Twelve parts. Eighty-two chapters. What's happening, why, what to do first, what it costs in 2026, what not to do, and when to call someone — for a house that was built before you were born.
Peter Hallam, on site — thirty years in cold houses.
I. The Manual
Know what house you have. How it actually works. Cold, damp, cracks, the outside, the inside, room by room. Modernising without wrecking it. The money. Buying and selling. Living with it.
Every chapter answers the same six questions, in the same order: what's happening, why, what to do first, what it costs in 2026, what not to do, and when to stop and call a registered professional. No filler history. No checklists longer than five items. Just the sequence, the materials, and the price.
Start this weekend with a torch and a five-pound tube of caulk. Read the chapter that matches your problem — a wet wall, a cold back bedroom, a crack over the door — and stop. You do not have to read it in order, and you do not have to do all eighty-two chapters. Do the ones that fit your house.
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II. The Cost of Getting It Wrong
Every line below is a real bill I have watched a homeowner pay for the wrong diagnosis. The Manual's job is to make sure you are never the one paying it.
Prices are 2026 ranges, from the Manual's own price table — see Chapter 68 for the full list, by job.
III. What's Inside
Eighty-two numbered chapters across twelve parts. Pick the ones that fit your house — you don't have to do them all.
IV. From the Book
"A woman off a Nottingham terrace rang me because a surveyor had quoted her four thousand pounds for rising damp in her back bedroom. The mark was two metres above the floor, which rising damp does not reach. She did the foil test and rang me back two days later — it was wet on the wall side, and the rain was pouring out of a cracked joint. We fixed the joint for the price of a length of pipe and an afternoon."
— Peter Hallam
"A couple in a Bristol terrace had painted their bay window four times in three years, and the black was always back by February. Nothing was wrong with the bay. We moved the clothes rack, pulled the curtain off the radiator, and put a hygrometer on the sill. Humidity dropped from the high seventies to the mid fifties in a fortnight. The bay has stayed white for two winters."
— Peter Hallam
"An elderly man in a Sheffield terrace rang me because his lights dimmed when the kettle went on. His electrician ran the new cable over the joists and down the chimney breast, chasing only the short stretch to each socket. He was out of his front room for three days, not three weeks — and the bill was well inside the first quote he'd been given."
— Peter Hallam
V. About
I have spent thirty years in cold houses. Not always my own, though I have owned a few. I have stood in front rooms where the wallpaper was lifting off the chimney breast, and in houses a hundred and fifty years old that were warm, dry and cheap to run. The difference between the two is rarely money. It is almost always order — the right thing done first, and the wrong thing not done at all.
Most of what goes wrong in an older British house goes wrong because somebody was trying to help — an airbrick blocked against the draught, a chimney capped against the rain, a wall sealed with cement because the damp was obvious. This Manual is what I'd tell you over a cup of tea, with a torch, having a look about. Twelve parts, eighty-two chapters, in the order you should tackle them, with the materials and the numbers written down.
Peter
VI. Order
£29 once. No subscription. Yours forever. Instant download — in your inbox within a minute of payment. Read on any phone, tablet or computer, or print it at the kitchen table.
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VII. FAQ
The Manual covers Victorian, Edwardian, 1930s, post-war, non-traditional and new-build houses, and tells you which chapters apply to which era in the first three pages. Most of the cold and damp chapters apply to almost any solid-walled or early-cavity house built before about 1990.
Yes. Every chapter tells you what to do yourself, what it should cost to have done, and — just as importantly — when to stop and call a registered professional. It's written to help you commission and check work as much as to do it.
Two PDFs: an A4 edition for reading on screen, and a 6"×9" print-ready edition. Both arrive by email link within a minute of payment, and you can download them as many times as you like.
Not yet. The 6"×9" edition is laid out for exactly that — print it at home, at a local print shop, or through a print-on-demand service, using the file you already own.
Lifetime updates are included. When a revision goes out, everyone who has bought the Manual gets the new file at no extra charge.
Seven-day money-back guarantee, no questions asked. Email through Gumroad and the £29 comes back the same day.
£29 once. Instant download. 7-day money-back guarantee. 251 pages, second edition, lifetime updates.
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