladding.

All wooden parts of the building must be treated with antiseptic agents so that they last a long time without rotting, damage by insects or microorganisms.

Foundation

To make the cellar reliable and dry, it is best to make it concrete, but before pouring it, you must definitely make it good waterproofed   basis.

• At the bottom of the pit, a sand cushion, with a thickness of 100 ÷ 120 mm, is poured, it should be well tamped. To do this, the sand is slightly moistened and compacted.
• On top of the sand, gravel is poured with a thickness of 60 ÷ 80 mm, it is leveled and compacted.

• Further, along the perimeter of the pit, it would be nice to make restrictive and lay reinforcement. The height of the foundation floor can be from 70 to 120 mm.
• The next step is to pour concrete into the formwork and level it.
• After it hardens and the formwork is removed, the sides of the foundation can be coated with tar, which isolates it well from moisture coming from the soil.

It should be noted that the floor of the cellar is sometimes left earthen. This is possible if the groundwater is deep enough. The earthen floor will allow to remain in the cellar of natural ventilation and soil temperature at a given depth. In this case, for the construction of walls at the bottom of the pit, a strip foundation is poured around the perimeter.

Walling, ventilation and waterproofing

• On the prepared foundation, you can erect walls. For laying brick walls of the cellar, a mixture of clay and sand is most often used, but you can also use the usual cement mortar.
• If the cellar overlap relies on the masonry of the walls, then their thickness should be equal to one brick.
• When using not only walls, but also the soil surrounding the cellar for support, their thickness in half a brick is enough.
• If a place for waterproofing is left between the earthen walls of the pit and the brickwork, then, as it is maintained, this space is filled with clay, spilled with water and carefully compacted.

• A layer of roofing material can be fixed between the clay backfill and the brick wall.
• After laying one or two rows of bricks, in the opposite corner from the entrance, in the wall to the entire height of the basement, a niche for the ventilation pipe is cut in the ground.
• In the second or third row of masonry, opposite the niche, a ventilation pipe is installed with an angled outlet, which is embedded in the wall. Later, this hole should be closed with a fine lattice so that rodents do not get inside the cellar.
• The pipe above the surface of the cellar must be raised no less than one and a half meters.
• The walls are erected to the top of the pit, with constant monitoring of their verticality and horizontalness using a plumb line and a building level.

An important note - if groundwater comes close to the basement floor, then it should be arranged around the brick walls. It is usually filled with gravel or broken brick. Moisture on it will be discharged from the cellar into a container or pit specially arranged near the cellar.

Cellar Overlap

Overlapping the basement can be done in many ways. The simplest of them is laying concrete slabs on top of it, which should, in addition to walls, rest on the ground around the cellar for 400 —   500 mm. But not every site can call in equipment that can lift the plate and lay it in the intended place, so very often you have to do the overlap yourself. In addition to ready-made concrete slabs, home-made concrete, wood or combined flooring can be arranged. The latter is convenient in that it is convenient to lay insulation between the wooden beams from the inside of the cellar, and also to fix the ceiling boards.

• If such an option is chosen, then on top of the walls and on the ground around them, a roofing material is laid on which the processed bars are laid, 150 × 100 mm in size - they will act as beams. The distance between them should be no more than 500 mm.
• On top of the beam bars, a flooring from the boards is stuffed, while providing a hole for the hatch.
• Then, waterproofing from a dense plastic film is laid on top of wooden boards. The film should be on the ground around the cellar.

• An reinforcing grill is placed on top of the film, a limiting formwork is installed, and then the resulting space is poured, which is leveled and left to dry. The thickness of the concrete floor, poured onto a wooden base should be 40 ÷ 50 mm.
• After the concrete has hardened, the hole for the hatch, if necessary, rises to the desired height and a lid is installed on it.

With the device of such an entrance, the staircase can be only the simplest.

Cellar roof

A gable roof will be installed above the hatch, and the rest of the space above the cellar is covered with the film remaining on the surface and sprinkled with soil.

Since the concrete site will be larger than the cellar, a gable roof is installed over its entire width. Thus, a small triangular barn is formed above the hatch, in which you can even stack a certain amount of firewood.

The roof structure is assembled from quality lumber. The rafters of the slopes are fastened in the lower part by bars, which will become a reliable basis for the roof. They need to be fixed on a concrete basis with anchor elements.

