Energy saving control

Not so long ago home automation was just a fancy way of saying a home had a cabled music system with loudspeakers hidden in the ceilings. Not any more. Today the feel-good factor of buying a home equipped with the latest technology is as much about saving energy as relaxing to a melody. Yes, there’s…

Read More

House history in America

Mayhew-Hancock-Mitchell House, Quansoo Farm, Martha's Vineyard, USA.

In Britain we frequently take old houses for granted but in the USA they’re very often seen as much more special. I was reminded of this recently when I arrived on Martha’s Vineyard, in Massachusetts, and picked up a copy of the Vineyard Gazette. On the front page was a story about a three centuries…

Read More

Don’t neglect your home!

Maybe it’s because you’re busy or perhaps you’ve just lived in your home for so long that you no longer notice the crack in the wall or the damp in the spare room, but more and more UK homes are falling into disrepair because of neglect. In fact, around 11 per cent are now in…

Read More

Debating good homes

The Good Homes Alliance (GHA) aims to be Britain’s leading authority on good homes. With this in mind it launched a primer for a ‘good homes debate’ at its conference last week. The document Get Britain Building Good Homes sets out what it believes is wrong with Britain’s new homes sector and presents ideas for…

Read More

House history in Shoreditch

The Geffrye, Museum of the Home, A dining lounge in 1935

When a homeowner asks what they should do when starting a renovation project, I usually suggest that they should understand the building. I don’t just mean getting to know the structure and it’s idiosyncrasies, I mean really getting to know it, and its context, so that mistakes are avoided. All buildings, whether they’re churches, castles,…

Read More

Overheating in homes

A lot has been written about overheating in homes recently, especially in relation to energy efficiency measures introduced under the Green Deal. The BBC quotes Prof Chris Goodier, of Loughborough University’s department of civil and building engineering, who “said the risk of overheating had been overlooked in the ‘big rush to insulate and make homes…

Read More

Lighting history

Incandescent light bulbs (lamps) have illuminated the world for more than a century. They’ve done it in a way that has felt natural in historic interiors and has been flattering to the complexion because traditional tungsten filaments provide a spectrum of light not dissimilar to fire or candlelight. Now they’ve been banned in favour of…

Read More

Straw bale homes

The use of straw bales for building apparently originated in Nebraska, USA, following the introduction of horse and steam powered bailing machines a century or so ago. Farmers soon saw the value of using bales to built temporary shelters but, having realized their potential to stand up to the weather, they began using them to…

Read More

Old House Eco Handbook

Each time I write a book I say to myself “never again”. This is all very well but when a good idea comes along it’s hard to resist. Towards the end of 2010 I watched as the ink dried on my signature at the bottom of a contract for “a book provisionally entitled ‘The Old…

Read More

Attitudes in home buying

Some years ago I contributed a chapter to a Reader’s Digest book called The Story of Where You Live. The book paints a fascinating picture of the development of homes, communities and the growing aspirations of those seeking a home. I was reminded of this when the infographic below, that shows the changing attitudes in…

Read More

Think before buying

Yesterday a double glazing salesman arrive at my door at the very moment the phone rang with a call from a solar panel saleswoman. Such annoyances are rarely quite so simultaneous but they are regular. This is one of the reasons I’m pleased to hear that the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) has written to…

Read More