What types of ovens are there for storing vegetables and can you make them yourself?

A thermal cabinet for storing vegetables is a real godsend for residents of apartment buildings. After all, they often do not have a separate cellar, so the problem arises of storing supplies for the winter - potatoes and other vegetables, as well as canning. Essentially, heating cabinets are large-volume thermoses that maintain a given temperature.

Types of heating cabinets

Based on the design features, there are two types of cellars (thermal cabinets, thermal containers) - rigid and flexible. As the name suggests, rigid ones are made of inflexible materials. They take up the same space regardless of whether anything is stored in them. Flexible ovens can be folded at the end of the storage season. At the same time, significant space is freed up on the balcony.

In addition, heating cabinets differ in the following parameters:

• depending on the power supply - active, connected to the network, and passive, not consuming electricity;
• according to the material from which they are made - plastic, wood, with a steel frame, waterproof fabric and padding polyester;
• in volume - from 95 to 100 liters.

Rigid thermal containers without power supply are convenient to use if they are installed in common areas - in the entrance or common vestibule. On an unglazed balcony or loggia, it is better to install a model with power supply so that in winter frosts the vegetables do not freeze and the cans of preserves do not burst from the cold.

Thermal container made of fabric

If for some reason the standard solution does not suit you, then it is recommended to turn your attention to the flexible thermal balcony container “Cellar”. By and large, the container is a kind of bag, which is made of two-layer insulating material. The heating element is located between the thermal insulation layers, which allows you to easily heat the internal space at those moments when it is required.

Flexible thermal containers of different sizes.

If we talk about the cost of the container, then in terms of price it is not too far from a stationary box. For example, a flexible thermal container “Balcony Cellar” is usually sold at a price of about 5 thousand rubles. What do you get for this money? Preservation of a large number of products, vegetables and fruits throughout the winter period, quick access to products and no need to go to the garage or traditional cellar in the cold, the ability to store any products, regardless of their type.

The fabric thermal container is available in different modifications: from 100 to 300 liters. The main advantage of this product is that in the summer, when there is no need to store vegetables, you can simply put it in a closet or hang it on the wall on the balcony. When it's time to use it, all you have to do is take out the bag, air it out, and start using it! Reviews about such thermal containers are very positive.

Flexible heating cabinet for storing vegetables on the balcony

Flexible heated containers for storing vegetables look like a spacious backpack or bag. This is not surprising: they are lined with colorful waterproof material. This allows you to select a heating cabinet not only based on practical considerations, but also on aesthetic parameters. But the purely utilitarian characteristics of such a device will please those who store vegetables on the balcony.

This oven is equipped with a thermostat. Depending on the type of food inside, you can set the temperature from 0º C to 7º C. Electricity consumption varies between models and depends on their volume. For example, a cellar with a volume of 95 liters consumes 120 W/hour, and if it holds 300 liters, then it will consume more - 200 W/hour. As can be seen from the examples, the energy consumption of such heating cabinets is comparable to the consumption of several light bulbs.

Cellars will store food in winter if the outside temperature is not lower than -40º C and not higher than +5º C. Such properties are ensured by a three-layer fabric structure and an additional layer of insulation. Flexible heating cabinets are additionally equipped with fasteners - dowels and brackets, as well as a cover for storage in the summer. The lid opens easily - just unzip the zipper.

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Buy a cellar or make it yourself?

Making a heating cabinet with your own hands is not difficult. The simplest design is a cellar with a passive rigid frame, without power supply. Its construction does not require a lot of time and materials, so if you have free time, you can make such a structure yourself, and its characteristics will not be inferior to the purchased cellar.

Of course, if you don’t have the time, desire to make something or skills in such work, then it’s easier and faster to purchase a ready-made heating cabinet. For those who know how to handle a minimal set of tools and are ready to try their hand, step-by-step instructions for making a heating cabinet on a balcony with your own hands will be useful.

The vegetable insulated cabinet “Cellar” is designed for storing food, including fruits and vegetables, as well as canning. As a rule, such ovens are placed on the balcony, where they do not take up much space and allow direct and quick access to products at any time. Above we described how to make a heating cabinet yourself. However, it is worth saying that often large-capacity structures (160 or 200 l) made of wood are not of very high quality.