You can do it in another way. Around the perimeter of the concrete site, it is necessary to lay a low wall in two or three rows of bricks, and on top of it install the roof structure. The brick part of this mini-shed must be waterproofed.

The frontal part of the roof is sheathed with boards, and roofing material can be laid on the slopes, and slate or metal tile on top. Some people prefer to cover the slopes with plywood, and then lay a soft roof. On the one hand, the pediment is completely sewn up, and on the other, an opening is left for installing the front door.

When rainfall is not terrible for the cellar, you can conduct lighting inside and finish the walls and ceiling.

Cellar lighting

The interior decoration of the room can, of course, be done before the flooring device, but there is no guarantee that it will not be spoiled by the sudden rain. Therefore, it is better to conduct electricity and make lighting better after the hatch is closed by the roof.

Lighting should be done not only in the basement, but also when entering it under the roof.

From the house to the roof above the hatch, copper wires in reliable double insulation are pulled into the cellar, from this entrance room they are already being carried down. Lamps must be placed so that under no circumstances it was impossible to touch them when they descend into the basement. It is best to close the bulbs with a protective cap.

The wiring must be done so that the lights turn on simultaneously - under the roof and in the cellar. The switch should be placed under the roof at the entrance, at a convenient height, approximately 1.2 ÷ 1.5 m from the floor. Installing outlets in a cellar or basement is prohibited for safety reasons.

If there is no experience in conducting and connecting electricity, then it is better to entrust it to qualified specialists, since without knowing the wiring system, at best, you can leave the whole house without light.

Wall, floor and ceiling decoration

If the cellar is good waterproofedthen any material can be used for decoration. If the ceiling is arranged on the bars, then between them it is worth laying insulation in the mats - this will maintain a uniform temperature in the cellar room both in winter frosts and in summer heat.

To strengthen the insulation to the concrete ceiling, you can mount a lattice structure that can press the mats to the surface. From below, it will not be difficult to sheathe the ceiling with planks or moisture-proof drywall, screwing them from to the bars.

Ruberoid and mastic can be replaced with liquid rubber or liquid silicate glass, which will also create a waterproof layer.

Many leave brick walls without additional coating, but it is better to finish them with stucco, rubbing them to perfect evenness. They can be impregnated with liquid waterproofing, which can penetrate deep into the plaster and, having crystallized, make it waterproof. After the waterproofing dries, you can whitewash the walls with lime - this will make the cellar room more accurate and lighter.

After the entire decoration of the cellar is finished and dried, you can think about where and how many shelves to place and where to organize boxes (boxes) for storing root crops.

There is one trick that will help land owners naturally remove excess moisture from the cellar. To do this, you just need to plant berry bushes around the cellar, which will actively absorb moisture from the soil. You can’t plant trees of any species close to the building, since their roots can destroy waterproofing, and eventually even the walls of the cellar.

Prices for various types of thermal insulation materials

Thermal insulation materials

Video: construction stages of one of the cellar options

Cellar with sloping entrance and earthen mound

The second version of the cellar is arranged on a small hill, if it is on the site. With high groundwater and the presence of such a place on the territory, such a cellar will be the best option. However, such a "hill" can be created artificially.

A feature of this approach is that all the soil that is selected from the pit is used for the embankment on top of the roof and entrance. A thick layer of soil will not allow the cellar to heat up in the summer, and in winter it will maintain the desired temperature inside to preserve food.

When constructing such a cellar, a door is used for entry, not a hatch, as in the first version. The staircase leading down is made of cement mortar, brick or machined boards, and has wide steep steps, rather than simple rungs.

The main advantage in the construction of such a cellar is that the pit for it does not need to be made too deep, since the embankment from the soil, arranged on top, creates all the necessary conditions. Floors and walls are arranged in the same way as in the first case, but complicates the work and the corridor leading down.

• The first thing they do is, as in the first version, they dig a pit, but not so deep, since the walls will be raised above it.

• Then, on the other hand, where the door is planned to be installed, steps leading to the surface are cut out in the ground. They subsequently necessarily strengthened by one of the options mentioned above.
• The optimal solution would be to strengthen the steps with reinforcing mesh and pour concrete with a layer of 40 — 60 mm, making pre-enclosing formwork. Steel corners are built into the edges of the steps - they will allow the staircase to last a longer time. If the steps are reliably strengthened, then they can serve as the foundation for the walls of the corridor leading up.

