Heritage House is a team of dedicated and enthusiastic conservation professionals - all the team undertake continuous study. We are Conservation Builders. Our bricklayers and plasterers have returned yet again from Scotland, where they have been studying traditional lime mortars, for their NVQ3 qualifications in Conservation, and have completed another course in Traditional Masonry Repair. Ryan and Mark are both in the process of achieving NVQ level 3 Site Management tickets. Mark is currently finalising his Plumbing qualifications and can now install our heating and plumbing systems - although he's increasingly involved in green heating issues - our favourite is air source heating.. We have welcomed a new member to the team - Nick - who is currently beavering away restoring a slate roofed school building on a local estate for us - and takes huge delight in turning oak trees into houses. He's just finishing building Peter an Oak Framed Conservatory, which will shortly feature on the site. We are very involved with our local Dudmaston Sawmill - which is great fun, and where we cut our own green oak to order..

We undertake surveys of, conservation and restoration work on listed buildings, including private houses and cottages, churches, and estates. This includes restoration of plasterwork, stonemasonry and brickwork, in addition to timber framing and finishing carpentry. We have a banker mason on the team, and undertake stone restoration, carving, cleaning and fitting, together with stone walling. We use traditional conservation methods, using hydraulic lime mortars, hydraulic lime plasters and renders and lime putty. Our carpenters work mainly in oak, and undertake timber frame repairs, including caulking and restoring leaking panels. We do a lot of window repairs - taking out old sash windows and restoring them - removing the old cylinder glass, preserving it, and replacing it back into the windows when they have been restored. We build timber framed structures such as garages and conservatories.

Specialist damp 'sniffer dog' examining sub floor cavity through ventilation holes to check condition of sub-floor timbering	Photo of damp affected timbers found by sniffer dog - aka 'Grot Dog' during one of our building surveys.

Softclean air blast cleaning of oak framed timbers, windows and brick / stonework

We have just taken delivery of our specially designed and built SoftClean air cleaning unit. This allows us to gently remove paint and tar deposits from oak framed buildings, and clean stonework and brickwork without damaging the surface. Removal of paint and graffiti from almost any surface is a breeze. The SoftClean unit allows us to use very low air pressure and delicate abrasives to gently tease paint and tar deposits from old timber. We are able to remove paint from window frames without even damaging the glass - this is especially valuable when cleaning paint and rust from cast iron windows. Conventional sandblasting equipment is far too abrasive, and damages historic timber - we have been working with the manufacturers of the equipment to ensure that we have complete control over how much material is removed, and to minimise any damage to historic fabric. Some of the abrasives we use include sodium bicarbonate (baking soda!) and calcite (very soft material which is softer than the oak timber we often clean - so minimises any abrasion to the surface) It has been a big investment for us, but we are already achieving spectacular results. We will add some case history photos shortly. A recent demonstration, at which a Conservation Officer was closely involved, resulted in her request for help with her own home. So - if you were thinking about sandblasting oak beams, or sandblasting paint off a brick wall, give us a call, and we will show you how this can be done with minimal damage to historic fabric. The equipment is fully mobile, and we can operate our conservation timber and brick cleaning service anywhere in the country. At a recent demonstration, stonemasons were cleaning stonework traditionally. They vowed to use our stone cleaning system in future - apparently they have seen numerous gadgets that claim to clean with no damage, and this is the only one which actually lives up to the claim.

Recent News...

This is the English Heritage Guidance document that covers almost all the issues I cover in this site. Hopefully, when you see the importance that EH gives the subject, you'll realise I am not just ranting on..! It covers a wealth of stuff - from how to draughtproof old windows, to using lime renders and plasters, allowing buildings to breathe and so on. Its also important in that it recognises, for the first time, that pre 1920's buildings, and many pre 1945 buildings, NEED to be treated differently to modern construction. Download this and take note - pages 36 to 39 or so are especially interesting. Eat your heart out Mr Rising Damp man, and get rid of your injection damp proofing rubbish. See the statement below as well..

Guidance concerning Energy Efficiency in Historic Buildings

Rising damp is a myth, says former RICS chief ...

