Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy-Efficiency & Sustainability

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Roger says that some sort of mechanical ventilation is almost inevitable, particularly for kitchens and bathrooms, but heat recovery systems don't necessarily work well in old buildings. Reducing drafts is as important to comfort level as insulation This practical and essential guideto retrofitting for energy efficiency seeks to provide answers to this and other the questions homeowners of old houses are asking. Whether your house is medieval and timber-framedor a Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian terrace, it can be made more energy efficient and sustainable, and this practical and comprehensive handbook will show you how. This practical and essential guide to retrofitting for energy efficiency seeks to provide answers to this and other questions homeowners of old houses are asking. Whether your house is medieval and timber-framed or a Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian terrace, it can be made more energy efficient and sustainable. This practical, comprehensive and fully illustrated handbook will show you how.

Before even thinking about how to heat or light the home, you should be thinking about a fabric first approach of how to insulate, cut drafts, and increase daylight. From there you could incorporate solar arrays or air and ground source heat pumps. The heat pumps won't work so well if it is a leaky building, so these all need to be considered as part of the bigger project. Roger is the co-author of New Design for Old Buildings from RIBA Publishing as well as the bestselling Old House Handbook and the companion volume Old House Eco Handbook, published in association with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB). He is the author of Rural Britain: Then and Now, a celebration of the British countryside featuring photographs from The Francis Frith Collection; Villages of England; and Hidden Depths, an archaeological exploration of Surrey's past. He also contributed a chapter to the Reader's Digest book The Story of Where you Live and wrote Hamptons International's millennium book The House 1000-2000. Retrofitting should be an holistic process and, for this to happen, it’s essential to know the eventual goal and have a plan or ‘roadmap’. This will enable the most appropriate measures to be selected and their interrelationship with one another to be better understood, even if they’re introduced over an extended period of time as funds and opportunities present themselves. If planning is inadequate, conflicts may occur and work might have to be undone to accommodate future phases of work or to rectify problems. This practical and essential guide to retrofitting for energy efficiency seeks to provide answers to this and other questions homeowners of old houses are asking. Whether your house is medieval and timber-framed or a Georgian , Victorian or Edwardian terrace , it can be made more energy efficient and sustainable. This practical, comprehensive and fully illustrated handbook will show you how.Don't rush in. Live in an old building for a year, through each of the seasons, to really understand the damp and the light. That will also help with your interior decoration. Roger Hunt, co-author (with Marianne Suhr) of Old House Handbook, is an award-winning writer and blogger with a particular interest in sustainable and vernacular architecture and the materials and techniques used in construction. He is the author of Rural Britain: Then and Now, a celebration of the British countryside, Villages of England and Hidden Depths, an archaeological exploration of Surrey's past. He lectures on building-related issues, is a judge of annual awards for new housing and serves on the editorial board of the SPAB magazine. His latest renovation project is a 1900 house on Martha's Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA. What must not be forgotten is that few old buildings are the same, even in a terraced street where each house may initially appear to be identical. This brings challenges as there is no ‘one size fits all’ solution and each scheme must be considered on its own merits to ensure the correct specification and detailing. Another key issue is occupant behaviour. A building that is occupied all day potentially needs different solutions to one only occupied at night. Roger Hunt, co-author (with Marianne Suhr) of Old House Handbook, is an award-winning writer and blogger with a particular interest in sustainable and vernacular architecture and the materials and techniques used in construction. He is the author of Rural Britain: Then and Now, a celebration of the British countryside, Villages of England and Hidden Depths, an archaeological exploration of Surrey’s past. He lectures on building-related issues, is a judge of annual awards for new housing and serves on the editorial board of the SPAB magazine. His latest renovation project is a 1900 house on Martha’s Vineyard, Massachusetts, USA. With any retrofit, building regulations must be considered. In the case of listed buildings, listed building consent might be necessary. Building are generally listed in their entirety which means that interventions internally as well as externally may need approval. Indeed, with all old buildings, careful thought should be given to any retrofit solution that has an impact on character or fabric.

Roger recalls attending a conference not long after Old House Handbook was published where, to meet targets, it was claimed that a city the size of Coventry would need to be retrofit every week. Roger says it's a complex subject as we have to embrace the value of the building in terms of beauty, aesthetics and our love for them, along with the monetary value. Take time to understand your building A risk of coming in and doing a complete retrofit of an old building is that it can lose some of the character which makes us love them in the first place. Don't try and use modern materials that are incompatible with an old building. Particularly don't use an insulating material that is going to stop your building from breathing.

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In association with The Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings, this is a must have for owners of old houses looking to make their homes more energy efficient and sustainable. Roger Tweets @huntwriter and blogs at huntwriter.com. He also lectures regularly on retrofitting and repairing old buildings. Full Book Name: Old House Eco Handbook: A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability

Marianne Suhr is a Chartered Building Surveyor specialising in the repair of historic buildings. After a scholarship with the SPAB, she worked for seven years in architectural practice, then full-time on hands-on repair projects including three very different old houses. For the SPAB she has run over 40 homeowners' courses and numerous 'limedays'. She is co-author (with Roger Hunt) of Old House Handbook, and has written and lectured extensively. A co-presenter of three series of BBC2's Restoration, she recently set up the Old House Consultancy, advising on repairs and alterations in the Oxfordshire locality. The Old House Eco Course was excellent - thanks to all who contributed. It was very interesting" - BuilderThe course is relevant for those who live in, use or manage period properties (pre-1919), and is a popular introductory one-day course for professionals who may need to brief their clients on improving the energy efficiency of their homes. With opportunities to ask questions throughout the day, the course also offers an opportunity to talk over lunch and learn from fellow attendees who may be facing similar challenges. This one-day course will be held at the SPAB headquarters in London - an opportunity to view the inside of the only remaining Georgian house in Spital Square. The building dates from around 1740 and originally belonged to a Huguenot silk merchant. It was rescued from dereliction by the Spitalfields Trust before being sold to the SPAB in the early 1980s. It might be that you won't intend to do a full retrofit straight away, just elements of it to begin with and the rest spread over several years, but it's important to think of your long term plan of everything that will need doing. Getting the retrofit techniques wrong in a breathable type of construction can store up problems for the future in terms of damp and condensation. This practical and essential guide to retrofitting for energy efficiency seeks to provide answers to this and other the questions homeowners of old houses are asking. Whether your house is medieval and timber-framed or a Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian terrace, it can be made more energy efficient and sustainable, and this practical and comprehensive handbook will show you how.

Roger Hunt is an award winning writer and blogger specialising in sustainability, old houses, housebuilding and traditional and modern building materials. He is the co-author of Old House Handbook and the companion volume Old House Eco Handbook. Revised and updated throughout , and with a foreword by Kevin McCloud, Old House Eco Handbook includes chapters on the building envelope ; roofs and ceilings ; windows and doors ; walls ; floors ; paints ; energy, air and water ; plus a brand new chapter on retrofit materials .

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One useful tool, which helps understand these relationships better, is the responsible retrofit guidance wheel developed by the Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance (STBA). This depicts a range of measures and encourages exploration of the advantages, concerns and interactions that result. He was named Sustainable Property Journalist of the Year at the LSL Property Press Awards in both 2013 and 2014 and B2B Property Journalist of the Year at the Headline Property Awards 2008. His huntwriter.com blog won Best Blog and Best Eco Home Blog at the PrimeLocation.com Blog Awards 2011.