This site has always been about understanding our old houses in the UK. If you have visited us earlier in our twenty year history you'll notice that all the articles, FAQs and links have now gone. This is a temporary home page and we're due for a re-fresh.

Until that happens you'll find that just about all the useful information that was ever here is still readily accessible in our books, which we have developed, written and illustrated alongside the website...

Our physical books can be ordered online from the publishers, Crowood or Routledge (touch/click cover pictures below - and please see the note * at the foot of this page)

One book is also available as an e-book - Country Cottage Conservation (which introduces general principles, not limited to cottages) - available online from the publisher Crowood, and also from Amazon, in its own Kindle format. Those should each be fairly instant purchases, if you're in a hurry!

 

These three (physical) books each include lots of information on damp, decay, movement and old-house-friendly repair and decoration:



Old House Care & Repair was our first book, which set out to de-mystify the world of old house ownership and the benefits, to both house and owner, of appropriate conservation. Maintaining & Repairing Old Houses, and then Country Cottage Conservation, continued our mission to share our experiences of old houses. These last two each include 'green pages' which address sustainability in old houses, including insulation.

These two books look more closely at the features of particular periods: Victorian and Edwardian Houses again does this from the perspective of useful conservation, while The Fixtures & Fittings of Period Houses is an old house lover's album of practical and decorative construction details that have survived to inspire and be admired:

About us

oldhouse.info was established in 2002 by building conservationists at a time when there was less public awareness of the special technical needs of older properties.

The contributors to this site have long been producing magazine articles and books - in between saving, nurturing and living in real old buildings - while also tracking developments in building conservation techniques.

Now, two decades on, more owners of older properties are likely to be aware, for example, of the need for many older construction types to be able to 'breathe' to manage dampness.

And more people will have heard of the benefits of traditional materials such as lime-based mortars and plasters, which were used to help with that 'breathing' and also to help accommodate natural movement in many types of old buildings.

So is our work here done?

We are very pleased if the seeds of knowledge that we have been sowing, alongside many other individuals and organisations, have taken root. 

But we can still see building owners innocently making depressingly familiar, misguided 'improvements' to older properties that risk damaging or devaluing them.

Twenty years ago older buildings were at risk from things like insensitive alteration or inappropriate use of some modern paints and some other 'routine' materials. Those pitfalls still exist, even if they are now better understood by more people.

Present and future threats to our old houses are likely to be increasingly driven by society's reaction to climate change and energy conservation: probably including misapplication of insulation - potentially leading to dampness and decay, and sometimes creating fire and vermin risks. Climate change also looks likely to attract migrations of new timber decay pests to more parts of the UK.

The future of this site - interested in being involved?

Our original funding model was that the site was supported by its direct digital sales of our early e-articles, offering information aimed at familiarising the lay owner of an old house with some of the problems and solutions that might come their way. That ended around 2015 when the EU imposed an administratively complex VAT regime on digital sales, effectively halting some sites like ours.

Advertising sits uncomfortably with a website that, by definition, prefers natural, generic, inexpensive (or even free) materials that can also be long-lasting. Also our aim has been to show that, with proper understanding, basic, sound techniques are often reasonably accessible to all and are not exclusive to 'high-end' operations. Some of the products and tradespeople we might wish to advertise probably don't have advertising budgets. And then, not every good product, ancient or modern, cheap or expensive, is good for every situation.

If you are aware of any organisation or individual having sympathy with our principles and a love of old buildings and who might wish to support and help develop the site for the future benefit of our built heritage, then we would be happy to hear:

Old House Info Ltd  2022
 

This site has always referred to our understanding of conditions relevant in the UK. Our books were likewise aimed at the UK, and conditions there at the time of their first publication. Books and websites such as ours offer generic information that can greatly help in understanding old buildings and their problems. They are not a substitute for on-site experienced professional advice as every real-life situation will be a unique blend of factors.

The proprietor of this website and owner of the intellectual property rights and the oldhouse.info logo and trademark in all its forms and the oldhouse.info domain name is Old House Info Ltd a company registered in England. The law governing this site shall be English law.

We are not aware of any cookies associated with this page other than the software which keeps the site together on your screen. We do not have the ability or desire to collect any personal information from visitors. Linked websites will have their own cookie and privacy policies for which we are not responsible.
 

* Note about finding our books:

The publishers' websites have been preferred in the links shown on this page unless the publisher was out of stock at the time of writing this, in which case links are to Amazon. This is a temporary webpage but if the links here do not work we suggest a title search, then if necessary track back to the publisher's own site.

All these books are advertised on a number of other websites and have also been available in specialist  bookshops. The older books especially may be available second-hand online. Some titles are held by public libraries, or might be requested.

If searching generally for our titles online, be warned that "free PDF downloads" sometimes crop up but as these should not be legitimately available, to our knowledge, they are probably scams such as are known in the publishing industry: the offer of whatever is being searched for can result instead in a download of something digitally very unpleasant. We cannot accept any liability for such scams, miss-selling, fraud or general problems with retailers and other third parties - these are unfortunately outside our control. Please select booksellers with due care.

Our books are all about de-mystifying the responsibilities of old house ownership and helping understanding of maintenance so that people can enjoy living in these special buildings. Happy reading! Love your old house!

Return to booklist at top of page
 

OLD HOUSE CARE & REPAIR. MAINTAINING & REPAIRING OLD HOUSES; A GUIDE TO CONSERVATION, SUSTAINABILITY & ECONOMY. VICTORIAN & EDWARDIAN HOUSES; A GUIDE TO CARE & MAINTENANCE. COUNTRY COTTAGE CONSERVATION; A GUIDE TO MAINTENANCE & REPAIR. THE FIXTURES & FITTINGS OF PERIOD HOUSES 1714 - 1939.

SOME OF OUR SUBJECTS:

MOVEMENT IN OLD HOUSES. DAMP IN OLD HOUSES. TREES, GARDENS & OLD HOUSES. ALTERATIONS & EXTENSIONS TO OLD HOUSES. FUNGUS, WOODWORM & DECAY IN OLD HOUSES: DRY ROT & DEATHWATCH BEETLE. PAINT & PAINT REMOVAL FOR OLD HOUSES. INSULATING OLD HOUSES. SUSTAINABILITY & ENERGY CONSERVATION IN OLD HOUSES. OLD HOUSE INTERIORS. LOOKING FOR PROFESSIONAL HELP WITH OLD HOUSES. OLD HOUSE GLASS & WINDOWS. BREATHABILITY & VENTILATION IN OLD HOUSES. TIMBER FRAME, BRICK, CLAY LUMP & EARTH WALLS IN OLD HOUSES. OLD HOUSE ROOFING MATERIALS: THATCH, SLATE, STONE & TILE. UNDOING PAST MAINTENANCE MISTAKES IN OLD HOUSES.