26 June, 2009 | By Richard Waite

Stephen Boniface, former chairman of the construction arm of the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors (RICS ), has told the institute’s 40,000 members that ‘true rising damp’ is a myth and chemically injected damp-proof courses (DPC) are ‘a complete waste of money’

At LAST!!!! Finally we are getting through ....

these are some recent emails Pete recently received out of the blue. They say everything we want to say on this website, and more - thanks guys:

Peter - Just read your web page and a smile crept across my face like a cheshire cat! I have been banging on about the same things for years and people think I am mad, I laughed out loud at the restaurant wall by the river...answer that Mr damp man! I manage a large private estate of around 400 assorted houses mostly mid late victorian and am slowly and painfully reversing the carnage, keep up the good work ...

Hi.. , I'd just like to thank you for the information on your website regarding damp, especially rising damp! We bought a 17th C cottage last February, which had damp problems, and fortunately looked on the net for info because the surveyor had said we needed a damp proof course! Fortunately we spotted your site and having read the horror stories you highlight we dug into it a lot more and went on the SPAB homeowners course. Following all that we have stripped the concrete render off the outside, removed the concrete floor and “damp proof” membrane from our lower than outside ground level floors inside, ripped off all the gypsum / tanking plaster and hey presto the walls are all drying out nicely, surprise surprise! We have a fair bit of work to do but should end up with a nice dry little cottage with lime plaster/render and limecrete floors.I now use your site as a reference every time someone says to me "I've got damp in my old house".

Cheers, Terry Collins - East Yorkshire

Hi,
I have never been compelled to write and congratulate any company on their website before.  I was moved to do so by the valuable information freely available.
Good work all round digitally and physically.
Kind regards
Nick G.

Hi Peter,
Adrian here from the midlands.Just wanted to personally write after stumbling across your website.
I am a plasterer by trade and now trying to move into the traditional side of plastering/rendering and pointing with lime.I recently finished my first lime job and the impact it has had on the building already is amazing and also theres something about lime that just feels right.....cant explain it.....bit sad but I LOVE the stuff.
Anyway it was a typical old building in my town where owners had spent a fortune on damp-proofing and replastering in gypsum.....only to have it fall off time and time again from damp.
I stripped everything back to the brick and used traditional lime plaster which has just given the place a new lease of life.The most impressive part of the job was an old original ironstone bread oven.......this had been repointed in sand and cement and the faces of the stone were soaked and beginning to fall apart.I chopped all the cement out and repointed in lime mortar and it looks brand new......the stones are now dry as a bone and again a new lease of life has been given.
Anyway......I'm now looking into working torwards my nvq 3 in heritage skills and wanted to personally thank you for such an informative website.The information has been great thanks.

Thanks again and hope you dont mind me contacting you
Adrian

Pete is now proud owner of a Grade 2 listed stone cottage in the Weardale in Co. Durham. You can expect to see progress reports about work on the place - which is almost derelict - it used to be the village police house, and still has a separate gaol building next to it, which Pete intends to restore to its former glory and invite guests! His neighbour over the road...? You guessed, the local Police Officer and his horse mad wife, also a police officer!!

New Office - Peter has finally made the long awaited move, and joined forces with colleagues in Cumbria. We can now offer all of our services from the Cumbrian base - in Kendal - and we are undertaking projects in the Weardale at the moment. Peter is starting restoration work on a grade 2 listed house there, and undertaking a Conservation Management Plan on one of the old lead mining sites in the area, which is now a Scheduled Ancient Monument. Details of our Cumbrian office, and Tim Butler, who runs the company Alfred Mossop and Co., are to be found on the contact page.

More news about Surveys...

We constantly undertake Building Surveys of old properties for people looking to buy. Thankfully, most home surveys come up well, and the sale proceeds happily. In a few cases recently, we've found significant problems with the property, and have had to report back to the potential purchaser that they will need to spend significant (in one case, nearly £100,000) amounts of money to get the property into a liveable condition. Sometimes, we are able to help you negotiate a significant discount to the purchase price of your home, to help cover the cost of repairs. Give careful thought to your potential surveyor - we spend a lot of time cleaning up after 'Homebuyer surveys', which generally don't find the problems that will cost you money, and almost always end up recommending injection damp proofing. When the survey comes back and says 'Suggest specialist Timber and Damp survey' - sack the surveyor and refuse to pay the bill. He should know enough to be able to properly diagnose the reason for any damp issues, if he doesnt, he isnt worth paying. The 'specialist' timber and damp surveyor will be a commission salesman who just wants to sell injection damp proofing and/ or tanking, replastering / timber spraying etc. It is all a giant fraud, pushed and paid for by chemical companies. If you don't believe me, research who actually owns the companies, the suppliers of chemicals, and even the Property Care Association they claim is such a wonderful organisation. Question the qualifications - ask what CSRT actually stands for and how long they have to study for - a day at most, learning how to inject chemicals. Our Building Surveys are based on a lifetime of experience solving problems with old houses - we know what is going on behind the fabric, and can often predict issues which ordinary surveyors, with no knowledge or experience of building can not.

