Ventilator for Walk-In Pantry

On Thursday evening, the kitchen fitter and the carpenter are coming to look at the site of our new walk-in pantry. They are both too busy to start the work immediately, but they said it would be good to look at it together so that we could discuss what was required, and what would be possible. The other day I spoke to Gary, our neighbour who recommended them and the damp proofing company, and he told me that the kitchen fitter would be able to source a slab of marble or equivalent for my pantry, which is good news.

Today Gary came round and installed the new ventilator. There was an old one higher up, but although the grilles for it were still there, on the inside and outside walls, the ventilator itself had been blocked up at some stage. Gary said the ventilation would be more effective at the bottom anyway, so he said he would install a new one there, and remove the grille from the existing one and block up the hole and plaster over it, so that the wall would be nice and smooth, ready for the shelves to be fitted.

In this detail shot, you can see what a neat job he has done, and as he hadn’t yet fitted the grille to the outside, you can see the light coming in from outside.

All done, the outside grille installed, and the floor swept up (he is such a neat worker and always uses dust sheets), and once it is dry, he will fit the sliding cover for it.

The whole of the recess, showing the upper ventilator having been bricked up.

Detail of the upper ventilator brickwork. Once this is dry, he will plaster over it.

Outside, you can see the existing old metal grille at the top, and the new one at the bottom. He said he would leave the old grille because it won’t cause any problems.

The grille for the new ventilator. Once it is dry, it will blend in pretty well.

Gary told me that if you use a traditional air brick on the outside, it only lets in about 30-50 percent of the air, but this type of ventilator, which has sloping slats a bit like a Venetian blind, draws in 90 percent. The flow can be controlled from the inside by the sliding panel on the ventilator grille. We won’t want a roaring draught in the middle of winter!

This whole job may be taking a while to complete, but it is happening, gradually, step by step! Meanwhile, I am still managing pretty well in Mum’s tiny kitchen in the flat, as long as I keep on top of the washing up. If not, I soon get inundated and can’t move in there. My baking is on hold for the time being, and I’m not doing a lot of very complicated cooking. Fortunately the freezer is well stocked at the moment.

I’d hummed and ha’d about whether it was worth having a ventilator, but on balance I decided that no self-respecting walk-in pantry should be without one, and it would make it a much more effective cold storage space, and worth having done before the rest of the work was begun. He had the job done in no time. He will have the grille screwed on well before the main work on the pantry begins. We are so fortunate to have Gary living so close by as he can turn his hand to anything and is such a perfectionist! Also, he knows everybody worth knowing, and would never recommend a tradesman that he wasn’t prepared to use himself, or that hadn’t been tried and tested to his exacting standards. He does quite a bit of work for our other neighbours too, and is currently working on the garden wall for our next-door neighbour.

Hopefully I will have some more news after Thursday evening about what our new walk-in pantry will be like.