The Root Cellar – Cheap Refrigeration by: Rich Murphy for Off the Grid News
The Root Cellar – Cheap Refrigeration by: Rich Murphy for Off the Grid News
The more time I spend as a prepper and survivalist, the more I find myself trying to integrate my survival plans into my daily life. This probably started out with keeping an EDC bag and first-aid kit in my car, something like 40 years ago. In more recent times I’ve found myself using my own home-generated electricity to power various things. I also grow my own vegetables to feed my family and a number of other simple, practical things.
One of the things I’m attempting to do with all this is reduce my monthly cost of living. As I grow closer to retirement age, one of the thoughts in the back of my head is about if and how I will be able to retire. Since I’ve been self-employed most of my working life, I don’t have a huge retirement waiting from corporate America. However, as anyone on Social Security can tell you, that’s not enough to live on.
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I have always been interested in off-grid power, solar hot water, having my own well and any number of other things that fit into the survivalist mentality. I have also integrated that with the idea of lowering my cost of living for retirement as well. Even if I never have to use off-grid power to survive a major disaster, I’m interested in it from the viewpoint of being able to survive retirement.
Since I have a large house and live in a hot part of the country, I try really hard to save on my electric bill. This has been a large part of how I am integrating my survival plans and my retirement. As part of that, I have been looking at the idea of building a root cellar.
How A Root Cellar Works
The idea of the root cellar goes back at least as far as the Middle Ages. Back then, farmers who were fortunate enough to have a cave on their property, used that cave to keep milk, cheese and cured meats cool. Some farmers found that they could accomplish the same thing hanging those foot items in a well. In both cases, they were able to extend the life of those food items by keeping them cooler.
Some time later, people found that the same cool temperatures which helped keep their milk and meat from spoiling also worked to keep their vegetables fresh longer. They also figured out that if they didn’t have a naturally occurring cellar on their property, they could dig one themselves. After all, if they could dig a well and it kept cool, why not a cave?
