cellar

cellar, room beneath ground level, especially one for storing fruits and vegetables, both raw and canned, on a farm. A typical cellar may be beneath the house or located outdoors, partly underground, with the upper part mounded over with earth to protect from freezing and to maintain fairly constant temperature and humidity. Such a structure is sometimes called a root cellar. The entire enclosure may be concrete, or the floor may be of dirt and the ceiling of logs or timbers treated with preservative. Equipped with a tile drain and air vent, such cellars often double as storm shelters.

Unheated basements of heated and insulated ground-level buildings are sometimes used to store fruits and vegetables for short periods. Outdoor pits or mounds covered with straw, stalks, building paper, and earth are also used, with storage time of several weeks or a few months feasible.

In northern climates cellars have been prevalent in single-family houses and were necessary when gravity heating was used. With forced air heat there is decreasing reason for building such basements, and the storage space can often be better placed above ground.