How to Build a Food Storage Unit

Store emergency food supplies in a cool storage unit.

Food stores today depend on truck deliveries. Trucks depend on our roads and infrastructure to make deliveries. A prolonged interruption of food deliveries would decimate the food supplies of most communities and cause serious civil unrest. Your survival in a natural disaster or pandemic may depend on how well you and your family have prepared for them. Are you ready? One way to prepare is to build an emergency food storage unit that will assure you a secure, long-term food supply that won't easily spoil. Building a root cellar that will store food containers at a constant temperature of 63 degrees F all year is a good start.

Things You'll Need

• Land
• 6 wooden or plastic pallets, 4-foot x 4-foot
• Shovel or trencher
• Thick plastic sheet liner
• 2 2-by-4 boards, 4 feet long
• Bailing wire or strong nylon string
• Tamping tool
• 30-gallon plastic trash bags
• newspapers
• 2 sets of door hinges
• Flathead screwdriver
• Philips head screwdriver
• 1 grip handle set
• 6-foot x 6-foot plastic tarp with stake ring-holes
• 8 plastic or galvanized steel tarp stakes

Instructions

1. Choose a 6- to 8-foot square piece of land to build your root cellar. A good location is an accessible location near your home or near a barn or other building.

2. Dig a square pit 4 1/2 feet wide, 4 1/2 feet long and 5 1/2 feet deep with a trencher you can rent from a home improvement hardware store or with a shovel.

3. Line the bottom and sides of the hole loosely with a thick plastic sheet until it overlaps the top of the hole. If you have a roll, cut it to the correct dimensions.

4. 

   Pallets are used for the floor of the cellar.

   Lay one of your pallets flat at the bottom of the hole. Do not tear the plastic sheet with the pallet. This will be the floor of your root cellar. Lay it in the center of the hole so there are 4 or 5 inches of space all around it.

5. 

   Bind the pallets together with bailing wire.

   Get four more pallets and stand them up around the sides of the floor pallet. Make sure each wall is snug against each side of the floor pallet. These pallets will form the walls of your root cellar. Lay one of the 2-by-4 boards along the tops of the three pallets forming the end-wall and wind bailing wire or strong nylon string around the pallets and the board until they are tightly bound together. Do the same to the other three pallets making up the opposite end-wall until all the walls are firm and support one another. This will prevent the pallet walls from collapsing into the hole.

6. 

   Tamp the dirt down tight around the sides.

   Tie each corner of the pallet walls together with bailing wire and string. This will create a strong box that will not collapse. Now, stand in the box and pull the sides of the plastic sheet liner into the box. As you do so, fill the outside spaces along the pallet walls with loose dirt until the spaces between the box and the sides of the walls are filled. Tamp the dirt down with your foot or a tamper until the dirt is firmly settled outside the walls of the box in the hole.

7. Remove the overlapping sides of the plastic liner from inside the box and lay the last pallet over the top of the box. Get your hinges and mark the pallet and 2-by-4 hinge holes. Attach the hinges to the outside edge of the 2-by-4 and the pallet. Attach the handle(s) to the pallet tightly. Test to make sure the top door swings open the way you prefer and will stay open when desired.

8. Fill or pack the box with the foods you plan to store. Prepackaged food containers are best. After you have put your food into the box, close the lid, cover it with 3 inches of newspapers and fold the overlapping plastic liner over the lid and newspapers tightly. This will keep the items in the box cool. Finally, cover the top of the box with a good strong plastic tarp and stake it into the ground.

Tips & Warnings

• If available, use 4-foot by 4-foot hard plastic pallets for the floor and walls of the root cellar box. They are sturdier and much slower to decompose over time.

• Adding shelves and other features to this basic root cellar design is not hard to do.

• Always leave enough space for a person to stand and turn in your food storage unit

• Keep a small foldable step-stool inside for easier access in the hole.

• When storing food or seeds, include can openers, eating utensils, basic tools, a few sturdy plastic dishes, a kerosene lantern, mosquito-repellant, flourescent light-sticks, a flashlight with sealed batteries, charcoal, lighter fluid, lighter, water-purification drops or tablets and a first-aid kit.

• Always build your root cellar near a source of water such as a well or outside faucet. Water is essential in an emergency.

References

• The Epicenter: How to Build a Basic Emergency Food Storage Unit
• Street Directory: Food Storage
• Consumer Search: Food Storage Containers
• Provident Living: Food Storage Tips

Resources

• Fema.gov: Assemble Disaster Supplies
• Fema.gov: Are You Ready - FEMA Preparedness Handbook