The finished heating cabinet is equipped with a thermostat and a thermometer, which can be taken outside the container and installed not on the balcony, but in the room. In addition, there is a special electronic temperature controller connected to the heating elements in the cellar itself. There is also a temperature sensor inside the box that maintains the temperature set by the owner during the entire time the thermal storage unit is in use.

Thermal cabinet with partition “Cellar”.

A remote temperature controller allows you to monitor the temperature inside the oven. The digital screen will display the temperature currently maintained inside. The storage body is made of plastic or metal sheet, lined with insulation on the inside, and has a decorative finish on the outside. The internal space of the heating cabinet is divided into several compartments.

The household balcony thermal container “Cellar” operates on a 220 V network. The approximate value of power consumption varies from 80 to 100 V. The user can adjust the temperature inside the heating cabinet within the range from 1 to 20 degrees. The heating cabinet has a high level of electrical safety.

The dimensions of a two-hundred-liter oven are 86x79x40 cm. The vegetable storage unit has a small mass - about 23 kg (of course, without food). A more compact option - the "Cellar" 2 heating cabinet has a volume of 1.6 m³, dimensions 71x79x40 and a weight of about 20 kg.

This is what the balcony storage looks like from the inside.

If the oven is filled with food, it is not recommended to lift and move it.

Preparatory stage

Before you start work, you need to decide what materials the cellar will be made of. Then stock up on the materials themselves and suitable tools. For the frame, boards, chipboards, plastic panels, aluminum or steel profiles are suitable. Any thermal insulation material can be used as insulation - mineral wool, polystyrene foam, batting, padding polyester.

To properly make a cellar with your own hands, you need to imagine the overall design. This is a container of any shape with double walls, between which there is a layer of heat-insulating material. Its height, width and depth must be determined based on the free space on the balcony and the volume of products that will be stored there. But the total wall thickness should be at least 50 mm. The lid can be made removable or hinged. If it is folding, then you need to prepare the hinges.

Advice

If the walls of the frame are made of plastic panels or thin plywood, then it is better to choose slab insulation - polystyrene foam or basalt mineral wool - as insulation. It will give additional rigidity.

Cellar under the first floor balcony

For some time now, residents of the first floors of high-rise buildings have begun to successfully reclaim the empty space under their balconies. Of course, this method of arranging a cellar will cost much more than buying or making a thermal box, but the “dressing up” in this case is more than justified.

Do you have permission?

Before starting an operation to seize the local area, it is necessary to obtain a blessing from the local government. From a legal point of view, installing a basement under a balcony qualifies as redevelopment and reconstruction of the premises of a multi-storey building, and doing this without the appropriate sanction of the city administration is strictly prohibited. To make sure that your actions will not turn the high-rise building into something like the Leaning Tower of Pisa, an expert commission will be assembled, whose specialists will study your project and make a fateful decision. Sometimes the consent of other residents may be necessary.

Balcony with cellar

If permission is received, you can prepare materials and tools. You will need:

• gas-burner;
• drill with hammer;
• Bulgarian;
• welding machine;
• shovel
• brick;
• reinforcing bars;
• insulation (foam or mineral wool);
• rolled waterproofing material (roofing felt or waterproofing material);
• metal corner with a shelf width of 50 mm;
• a piece of pipe made of steel or plastic;
• chipboard sheet;
• crushed stone;
• sand;
• cement.

In general, the order of work is as follows:

1. In the ground under the balcony you should dig a hole with dimensions corresponding to the outlines of the balcony slab. The depth of the recess should guarantee a distance of 2100 mm between its bottom and the bottom of the balcony slab. The most difficult thing is to remove the blind area; in some cases you have to hire specialists who have a compressor and jackhammers.
2. It is necessary to cut a hole in the balcony slab. In this case, they alternately use either a grinder or a hammer drill. This job can also be made easier by using air tools.
3. Waterproofing material is laid along the bottom and walls of the recess. Its individual strips are welded into a single mass using a gas torch.
4. At the bottom of the recess, a well-compacted sand and crushed stone cushion should be laid on top of the waterproofing. Reinforcement welded in the form of a mesh is laid on it, and a cement-sand screed is made on top. If desired, the floor structure can be supplemented with insulation. Its total thickness should be 100 mm. Thus, the ceiling height in our cellar will be 2 m and its owner will not have to crawl on all fours to get a jar of his favorite jam.
5. We enclose the basement space with brickwork. We leave a hole in one of the walls for the ventilation pipe. Its head must be protected by a conical stainless steel umbrella and a mesh that prevents rodents from entering the room.
6. Insulation and wire mesh must be fixed to the inner surface of the walls, after which they are plastered on both sides.
7. Make a ladder from angle iron and a manhole cover from chipboard. Framing the hole is also done from the corner.

