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I’m John Brennan from the University of Edinburgh,
and this is the 2nd of two case studies for our webinar
presentation in retrofit in renewables in historic rural architectures.
We’re here at a farm cluster of cottages near the village
of Preston in the Scottish Borders.
Here, we’re going to look at the way in which a number of cottages,
in various stages of refit for thermal efficiency,
and with quite different uses,
can be served well with a retrofit of high levels of insulation,
and also the inclusion of a renewable system,
in this case a biomass boiler.
I’m sitting here with Barbara Morris,
one of the owners of the cottages here,
and I’m going to ask her a few questions about
how their ownership of the cottages developed,
and the implications that had in terms of putting together
a sustainable heating system.
We’ve talked a little bit about the renovation
and transformation work you did with cottages 3 and 4 here.
Can you tell us something about the acquisition
and the work you did with the other two cottages, number 5 and 6.
Well, we acquired 5 and 6 several years after 3 and 4,
and we had been living in 3 and 4 just at the weekends and holidays,
but when we got the opportunity to buy 5 and 6,
we decided to live here all the time and move out of Edinburgh.
So, we obviously wanted to make 5 and 6 more
comfortable because they’d be occupied by tenants,
but not in great comfort.
They were very damp, very cold,
inadequate heating and no insulation whatsoever.
So, we insulated the roof space, strapped the walls,
and put insulation in to the same standard as 3 and 4,
although we didn’t put a damp-course in, which wasn’t easy to do.
But at the same time,
it wasn’t just a simple extension to the existing house you’ve got?
No, they had their own character because they
were larger cottages than 3 and 4.
They’d been extended about 100 years ago although they’d
originally been just like 3 and 4.
And, we planned to use 5 and 6 to have friends and family to stay,
and to have self-contained units.
So, we added a kitchen, put an extra bathroom in.
And number 6, the character was totally different
because it was going to be a library,
and the three main rooms became book rooms,
and the kitchen became a boiler room for the new biomass boiler.
So, the challenge really was the fact that even
though you have the cottages within this cluster group,
they all have a widely varying series of characteristics
in terms of their performance,
and in terms of use,
and I think that the challenge was to think of a way of
heating sustainably the whole group.
Yes, we decided we didn’t want to use oil or gas because there
is no natural gas in this area,
so it would had to be a tanker of gas,
and we had been using a Morso stove in number 3 and 4,
but that wasn’t adequate to heat the sort of space that we had now.
So, we decided to go for wood pellets and a new biomass boiler,
and to re-do 3 and 4 so the whole system came together,
3,4,5 and 6 all on the same system.
To summarise then,
we have a series of cottages with slightly different levels of refurbishment.
We see cottages 3 and 4 that act as the main dwelling house,
that are converted to the highest standards,
having been stripped back pretty much to the *** walls.
These are fully strapped,
there’s a new floor,
and there’s a roof which approaches current new-built standards.
Cottages 5 and 6 have some insulation to the loft and walls,
but have not been renovated quite to the same extend of cottages 3 and 4.
No matter what however,
there’s still a high heating demand for this cottage cluster,
estimated at around 25 to 30 kilowatts.
I took the opportunity to speak to Barbara Morris,
who’s been heavily involved in the refurbishment,
about the slightly complicated way in which the cottages are used.
Barbara,
can you tell me the state of Primrosehill Cottages when you first moved here?
Well, to quote our architect, it was in the cusp of dereliction,
and if it hadn’t been saved that year I think it would’ve been unsaveable as a house.
Now, in terms of the renovation works that you’ve made to the building
and obviously it’s absolutely transformed,
you’ve always had a sustainable and energy-saving agenda attached to it.
Can you talk a little more about that?
Yes, I think this is the first house that we’ve ever done to our own specifications.
We’ve always inherited houses before that which weren’t really
very adaptable to modern conditions and energy-saving conditions.
But with this one,
we were able to take it right back to the stonework,
to excavate the floor and put in damp-proof courses,
and to put in the recommended level of insulation in the roof
and the walls which made a very cosy house.
So essentially it was a case of a new house with an existing
series of stone walls done to contemporary standards.
But, at the same time this was a house you were just using intermittently.
Yes, it was.
It was intended as a holiday cottage because we had a previous
holiday cottage about 5 or 6 miles away,
which had no potential for extensions and the garden
was rather small for what we wanted to do,
like planting an orchard and growing most of our own food.
So, this was a golden opportunity really to have a big garden and develop it,
and also to have a comfortable house which didn’t use very much fuel at all.
But at the time,
when it came to actually heating and making the house comfortable,
because it was in intermittent use,
have you found over the years that that’s
been able to sustain you in the longer term?
Well, the multi-fuelled stove that we put in had five radiators attached,
but it really only heated one end of the house.
It didn’t have enough scope to heat the hot water because it was too
far from where the water system was placed,
and it didn’t heat the bedroom end of the house.
So, we were still on plug-in electric fires at the bedroom end,
and that was OK in the summer but in the winter time we didn’t find it adequate.
So, in terms of living here 365 days a year,
pretty much for the future,
would you say that the heating system as existing would serve your needs well?
When we got the opportunity two years later to buy the two neighbouring cottages
with virtually no heating systems in them,
very damp and cold,
we took the chance to put in a sustainable system to serve all four cottages,
and we’ve been very pleased with the result.