restoration of a medieval oak framed building

Welcome to Heritage House - Conservation Builders and Surveyors...

Do you live in an old house? Is damp a problem? Flaking plaster, Hollow render on walls, Paint bubbling and flaking off the walls, Mouldy wallpaper, Leaky or rotting timber frame, Stonework deteriorating, grotty walls inside, things getting creaky and rotten?. Any, or all of these are typical problems associated with old houses. We know and understand them, and can offer sensible solutions, show you WHY the problem is happening, and how to prevent it in future. We specialise in the use of traditional building techniques - lime mortars and plasters, oak framing, stonework to name a few... None of these need be expensive - we'll help you understand how your house works, and give you some strategies to fit your budget, and will NOT include the fraud of injection damp proofing!

If you are considering buying an old house, we can undertake a detailed property survey of possible problems, and their solutions, BEFORE you complete a purchase. We produce a schedule of the results, which will allow you to budget accordingly. We travel all over the country.

We are happy to undertake the smallest of projects - from restoring a patch of damaged plaster over some lath, about half a metre across, to re-building manor houses. Pete is especially pleased with this photo - he looks really intelligent, and had just found all this lovely oak work under some grotty cement render, so he was having a good day! Have a look at the rest of the job in the Project Diary to the left...

Heritage House is a team of dedicated and enthusiastic conservation professionals - all the team members undertake continuous study. We are Conservation Builders. Our bricklayers and plasterers have just returned yet again from Scotland, where they have been studying the theory and practise of traditional lime mortars, for their NVQ3 qualifications in Conservation, and have completed another course in Traditional Masonry Repair. In the office, Peter is studying towards a Masters degree in Historic Building Conservation at the Ironbridge Institute - based in the historic museum buildings at the Ironbridge Gorge Museum.. 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.. Terry is our newest recruit, and is also doing the Building Conservation masters degree at Ironbridge - with a long career in the Army behind him, Terry is heading up site management and will be helping with training our guys in conservation techniques. We have two fully qualified timber framers on the crew - Brendan and John take huge delight in turning oak trees into houses, and we are very involved with our local Dudmaston Sawmill - which is great fun, and where we cut our own green oak to order.. We presently have two Finnish conservation students working with us - I think we could all learn a thing or two about timber, and painting from these guys - all those timber framed houses in Scandinavia which are painted in bright colours, and which don't rot - ever wondered how they keep them so well? It's all in the linseed paints they use.... porous, totally breathable, natural, non-toxic, environmentally friendly.. wonderful linseed paints! We'll be making these paints available through Heritage House soon - email us in the meantime if you are interested.

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.

Recent News...

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.

Peter is delighted with the sophisticated new 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 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..

Well... As I predicted, our arrogant, thieving Dictator Brown refused to bring in the 5% VAT ruling approved by the EU - see my story below - but Thanks, Brown, and your overpaid freeloading cabinet, for not giving one jot about all those folks out there who need help with their house repairs...

The UK is to be given the option to charge VAT on home maintenance and repairs at a reduced rate of 5%, after a ruling by European Union finance chiefs. The ruling paves the way for the UK government to ease the tax burden on a construction industry badly hit by the recession – allowing architects, builders and surveyors to carry out private refurbishments for a cheaper rate. Yesterday's decision by the EU Economic and Financial Affairs Council to allow member states to lower VAT on renovation and repair of private dwellings from 17.5% to 5% comes after months of campaigning by trade bodies and MPs.

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.

Rogue Traders Series 7 - You're_Nicked for Damp Proofing!

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..

wall clearly showing how injection damp proofing does not work

internal wall showing why injection damp proofing does not work

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.

wall permanently submerged in water showing how rising damp does not exist

.. 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.

cartoon showing the results of over insulating houses and not allowing them to breathe

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.

Timber Framing...

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...

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