Temperature in my larder

Snakey

I live in an ex-council flat and it has one of those lovely floor-to-ceiling cupboards for storing food in. My kitchen backs on to my neighbour's kitchen, and the other week she had a new boiler installed. Now, when I open the door to my larder, it feels warm - the back wall is warm to the touch. Same with the cupboard next to it, which is where the gas meter lives.

I suppose I have two questions:
1. Is this normal (that a boiler mounted against a wall will make the wall warm all the way through), or should I knock on and let her know that she might need to get it looked at?
2. If what I have in there is tins, packets (pasta, noodles) and boxes of cereal, are they OK to still keep in there or should I move them to a different cupboard? I don't want food poisoning, but nor do I want to be a delicate little flower if it's just a "nice to have" that things be kept in a "cool, dry place".

I don't otherwise mind that I'm getting this free extra heat - the room faces North, and she clearly puts her heating on long before I'm even thinking about mine, if I were to leave the cupboard door open it might take the chill off the room a tiny bit which would be nice.

Thanks for reading!

Ebe_Scrooge

It's not unusual for heat to "leak" through a wall - with the best will in the world, any boiler is going to produce some "waste" heat, and if it's against a wall then the wall will naturally absorb the heat.


Dry and tinned goods will be no problem at all - all mine are kept at room temperature in kitchen cupboards. Most things say "store in a cool dry place", but there's really no need for tins and such like. Pasta, cereals etc. will absorb moisture from the air over time once they're opened, but in practical terms the worst that will happen is they'll go a bit soft. They'd have to be left a long time before they started going mouldy or whatever.