Scheme of the cellar under the balcony located on the first floor

At the discretion of the owner, a facing material suitable to taste and budget can be laid on the floor and walls. In the finished cellar, all that remains is to build a rack from metal profiles and boards, which will significantly increase the usable area.

Do-it-yourself thermal cabinet for storing vegetables

We will consider the option of making a heating cabinet with our own hands from wooden beams 50×50 mm, chipboard sheets and foam plastic 50 mm thick. Step-by-step instruction

• Take measurements of the free space on the balcony and draw up a drawing of the cellar. Please keep in mind that if the height is too high, it will be inconvenient to bend down and take out food. The optimal height is considered to be 50-60 mm.
• Treat beams and chipboard with an antifungal compound.
• After complete drying, make markings on the beams in accordance with the drawing.
• Using a wood saw, cut the beams according to the markings. There should be 4 vertical posts with the height of the cellar and 12 horizontal crossbars. Four of them will be used for the lid.
• Knock down two frames from the beams - the frame of the box and the frame of the lid.
• Mark the chipboard sheets and cut out 12 pieces - two pieces each for the bottom, lid, front and back walls. The rest will go to the end part. Please note that the parts for the inner lining should be 100 mm smaller.
• Cover the beam frame with chipboard sheets (except for the lid).
• Using a fine-tooth wood saw, cut the foam pieces that will fit between the double walls. There should be six of them - on the bottom, lid, 2 sides, front and back walls. Please note that they must fit tightly into the frame.
• Insert the resulting parts between the walls of the box.
• Now make a cover - lay polystyrene foam between the beams and cover it with chipboard sheets.
• Secure the lid to the box using hinges.
• Cover the structure with a protective layer - paint, varnish or film.

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This completes the preparation of the cabinet itself. But in order for the necessary microclimate to be maintained in it, and vegetables to be able to breathe, it is necessary to provide it with ventilation. We'll look at how to do this below.

Advice

You need to assemble the structure on the balcony; when finished, it may not fit into the door.

Making an external thermal box

For the base of the outer box, you can take any suitable sized box made of chipboard, fiberboard, plywood or boards. A non-working refrigerator or TV box will do.

If such a base is not at hand, you can make it from scrap materials. To do this, we attach walls made of chipboard, plywood or other similar materials to the inner box we made earlier on already fixed slats. The size of the resulting walls should be 15 cm longer than the side of the box itself. The slats are again attached to the edges, the thickness of which matches the volume of the insulation you have chosen.

It is best to insulate the cellar with foam plastic, which is glued to the skin. The thickness of the foam should be 10 cm, but if the winter in your region is not too cold, you can get by with 5 cm.

If desired, polystyrene foam can be replaced with sawdust or slag wool, and the thickness of the resulting skin should be 2 times thicker than when using polystyrene foam. An economical option could be upholstery from old mattresses.

We close the insulation by attaching a layer of chipboard or plywood to the slats. The result is an outer box made of double walls filled with insulation.

We attach the door of the outer box to the hinges opposite the lid of the inner box. The lid must be insulated from the inside using polystyrene foam or a mattress.

How to create the desired microclimate in the cellar?

The most ideal option for ventilating the cellar on the balcony is ventilation through the holes at the top. To make it convenient to regulate the degree of ventilation, a bar is attached on top of the lid so that it can be easily moved. This fastening is easy to do if you nail blocks with grooves to the lid and insert a bar into them. Next you need to drill holes with a diameter of 25-30 mm both in the lid and on the bar. Now, by moving the bar, you can adjust the degree of coincidence of the holes, and, accordingly, the intensity of ventilation.

If you insert a perforated pipe with incandescent lamps fixed there into such a thermal box, the passive cellar will turn into a full-fledged heated thermal box. To do this, in addition to a pipe with two or three incandescent lamps, you need to install a thermostat and make a hole in the box for the wire. You can use a thermostat from a household appliance or buy a thermostat. A heated cellar, made with your own hands, will be a reliable storage for canned food and vegetables for the winter.