Boot houses were houses built in the United Kingdom after World War I to accommodate the housing boom following the war.[1] They were named after Henry Boot, whose construction company produced an estimated 50,000 houses between the end of World War I and the start of World War II.[2] Due to a shortage of bricks, boot houses were built using precast reinforced clinker-concrete columns.[3] Structural tests in the 1980s revealed significant deterioration in the concrete as a result of carbonation. The Housing Act of 1985 provided government grants for homeowners of such 'defective' houses.[4]