Listed Buildings' Maintenance

Lawyers will highlight the responsibilities which go hand in hand with ownership of a home with listed status. Historic Scotland has now published a support document designed to assist owners drawing-up a maintenance programme.

This cautions that many owners of listed properties spend more each year on their car than their home. Technical experts believe that they should take a leaf out of the book of garages by coming up with a maintenance manual for their biggest asset.

It’s important for any property owner to maintain their home by addressing problems quickly when they are identified, rather than let the fabric deteriorate. As the old adage would have it, ‘a stitch in time saves nine’.

Unexpected large-scale repairs put any household budget under severe strain and Historic Scotland is advocating planned maintenance carried out by tradesmen with a sound reputation for working on listed properties.

When it comes to traditional, softwood sash and case windows, for instance, their longevity is enhanced by regular painting.

The Historic Scotland team cautions: “Each traditional house tends to be unique and you must look at your house in an informed and critical way so that you can identify those parts of the building that will deteriorate and therefore require regular maintenance. You need to be able to identify the potential areas of risk before failure occurs, and to build these into your maintenance plan.”

Less accessible areas of an older home, like the roof, chimney head and guttering, require close inspection, particularly during the summer months when even the Scottish weather tends to relent.

The Edinburgh-based Historic Scotland guide suggests how to go about a methodical inspection and prepare a planned maintenance programme, with safety considerations underlined to reduce the potential for mishaps.