Is it possible to remove soil under front porch slab for root cellar?
Hello,
I recently began gardening and wish I had a root cellar!
The porch is a 8’x24′ covered porch. The slab is sitting on 8′ of masonry block on three sides. It is attached to a poured basement wall on the fourth side. It is capped with a 5-1/2″ poured slab. The void is filled with sand.
Is it possible to reinforce the slab in such a way that this could be used for a root cellar? From the outside, it doesn’t seem to be a large deal to remove some of the blocks and haul out the sand. I am wondering if it is possible and what would be the best way to reinforce the slab.
Thank you for any input!
Susan
Replies
No it's not economical to keep the existing slab. It's not engineered to be self supporting and retrofitting it so it will be seems like more cost than ripping it out and pouring a new slab. Having said that it's probably a given that an engineer will want to determine if the supporting walls are sized to support the weight of a self supporting slab. The whole job seems destined to be more expensive than it's worth.
Thank you for your response. That is what I suspected. I am attempting to track down the gentleman that built the porch (it's only 7 years old) to see what kind of slab and footing they actually contain (just for my information). The footings may be strong since they are holding up the pillars and roof and a considerable snow load most months of the year.
It's back to the drawing board. Our lot is sizeable, but sloped. This complicates things as far as drainage. We also have 150-200 inches of snowfall in the winter, so keeping it close to the house will make it easier to keep it dug out.
My husband will be adding on a workshop. We thought about putting it under that, but because of how it will attach to the garage, the floor of the cellar would actually be lower than the floor of the basement. That seems to be just asking for water issues. Maybe we can attach it behind it? The back wall of the workshop will be buried in the slope of the hill anyway.
I will keep researching! Thank you again!
Susan
Cool room
Susan, the idea of a root cellar, was that it was a buried room that kept a fairly stable low temperature. At about five feet of earth cover the temperature stabilizes at the five year mean air temperature. Which for the northern US, and southern Canada is 35 to 45-degrees F. Which is essentially what a modern refrigerator cools things to.
You could just build a cool room into your hillside, or build a very well insulated room attached to the husbands shop. A space heater with a digital thermostat set to 35-degrees will keep it from freezing, and if it is positioned correctly it will stay cool through the summer, if you ventilate it at night when it's cool out, and close it up during the day.