Food, Cupboards, Construction Standards, Insulation

I think I've confessed somewhere that in fact I am an imposter-poet, because in my 'real life' I am actually an Engineer.  Try as I might, every so often my interest in the physical world of science and engineering wins out over the airy-fairy poet.  Granted, I have been 'retired' for a few years, but that was because legally I couldn't work in Malaysia, no doubt because my skills in traffic and public transport and road safety were redundant in a country with one of the highest road fatality rates in the world (only surpassed by this fair country and a few similar ones).  I digress ...

Why is this cupboard always open during the summer?

This is the only cupboard in the kitchen that stores food and it is food that we use frequently, like the olive oil, worcester sauce, macadamia honey, marmite, vegemite, peanut butter and muesli.  We have a poor excuse of a pantry in the next room, off the laundry where the bulk of our dry goods is stored, but for everyday items, especially at breakfast time, it isn't convenient.  So we use this one.

It is very hot outside - most days we are in the mid forties now (I laughed when I read about the 'heatwave' in Britain),  and the kitchen is airconditioned.  Sensible, really.

This next point is a little technical (just teasing) so stay with me:  the outside walls are so poorly insulated that the insides of the cupboards get as hot as is it outside.  This implies that our cupboard doors do a better job of insulating the contents from the cool air of the kitchen than the outside walls do of insulating the contents from the heat outside.  Not brilliant.

So we keep this cupboard open.

Old tidy habits die hard and we are constantly closing the door absent-mindedly and then coming in and noticing it, and then opening it again.  Come late October we will stop leaving the door open.

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