To celebrate May is National Preservation Month, the Lombard J. Pozzi Center for Historic Preservation Education at the Bristol Historical & Preservation Society is offering a series of six workshops for homeowners of historic houses. Generally speaking, any house 50 years or older is considered historic, and all homeowners who are seeking more information about bringing their pre-1972 era homes into the 21st century are welcome to participate.

Presented by experts in their fields, these homeowner workshops are designed to teach homeowners how to balance the condition, energy and other 21st-Century needs of their houses with its historic value. Ultimately the goal is to help homeowners make informed decisions about work needed on their own homes.

Melanie Weston, a preservation specialist and energy efficiency expert at Heritage Restoration, Inc., leads this important workshop on how historic buildings were designed to function and how, with proper planning, they can be retrofitted to decrease energy loss and increase human comfort. Homeowners will learn more about how new technologies, like solar panels, can be added to historic homes in ways that do not compromise historic integrity.