We will be building an ICF house within the next year. I would like to put a root cellar in our basement but am concerned that it will not work out due to the insulation of the ICF foundation. Does anyone have experience with this?
Four 2200-sq.-ft. detached homes provide flexible open-plan housing on this Los Angeles block.
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Well, a dirt-floored, naturally humid, generally cool, unventilated cellar is typically at odds with modern thinking for foundations, air tightness, and moisture control in buildings.
For more information on the topic of building foundations and ventilation, check out buildingscience.com (which you can check versus your location.climate).
"We" here will have as many thoughts as regions built in. Some places always build with full basements, some with none at all, some with a crawlspace, others with some combination of those.
In my Hot-Humid climate down here around 29ºN, allowing humid air under the house is not tremendously smart. But, a person could (stress could) have a root cellar, jsut not under the house (which further west and north, would be more typical of farm houses).
Now, ifyou were to click on your own screen name in blue, or the blue "update profile" just up there at the top right, you could fill in just a bit of information, which can help "us" answer your questions better (Minnesota being different than Mississippi, or MO, or ME, or MA, or MT).
Oh yeah, lest I forget, Welcome to Breaktime!
Thanks for the information.
De nada, and you too (which is ah, y tambien su <g>).
Wisconsin means freeze depths around 42" which tends to encourage full basements (7-8' clear height; and in previous times might have had 'cellars' (5-6' clear height).
Is that the sort of distinction you were thinking of?
It's good to check on these sorts of things here, seeing as "we" span oceans, nations and piles of states.
It could be you were asking because your interest in passive mass architecture, or were keen on a green sort of "local" sorts applications like rammed earth. Or ,you could be a back-to-nature, or self-reliance homesteader as well. nothing wrong with any of those, we just have to be on the same page to discuss our various experiences. Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
Buenos noches senor.
Green hits close. I've read about root cellars being built in existing basements by insulating the room from the rest of the basement and ventilating with 2 openings. However, this was done in older homes that did not have the insulating abiliies of ICF homes. I suppose an option is to build a room at the basement level that opened into the basement of the ICF house. This would add cost.
As far as having a basement - in this region most homes have one.
Buenos noches senor.
Had to look twice at that, culturally, one renders "good evening" and saves "good night" for family and similarly intimate associations. This Spanglish can be more complicated than it sounds, sometimes.
Green hits close. I've read about root cellars being built in existing basements by insulating the room from the rest of the basement and ventilating with 2 openings. However, this was done in older homes that did not have the insulating abiliies of ICF homes. I suppose an option is to build a room at the basement level that opened into the basement of the ICF house. This would add cost.
Yeah, my first thought was to build a root cellar following a bit of a "storm shelter" model. Off to one side, one would excavate out the cellar, and merely expose a bulkhead for access. This could be tucked under a deck to simplify the yard design a bit. Now, part of the charm/engine/method for a root cellar is in things like a packed dirt floor and a certain amount of "permeable" construction.
Having a separate "cellar" might be simpler than trying to isolate a separate space within a properly (or modern-standard) sealed space.
Had a bizzare thought about mixing hay-bale tech and rammed earth and PAHS, but figured I did not need VATom beating me up for being off-the-wall <g>.Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)
..and sunseeker:I can't imagine that vented openings in Wisconsin wouldn't overcome any R-factor the basement wall could possibly have. EPS block only gives about 2.5R/inch as i recall anyway. I would be more concerned about the foam providing an attractive and safe haven for insects and the vents a highway to get to it. Moisture is the next biggest factor after temp, so a finished floor means the room would need added moisture.y tambien...¡Buen dia!
y tambien...¡Buen dia!
You left out "ëBienvendos del la Breaktime!" <g>Occupational hazard of my occupation not being around (sorry Bubba)