Inspired by memories from my grandfather's garden, I decided to build a dugout to store my harvest. I wanted the basement not to have a roof over the stairs. So you had to think about a drain and a hole where the rainwater would drain. Grass was supposed to grow on the dugout, so the driveway for the mower had to be gentle. This required the construction of a retaining wall at the front so that the ground above the entrance would not crumble. For good ventilation, a simple air intake had to be made, and the floor could not be made of concrete if it was to regulate the humidity in the basement.
|
1 |
I started my work with excavation. I determined the size of the basement at 1.5 x 2.5 m plus the vestibule (1.5 x 1 m air lock). I added 25 cm to these sizes for the thickness of the walls and 10 cm for polystyrene. I also added about 10-15 cm to insert the so-called dimpled foil. This trench, 200x450 cm in total, 1 meter deep, was prepared for three afternoons.
|
2 |
It was only in the excavation that I marked the foundations and deepened them by 40 cm. I bought 12 mm diameter rebar and 6 mm wire for the stirrup. In addition, 1.5 kg of soft wire for tying the wreath. During the construction of our house, I saw a worker preparing the reinforcement of the wreath. Now I tried to imitate him. I placed the reinforcement in the excavation of the foundations and, after binding it with wire, poured it with concrete.
|
3 |
A week later bricks arrived and I put the first layer. The wall was to be 25 cm thick. Here my friend Paweł helped me, who "led out" all the corners.
|
4 |
After the second layer of bricks, I stopped working and dug a 0.5x1.5 m and 1.5 m deep hole 3 m behind the back wall. I lined its walls with non-woven fabric, and connected the bottom with the basement with a ø 250 sewage pipe. Then I gently placed round logs on the pipe up to the top and finished the bottom with an OSB superstructure. The side holes, 20x40 cm in size, were secured with a copper mesh. In this way, if the wind blows in winter, airblows through the ventilation chimney on the roof and a negative pressure is created in the basement.The missing air with the frost does not come through the micro-cracks in the door, but through the pit with stones and a pipe in the ground, and heats up a bit.
|
5 |
When the walls were 1.30 m high, I made a wreath from the remnants of reinforcing wire and concrete that held together all the walls. Then I prepared the formwork for the vault. I cut four half-circles with a radius of 75 cm from the OSB board and nailed each to two construction stamps. I placed these structures along the basement so that the ends of the semicircles touched the edges of the poured wreath. In the semicircle, I stuffed formwork boards with the length of the inner cellar. A wooden vault was formed.
|
6 |
Then I started laying the ceiling. Each brick is 6 cm sideways to the center of the cellar, so it is 12 cm thick.At the top, I finished the so-called with wedges I cut from bricks with an angle grinder. In the middle I placed a ventilation chimney made of ø 100 sewer pipe. The chimney has a roof with holes and a mesh. Then I covered everything with 10 cm styrofoam and black foil bucket. As there was not enough soil from the excavation, I bought two dump trucks to cover the basement and build a hill.
|
7 |
The door can be bought in a supermarket, but rectangular, which forces a higher height in the basement. The best are semicircular doors, because their upper arch fits the ceiling and the basement is not high. I made such doors with frames myself from 50x100 mm wooden squares and 18 mm OSB boards. I insulated the outer wing with a 2-cm styrofoam.
|
8 |
Before I completely built a mound on the basement, I dug the foundation in the front line of the wall to a depth of 1.2 m and poured concrete. A retaining wall of ready-made concrete blocks was built on it. I also made a mini staircase of them. I laid the floor in the basement with paving stones, straight on the sand bed, without any cement.
Jarosław Radziszewski
