Cellars

[Feltwell]

So, as I sit here typing this, I should be outside building some garden gates. But the thermometer in my hallway says it's 86F / 30C even inside - it's just too hot to be out in the sun.

But venture down into the cellar and it is beautifully cool, so much so when working from home I have been known to set a trestle up, plonk the laptop down there and work underground for the day! The wifi works it way down there somehow.

Our cellar isn't particularly big - about 8' x 12' - and like most it's damp, and fighting that really doesn't seem worth it for reasons discussed on other threads before. So what do we do with the space? We've got a freezer down there, that doesn't seem to be affected by the damp at all. Other than that it's just storage - paint (as it never freezes down there), winter tyres for the car, big dustbin full of lime putty, but mostly just junk! What do others do with the space?

 

[Kearn]

Ours has equally been a pleasure the last few days, still in the high teens when outside was 35+ today... So much so I found reasons to pop down there! And the state bedroom directly above it has been a blessing too!

Ours is early Georgian and hasn't been messed with by modern folks thankfully, but it's not 'habitable' given it is just a large brick-lined hole in the earth, but at least RH is low at 55-75%. It is a useful space though, about 4x4m and almost 2m high.
What do we do with this full sized/height underground room?... Wine, bikes, paint and other building stuff, occasional workshop at one stage for nothing too messy, a host of other 'stuff' we don't need. And more recently, c.400 Victorian bricks removed from our inglenook when I restored it, waiting for re-use in the garden when we finally landscape it... So technically I'm 'filling in' our cellar temporarily! A chest freezer is also on the list...

 

[LadyArowana]

We don’t have a cellar, but we have vaults which are also a slightly damp underground space. I’ve been stalking pictures of what people use those for and the popular choices aside from habitable space like bedroom, media room or bathroom, seems to be workout area or wine storage.

 

[Feltwell]

workout area or wine storage.

No danger of the former! :lol:

The latter - trouble is we hardly drink - there's a wine rack in the kitchen with about 12 bottles of vintage wine in it, they weren't vintage when we put them in there..... :wink:

 

[Gothichome]

Seems to be universal, we use our cellar for storing all that valuable junk you just can’t part with. We also have a forced air heater and water heater down there. The great plan for the coal room was a nice wine cellar but unfortunately I only got as far as storing my empty wine bottles in there, and more valuable junk.

 

[Feltwell]

I forgot the fact that ours is also a nature reserve for spiders - they *love* it down there, quite how they survive given the lack of obvious flies I don't know, but survive and thrive they do, especially in the autumn. Good job we quite like spiders really!

 

[Greg.Hobson]

Hi there.

My "Deep Dark Cellar" (Keeps the mystery alive for young grandson) is accessed only from the outside by steep, dilapidated steps with a right-angled turn down more steps and has no door. It has been known to flood during cloudbursts when the street drains are not well maintained. On the plus side it is vaulted and has "keeping" shelves and niches. It is about 3mx2m but only 2m high at the apex of the vaulting and only about 5' at the entrance.

It was used for storage of things that really should have been thrown away until the day I placed 2x£35 bids (for firewood) in a tender sale immediately prior to going on holiday. On our return I found I was the proud owner of >22 large estate carloads of hardwood offcuts (mainly iroko) from a double glazing company that had folded. (I am glad I decided not to put a cheeky bid in for the 20'x60' warehouse (x4' deep) of longer lengths of the same that went without a bid and was burned on site!). 15 years on, after cladding window reveals, building kitchen worktops plus 3mx4m of decking and making hundreds of shingles for a shed and a log store, the wood stored outside under the porch (mainly window mouldings and other pieces too long for the cellar) is now down to manageable quantities but the cellar is still full to the roof of "better" bits (none more than 4' long) that were considered "too good to burn". There is a c.4'x2' of standing space in the cellar from which space all recovery of anything has to be managed.

I believe my cellar would be an excellent space for a heat store connected to any or all types of modern, eco-friendly heating wotsits that can be plumbed into or hung onto an old house, but I suspect that for many more years to come, I shall still be standing in that little space perusing the wood and deciding which of the hundreds of pieces would be suitable for whatever job is being worked on!

 

[Flyfisher]

Interesting thread. I've long since thought we don't use our cellar nearly enough and the previous posts only reinforce that feeling.

Our cellar is about 12x12 feet, although the very substantial brick stairs take out quite a chunk of that space, and is completely empty except for the dehumidifier! The problem is that access is via a hatch in the floor, which is both heavy to lift and usually covered in furniture or other items (currently a drum kit!), so it's not exactly convenient to use.

But I like Feltwell's idea of storing lime putty down there as I've previously lost a few tubs over winter because they froze and I didn't trust them after that. We're fortunate to have a large utility/laundry room so we're not stuck for space for freezers and the like so I guess I need to think of something that only requires infrequent access.

