Bunker

I spent part of the day cleaning out the small cellar under part of our house, in preparation for building shelves. I have only been down there a few times since we moved into our new house about a year ago. This "bunker" is about 11 square meters in area and only 1.5m high, and is intended as a cold store room for wine, preserved food, root vegetables, etc.

Unfortunately it is below the high level of the water table in the winter. We didn't have the budget to completely waterproof the walls when we built the house, but I figure we will treat it as a slightly leaky boat - pulp it out with a bilge pump when necessary. I pumped out about 15cm of water yesterday.

You can see the high water mark in the concrete block and, and the sediment seeping in through the concrete block wall. I don't mind the place being damp as this is useful characteristic of any cold cellar, and there is the possibility of a lot of cross ventilation through high level windows seen in the photo, so it will never get too damp. Not sure what will happen if we have a extremely wet winter, but that is a risk one takes when you build a cellar in Ireland!

I like the symmetry of this photo, with the combination of regular pattern of the concrete blocks and the organic pattern of the sediment. The colour of the sediment on the floor mirrors the chipboard ceiling, when lit by a single incandescent bulb.