Peter is delighted with the sophisticated new humidity monitoring equipment we've just invested in. We can now monitor the precise humidity and temperature levels in the houses we survey. From this data, we can calculate the temperature at which condensation starts to take place. Checking the exact surface temperature of the walls has given us spectacular success - in almost every case we have surveyed with the new equipment, we have predicted where damp will occur, and shown beyond any doubt that it is related to condensation, and not the fraud of 'rising damp'. In one case recently, Peter was able to outline wet areas of the walls, make the precise connection between humidity, temperature and dew point - ie condensation, and by opening two windows for an hour, show that by this simple alteration to the conditions inside the house, the condensation (Not 'Rising Damp!') disappeared almost immediately. If you think you may have damp problems, contact Peter to arrange a survey and sort them out, once and for all.

Heritage House are bringing Linseed Paints and Putty Lamp to the Midlands.

The putty lamp is an amazing piece of equipment which allows you to soften very old, rock-hard putty and remove valuable hand made panes of glass from old windows to allow repair of the frames and glazing bars. We can hire you the Putty Lamp, or undertake repairs in our workshop, or on-site. This technology is essential in the repair of historic windows which contain very old cylinder glass (which has that lovely rippled effect when you look through it). Read all about the Putty Lamp, hire terms, and the use of Linseed Paints... Linseed paints are incredible - they are porous, totally breathable. They have been used for many, many years in Scandinavia on their wooden houses, in very harsh weather conditions. They increase painting intervals to nearly ten years. They need little maintenance, and they feed your timber. Linseed Paints are quite simply the only thing you should use for external woodwork - they will save you a lot of money and time, and they are actually about the same in price as normal grotty old plastic paints..

More about the Fraud of Rising Damp...

Oh Joy, Oh Joy!! Did you see Rogue Traders on the BBC? Mr. Rising Damp man in all his glory... and y'know what - it was just the tip of the iceberg. These ones were particularly nasty, but your average mortgage surveyor isn't much better - many mortgage companies insist on injection damproofing before they'll finance - it is Fraud, on a massive scale. If you are told by a mortgage company that you must have an injection damp proof course - contact us and we will fight your case. Injection damp proofing should be eradicated, summarily.

Have a look at the Damp Page, where we have just uploaded yet more examples of damp problems which are nothing to do with the so called Rising Damp - which doesn't exist - these problems can all be fixed without destroying the brickwork and injecting toxic chemicals that are totally useless.

Peter spends a lot of his time doing surveys of lovely old houses scattered all over England - last week he was in Coventry, London and Norfolk - and this little house was a gem - it just goes to prove the Fraud of Rising Damp - once again!! The wall of this house was sopping wet above the injection damp course, bone dry below, and on the inside, the lovely old lime plastered walls had been hacked off at ground level for about 10 inches, and cement rendered - precisely where the walls were sopping wet on the outside..