• When the walls are exposed, you can go to the ceiling device. It can be folded in the form of an arch or have a flat surface running parallel to the direction of the stairs.
• The brick walls of this variant of the cellar rise higher above the pit than in the first embodiment, so that the ceiling height is at least two meters.
• After raising the walls to the desired height, an overlap is made from above. It must be strong enough to withstand a thick embankment from the ground. Waterproofing of the walls is carried out in the same way as in the first embodiment, but in this case it will have to be done also from above, under the roof.
• The insulation of the ceiling and the screed of the roof of the cellar do not need to be done. Enough floor beams to which are   stacked flat or plain slate, on which the   and a mound of soil is made.

• The exit to the surface can be made out in different ways, but in any case it should be a brick wall in which the door is installed. The upper and lower doors will reliably close the room from external cold or summer heat. Doors are usually made of thick boards, which themselves are natural insulation.

Such a cellar is sometimes made not in a dug pit, but with the help of a digging downhill. This method is more difficult in that the soil is not as easy to remove from an enclosed space as it is from a foundation pit.

Making the cellar in this way, as they go deeper down the walls, props are installed that will hold the vault. At the end of a dug room is necessary. For her, a hole is drilled from above, into which the pipe is installed.

The interior is usually finished with bricks or stones, which are laid on the walls of concrete or clay mortar. Raised walls can pass into the arched ceiling or overlap with massive, impregnated antiseptic compounds logsthat can be planked on top.

But today they rarely use this method of building a cellar, since it is rather laborious, requires careful calculation and, it must be said, is quite unsafe due to the risk of collapse of the vault during digging.

Installation of the finished structure for the cellar

Currently, industrial enterprises produce finished buildings cellars made of different materials that   exclude labor-intensive processes of walling and waterproofing during their installation. If you purchase such an insulated cellar, then you do not need to do additional thermal insulation for it.

  A very good solution - a ready-made cellar barrel

This structure can be installed on the street or even under the house. The entrance to the cellar is a hermetically sealed hatch, which means that you do not have to make a massive staircase either.

For example, a cylindrical body is presented, the lateral parts of which are made in the form of hemispheres - it is this geometrical shape that can withstand external dynamic impact when the soil swells during freezing.

Cellar barrel compact enough: in diameter it is only 2.2 m, the length of the room inside the building is 3.3 m, and the total volume is 10.40 m³. In fact, it is a small cozy underground room with shelves arranged on the walls and ventilation.

The walls of the barrel are reliably insulated and absolutely tight. They are multilayer and consist of polyurethane foam and carbon steel, and the outer shell is made of fiberglass. The surfaces inside the barrel are primed and coated with enamel.

The ventilation system is made in accordance with all the rules, and consists of two pipes - exhaust and supply. They are located on opposite side walls of the barrel and maintain optimal humidity conditions indoors.

The floors, the shelving system and the stairs are made of well-dried, varnished wood, which creates a favorable atmosphere for storing blanks, fruits or vegetables.

In addition, a lighting system is installed inside the cellar that uses a reduced voltage of 12 V, which is safe for working at depth and in wet conditions.

Installation of the barrel-cellar is quite simple. Given the size of the structure, a foundation pit digs under it. A reliable base is arranged in it, on which the container drops, and then it is buried in soil. If the cellar is done in outdoor conditions, then it is recommended to build a barn over the hatch, or at least a canopy with a roof, which in winter will not allow snow to fill the entrance.

The installation of such a cellar is usually carried out by the manufacturer, whose specialists take into account all the nuances of the technology during this process, so only the simplest work falls on the owner of the site.

Video: installation of the finished insulated cellar

Which of the presented cellars arranged on the street to choose the owner of the site depends on the available capabilities and features of the territory. Some people prefer to do everything with their own hands from beginning to end in order to be sure of each stage of the work done. Others trust the construction of the cellar to qualified craftsmen who know all the intricacies of the process. Still others opt for ready-made designs that will deliver a minimum of hassle during installation.

Read interesting information on how to do in our new article.