Zeer pot (evaporative pot-in-pot cooler)

Two nested unglazed terracotta pots with a roughly 4cm layer of wet sand packed between them; evaporation of the sand's moisture draws heat out of the inner pot, dropping its internal temperature about 10C below ambient under good conditions (dry air, shade, airflow, sand kept moist ~2x/day), extends most vegetables' usable life by 15-20 days over open air, per the source. This is the active-evaporative mechanism that sand-box root storage explicitly does not use (that method separates and buffers produce but claims no cooling effect). Shares evaporative cooling's core limitation: effectiveness drops in humid air, a real caveat for Normandy's oceanic climate, so this is scoped as a supplementary short-term buffer rather than a primary cold-storage solution here.

Cost
Low
Upkeep
Frequent
Skill to build
Basic
Lifespan
Terracotta pots: 10-20+ years if handled carefully (fired clay doesn't wear out, breakage is the failure mode, not age)
Embodied carbon
Low
Space / material use
Low
Output timing
Continuous process
Skill to repair
Basic

Note: Cost, carbon and footprint are rated against the other options for this same need, not in absolute terms.

What your site needs

Shaded, ventilated siting; a dry-air location improves performance, flagged as reduced effectiveness in humid climates

Inputs

Outputs

Sources

Tutorials

What this page does not tell you

No sizing or quantities: how much a technique yields, and how much a household needs, both depend on the build and the people, so the catalogue compares options rather than dimensioning them. It carries no bill of materials and no build sequence, and it is written for an oceanic, clay-soil climate (Normandy, France). Regulatory notes are indicative and need confirming locally.