Old House Eco Handbook A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability, reviewed

As we learn more and more about smarter ways to make old houses warmer, less damp, draughty and more pleasant places to live, this book is an interesting contribution to this growing area of blending modern insights with ancient buildings and techniques. We review the Old House Eco Handbook by Marianne Suhr and Roger Hunt. Available to buy here.

How should we go about making old houses energy efficient without devaluing future sustainability or the appeal and character of old homes by the use of inappropriate solutions?

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.

Revised and updated throughout, Old House Eco Handbook includes chapters on the building envelope; roofs and ceilings; windows and doors; walls; floors; paints; energy, airandwater; plus a brand newchapter on retrofit materials.

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.

Old House Eco Handbook A Practical Guide to Retrofitting for Energy Efficiency and Sustainability, reviewed

We read the 2019, updated version, which is in itself a positive sign that the whole area of sustainability in homes is evolving as we learn more and more about building materials and better ways of doing things. We may also look back at several previous decades as times when we did terrible things to old houses, adding newer, artificial materials that sealed up houses and prevented them from being able to breathe. Much like the first waterproof clothing, pre gortex style materials, it may have kept the   rain out, but left us soaking on the inside. So too with many houses, hermetically sealed plastering just resulted in internal moisture dripping down the walls as it had nowhere else to go.

The book systematically walks you through the process of evaluating what is the best approach for the particular house you are hoping to renovate and restore. There are specific chapters on retrofit materials, again usefully updated to 2019 to reflect new developments and approaches. Then it walks you through roofs, ceilings, windows, doors, walls, floors, and then paints, to make sure you don’t create something wonderfully breathable and then cover it in a non-breathable layer.

The book is written in a logical, smart and accessible way. There will never be a one size fits all solution, but books like this do help to provide readers with a palate of ideas and possible options to ensure restorations are done in as sensitive and effective a manner as possible. As we aim to live in more sustainable ways it also makes sense to bring into the 21st century many old and wonderful buildings that just need some TLC. In this way we can reap the benefits of the smart new ways that are evolving to restore and renovate older buildings.

More about the authors

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 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.

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