Plans & Draughts

or - how a free gift cost us £70.

Those of you that know Strickley know that the pantry can be a cold draughty place. If you don't know Strickley, then don't be imagining a small cupboard with shelves. It's a room of about 5 x 4 metres, built onto the back of the house with original stone flags, stone walls and just to keep it really fresh - underfloor ventilation from the back wall to a grating under the central slate table. As we're at least a twentieth century family we do keep that covered up. Draughts can also sneak in through the roof, even though we have added some insulation, so when we were offered some left over rolls of the latest 8 inch recycled bottles we jumped at the chance. We couldn't do just one length, so taking advantaged of Henry's over-60-10%-discount-card we bought some more. Some jobs (like the insulating) get done almost at once, but some take a little longer. At some point (in the last twenty years) a hole has been knocked in the wall for washer inlet/outlet pipes, and when we moved the washer to the back kitchen we only roughly patched up the hole. Another opportunity for draughts. But no more - a few stones and a bucket of cement and we're snug and tight. It's not exactly tropical, and we'll never really prove that what we did made a difference, but maybe the wine in the racks will not be as chilled now.

So much for draughts; what of our plans? The pantry isn't the only cold room (in fact there's only two warm rooms - the kitchen - courtesy of the Aga and woodburning stove, and the room above - courtesy of the hot water tank). We've long had plans to change that, and hope to set them in place after Christmas. We're still not absolutely sure which route to follow; either another woodburner in the Sitting Room, or running some radiators off the one in the Kitchen. But by summer, we aim to be warm as toast.