Builders in Albury

Albury is a small village and civil parish, and small is the operative word. The 2011 census recorded 1,191 residents across 479 households, of which 235 were detached houses. So the typical property here is a detached house, often period, on its own plot, in a parish of 1,628 hectares that is mostly countryside.

The parish is not one settlement but several. Albury village itself, plus the hamlets of Albury Heath, Farley Green, Little London and Brook, spread out and separated by heath, woodland and small fields. Each has its own character, and a house in Farley Green is a different proposition from one in the village centre.

The heritage here is substantial for the size of the place. Albury Park House is Grade II* listed and its gardens are Grade I registered, laid out by the diarist John Evelyn. The old church of St Peter and St Paul has Saxon origins and is now looked after by the Churches Conservation Trust. The William IV pub at Little London dates from the sixteenth century. The parish holds a range of listed buildings across the grades.

In practice that means a lot of the housing stock here is genuinely old: solid walled, often timber framed or built in local brick and stone, without a damp proof course, and needing to be treated as a historic building rather than a modern one.

The most common brief we get in Albury is some version of: we love the house, but it is cold. Older solid walled buildings were not built to modern comfort standards and bringing them up to date is genuinely worth doing. It just has to be done in the right order and with the right materials.

The order matters more than the products. Draughts first, because sealing gaps around floors, skirtings, windows and chimneys is cheap and makes an immediate difference. Then the roof, because heat leaves through the top of the building and loft insulation is the best value work available on almost any house. Only then is it worth thinking about walls, which are the most expensive and the most risky to get wrong.

Walls are where old buildings get damaged. Wrapping a breathable solid wall in impermeable insulation can trap moisture inside the structure and cause rot in embedded timbers you cannot see. Where wall insulation is right, breathable systems such as wood fibre with a lime finish work with the building instead of against it.

Windows are the other flashpoint. In a listed building or a sensitive setting, replacing original windows with modern units is usually neither permitted nor desirable. Draught proofing existing windows, adding secondary glazing or fitting well made slim double glazed units into the existing frames can get you most of the benefit while keeping the building intact.