Home and Community Cold Cellars
Transition Guelph is building local food-storage capacity through cold cellars.
What’s old is new: Cold cellars are back.
Transition Guelph launches an initiative to build local food-storage capacity through cold cellar education and installations.
We find out what they’re doing—and get tips to help you make a home cold cellars.
We are joined by Steve Tedesco and Ian Findlay from Transition Guelph. Tedesco is a Guelph-area farmer, and Findlay is a contractor specializing in cold cellars.
Why Cold Cellars are Back
Findlay says to think of a cold cellar as a passively-chilled walk-in cooler. He says people with the added food-storage capacity of a cold cellar can store more homegrown produce, and can also stock up on locally grown produce when it is in season.
Tedesco points out that having a cold cellar can change the way meals are planned. “It becomes an active participation sport to manage your cold room and plan your meals around what you have so that nothing goes to waste,” he says.
The Transition Movement
Tedesco explains that the Transition Movement is a global movement focused on building local resilience. Transition Guelph formed in 2009.
Transition chapters undertake projects that strengthen community resilience in six areas:
Food and water
Energy
Environmental stewardship
Economic vitality
Equity in a community
Community engagement
Home Cold Cellars
Findlay suggests spending time to understand 3 key elements to a successful home cold storage.
Ventilation to supply fresh air and exhaust warmer, moist air
Temperature control (the ideal temperature range is 2-5°C)
Humidity (many root vegetables store best in high humidity)
Tedesco and Findlay are finding that many of the newer homes in the Guelph area have a small space under the front porch that is well suited to making into a cold cellar.
Besides making a cold storage under a porch, other approaches include:
Partitioning off an area in the basement
Creating a stand-along cold cellar in a hillside (Findlay talks about concrete bunkers)
A trench storage in garden
Findlay says, “With enough ingenuity and sweat equity you can make any space work.”