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

Author(s): Roger Hunt

Gardening and DIY

Old House Eco Handbook is a companion volume to the authors' highly successful Old House Handbook, published in association with the Society for the Protection of Ancient Buildings (SPAB). It seeks to answer the questions homeowners and others are asking about how to make old houses - medieval and timberframed, Georgian, Victorian or Edwardian terraces - energy-efficient and sustainable. The refurbishment or 'retrofitting' of old houses to meet new requirements into the future is now high on the Government's agenda. Old houses are, by their nature, a sustainable asset: their refurbishment is becoming a priority as attempts are made to address millions of energy-sapping, poorly insulated and far from airtight homes. Energy-efficiency, in particular, is vital to cut carbon emissions, a major contributor to global warming. How should we go about this without devaluing future sustainability or the appeal and character of old homes by the use of inappropriate solutions? Old House Eco Handbook sets out to provide the answers. The SPAB, at the forefront of research into old house energy-efficiency, is the ideal partner for this book.


Product Information

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. 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 the annual What House? 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 in the USA. THE SOCIETY FOR THE PROTECTION OF ANCIENT BUILDINGS was founded by William Morris in 1877 to counteract the highly destructive 'restoration' of medieval buildings being practised by many Victorian architects. Today it is the largest, oldest and most technically expert national pressure group fighting to save old buildings from decay, demolition and damage. Members include many leading conservation practitioners, homeowners living in houses spanning all historical periods and those who simply care about old buildings.

General Fields

  • : 9780711232785
  • : Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd
  • : Frances Lincoln Publishers Ltd
  • : 27 March 2013
  • : 267mm X 250mm
  • : United Kingdom
  • : 01 May 2013
  • : books

Special Fields

  • : Roger Hunt
  • : Hardback
  • : 690.24
  • : 192
  • : 300 illustrations