Mind you, with all the doom and gloom in the media these days, perhaps I should be filling it up with canned food, bottled water and shotgun cartridges! :shock: :wink:

 

[Househunter]

Interesting thread. I've long since thought we don't use our cellar nearly enough and the previous posts only reinforce that feeling.

Same here.

Our cellar is about 12x12 feet, although the very substantial brick stairs take out quite a chunk of that space, and is completely empty except for the dehumidifier!

Mine is empty save for some tools, which are not enjoying the humid conditions.

The cellar is split into two rooms, each roughly 11 foot on a side, with its own fireplace and a decent ceiling height (just over 2m) throughout, though the clearance above the steps down into the cellar is a good bit lower, since they're beneath the stairs up to the first floor. (Whenever I go down there I have to hunch myself over to avoid bashing my head, and as the stairs are quite steep, I always cautiously hold my hands out in front of me; the shadow I cast on the wall is strikingly similar to that of Nosferatu.)

As some PPers will know, I had planned on putting a stove in one of the cellar fireplaces to help tackle the moisture problem, but after chatting with the folk here (on this thread), I'm having a rethink.

My hope is to use one room as a workshop and the other as a recreation/music room.

The problem is that access is via a hatch in the floor, which is both heavy to lift and usually covered in furniture or other items (currently a drum kit!), so it's not exactly convenient to use.

My first thought when I saw the cellar --- indeed, the very same thought I had when I saw the cellar in my former house in Germany --- was "drum kit"!

Evidently my mid-life crisis isn't over yet...

...So if I do ever get on top of the moisture problem, I might make you an offer, FF.

 

[Flyfisher]

That reminder about the fireplace in your cellar is making me wonder how it would have been used when first built. Why would anyone want a fireplace in a cellar? Actually, it's a wider question really because we have a large double garage attached to some outbuildings and it has a fireplace and chimney. Might a chauffeur have actually lived in the garage in times gone by? Might a fire have been used to keep a car warm in the winter months and therefore easier to start in the days before multigrade engine oils? I dimly remember my father using a paraffin heater under the engine sump for that very purpose, though an actual fireplace seems far grander.

Any ideas?

My first thought when I saw the cellar --- indeed, the very same thought I had when I saw the cellar in my former house in Germany --- was "drum kit"!

Evidently my mid-life crisis isn't over yet...

...So if I do ever get on top of the moisture problem, I might make you an offer, FF.

Don't fight it, just give in - you only live once!

 

[88v8]

It is said that our cellar was formerly rented out to a local cobbler. This would well be true, as there is a window, and it once had its own stairs access and one can see that the stairs were roofed in, so one could come in through the front door and down the stairs without troubling the other occupants.

It might have been a less damp space in those days, as the significant volumes of water that run into the stairwell after heavy rain seem to originate largely from clay land drains laid in ? C18/19 ? which descend from higher up the hill and certainly run past the cottage.

Be that as it may, in the 70s the stone stairs were turned 90 degrees and now run down from the kitchen, so the cellar is largely a kitchen overflow, with an oak cupboard full of crocks, plus on a stone ledge most of our jams, chutneys, beer, cider, and of course a couple of wine racks. And a bookcase where despite the humidity the books have not grown mould.
Also an upright freezer which was such a tight fit in the stairs that the removal men swore it couldn't be taken down there and I dread the thought that it might ever need to come up again.

And of course the dehumidifier. And the sump pump that controls the water ingress.

All this in a space about 8ft x 10ft.

PO used it as an exercise room, at any rate there was an exercise bike down there.

Ivor

 

[Househunter]

That reminder about the fireplace in your cellar is making me wonder how it would have been used when first built. Why would anyone want a fireplace in a cellar?

Or indeed two fireplaces?!

In fact, the other cellar fireplace is more like one-and-a-half, as it also has a dilapidated copper sink next to it sharing its flue.

The cellar must have once been used a lot, by the look of things. I hope one day it will be again...

Actually, it's a wider question really because we have a large double garage attached to some outbuildings and it has a fireplace and chimney. Might a chauffeur have actually lived in the garage in times gone by? Might a fire have been used to keep a car warm in the winter months and therefore easier to start in the days before multigrade engine oils? I dimly remember my father using a paraffin heater under the engine sump for that very purpose, though an actual fireplace seems far grander.

Interesting. Though I don't know its etymology, the word chauffeur presumably derives from the verb chauffer, to heat --- so maybe they did once heat up cars.

Don't fight it, just give in - you only live once!

Well, the neighbours next door are about to acquire their own little noise-maker (can't be far off, either, going by the size of her belly), so the cellar might soon be my only haven of peace...