The story so far

Who? Scott and Kate Voorhees and family

What? A Thirties Grade II-listed Modern Movement house in Hampstead, London, designed by Ernst Freud.

How long? Two years.

High point? ‘Getting the listed building consent. We’d thought it was going to be more complicated, so we were delighted’.

Low point? ‘A badly-built wall in the garden had to be shored up with concrete, pushing the project back two months’.

Energy efficiency

• Bringing listed buildings up to current standards of energy efficiency can be almost impossible, many were built before such things were a concern. Historic building surveyor Phil Ogley of Oxley Conservation recommends finding out more about how your building functions. ‘Check the thickneses and make-up of your walls, and an air pressure test can reveal the origin of drafts,’ he says. And here are some more listed building-friendly tips.

• Old buildings need to breathe, don’t seal them completely. But ensure there is adequate ventilation in rooms like the kitchen and bathroom.

• You’re unlikely to be allowed double-glazing, but secondary glazing could be permitted. Clear View produce wood-framed opening secondary windows specially tailored for listed buildings which are miles from the plastic horrors commonly available (www.clearviewsg.co.uk).

• Old-fashioned draft excluders are a great choice – they are effective and easily removable, but they’re also cheap.

• Insulate as much as you can. Use breathable products, like wood fibreboard, sheep’s wool, mineral wool and insulation made from cotton, hemp or recycled newspaper. Avoid foil-backed insulation, sprays and foams.

• Insulating single skin walls can be problematic, and you can lose the benefit of the thermal mass of the wall in the process.

• An efficient boiler and good thermostat control can make a big difference, but if you’re using original radiators these will reduce the system’s effectiveness.

• Unused chimneys can be partially sealed either by a chimney sweep or using a readily available DIY balloon method, where the balloon inflates inside the chimney, partially blocking it and therefore minimising heat loss.

Bricking it

‘When we said that we wanted to clean the exterior, to bring it back to what it would have originally looked like, the conservation officer wasn’t keen,’ says Scott. The couple’s architect Alice Brown says that conservationists often wish to show the age of the brick, but on this occasion both she and her client felt that it would be more apposite to show the building as it would have looked when it was built.

‘We never wanted to blast it into shininess, but rather to bring the building out,’ says Scott. They had it ‘conservation cleaned’, that is, with a weak acid solution – and they are pleased with the result. ‘You can see that the

bricks are a very important part of the building,’ says Alice. Unlike some Modern Movement houses that use whitewashed render – a look that doesn’t always work with the British weather – Freud’s brickwork gives the house a sense of context in London.