This sopping wet wall was found in Norfolk last week - above a LOVELY, and completely useless injection damp course. Notice how the wall is dry beneath the injection holes, and wet above them... Best example I've ever seen of the 'Fraud Of Rising Damp'	... and the reason is.... on the inside .. all that lovely cement render at the bottom of a perfectly good lime plaster wall which is dry as a bone. The cement is trapping water into the wall. The idiots who installed the injection damp proof course also stripped the plaster off the inside and put the cement render on - causing more damp problems than the started with.
	.. and just to ram the point home - this is the millrace, at the hotel I stayed at. The wall above the water surface is bone dry - that's the restaurant wall you're looking at. Damp proofing companies tell you water magically 'rises' a metre up the wall - why a metre I wonder? Anyway - this wall is sitting in water 24/7, and its bone dry - so, Mr Rising Damp man - how do you explain this?!! I have just, in the last day or so, looked at YET ANOTHER big, old farmhouse, which ALREADY has a damp course injected, and the building surveyor recommended.... you guessed it.... another injection damp proof course!!! These people should be shot! They are not worthy of being called professionals. The house in question is very wet inside - because of excessive condensation caused by the last lot of damp-proofing, when they coated the interior walls with cement. The lime plaster which miraculously is still behind much of the cement, is BONE DRY - all the water and dampness is from condensation. The cement which fills the damp proofing holes is the same as the cement which fills the joints in the brickwork. My first move is to remove every skerrick of cement pointing to let moisture out of the brickwork where it has been trapped since they installed the damp course and pointed the walls... idiots! I make no apologies for my language or attitude towards injection damp proofing people - they are fraudsters who cause irreparable damage to old properties and should be exterminated!

Building Surveys...

One of the biggest problems with the Heritage building sector is the lack of suitably experienced building surveyors capable of assessing old buildings, be they listed or not. All too often we hear of surveyors recommending injection damp proofing (which instantly shows they know nothing of the reasons damp is present in the first place, or more to the point, the chemical companies give them a nice Christmas pressy every year..), and failing to understand or report problems with timber frames. Usually they understand very little about the characteristics of traditional building materials (one surveyor recently questioned the use of lime mortar, saying it wasnt strong enough.... he ran for cover when we reminded him that half of the houses in London are built with it!). Add to these problems, the raft of legislation that drowns builders, architects and planners on a weekly basis, and which is totally inappropriate for old buildings....

We do A LOT of timber frame surveys. If you think you might have a problem with a timber framed building - CALL US! - we are happy to travel all over the country to help and advise you, and this need not be expensive. We can undertake a survey of your timber framed house, and then give you a breakdown of what is wrong with it, what MIGHT go wrong, and a schedule of work which can be timed over a period of years - so you have a proper maintenance strategy. We also teach you all about your timber (oak) framed house, so you can recognise problems and know how to deal with them yourself if needs be.

Copyright: Gotz Wiedenroth

We offer a full Building Survey and Project Management service. We undertake an initial survey and assessment, produce a detailed condition report and create a work specification and schedule. This highlights problems found, and ranks them in order of importance - which helps greatly with budgeting current and future maintenance. If required, this can then be modified to create Listed Building Consent specification and justification. Liaison with conservation officers and planners, costing and financial control are included if required. This allows us to work on projects with values ranging from a few thousand to over a million pounds.

If all of this sounds a bit high faluting and poncy... in plain English for us normal folks, it means we'll survey your house and show you how to keep it nice and dry, bereft of nasty grotty slimy things that eat it and make it rot - and save you some money into the bargain....

Our architect, (Roger Latham B.A (Hons) Dip. Arch. P.G. Cert. Conservation R.I.B.A) works closely with our project manager to produce all the required drawings and paperwork for Listed Building Consents - so frequently required in our work. It is vitally important when undertaking work on listed buildings that the architect involved is familiar with, and fully understands all aspects of conservation and restoration practise - Roger will often find solutions where in some cases, years of planning applications have failed to produce results.

Repairs to timber framed houses ...

This was a bit of a problem at the time - if you have a timber framed house, you might not have had quite such a problem, but its nice to know its relatively easy to solve! We currently have four timber framing projects on the go -

Not the best way to wake up in the morning... ! It was the bathroom that fell to bits..		All sorted - nice new lime rendered panels, and oak frame...

Manufacture of Metal Windows...

We now have the capability to make and supply steel framed windows - a recently completed restoration job required black powder coated windows to be set within mullioned oak windows, and the results are sensational to say the least...

Steel windows in a conservation project in Birmingham.. Oak, Lime Render, Lime Pointing, Oak Framed extension, and stone floors all feature..		Close-up, with stone and brick dating back 300 years

Although based in Shropshire, we have worked all over the Midlands, with projects in Worcestershire, Staffordshire, Herefordshire, Warwickshire, Wales and other counties. Basically... if there's a nice pub nearby, we'll travel...