Marchmont Tenement Retrofit

Retrofit & conversion

Edinburgh has forty thousand of these flats and most of them are cold. This one is a second-floor flat in a listed sandstone tenement, which rules out anything on the outside of the wall.

So the insulation went inside: 100 mm of wood-fibre board, plastered in lime so that the wall can still breathe and the stone can still dry out. The sash windows were overhauled rather than replaced, the shutters were made to shut again, and a small heat-recovery unit lives in the old press. The plan is unchanged except for one door.

The owners kept a thermometer diary for me. The flat that used to sit at nine degrees on a January morning now wakes up at nineteen.

Project info

Location: Marchmont, Edinburgh
Year: 2023
Area: 112 m²
Structure: Sandstone, retained; wood-fibre internal insulation
Status: Complete

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