Location: Murtle Market, Aberdeen
Technology: air source heat pump, other
CARES funding: £31,462 capital grant
Date installed/operational: 31 March 2024
Background
Camphill School Aberdeen is a local charity that helps children and young people with learning disabilities to reach their fullest potential. The area has had a lack of day services to help this group of 16-25 year olds, and since 2020 the charity has experienced an increase of 250% in placement enquiries for their Learning for Life vocational workshops. This created a demand to develop new facilities to avoid turning away young people and their families.
To be environmentally efficient, the charity decided to retrofit an existing building rather than build new facilities from scratch. The Murtle Lodge on North Deeside Road in Aberdeen was chosen, and was founded.
Project aims and objectives
Murtle Market is a zero waste organic farm and refill shop, heritage centre and cafe for the local community. It aims to provide meaningful training, work experience and skills development for over 100 young people with learning disabilities and complex additional support needs. Overall, the market will help support the growth of Camphill School Aberdeen’s existing workshops, which will supply the new enterprise.
Murtle Market will increase the community’s access to local seasonal produce, reduce the amount of plastic packaging, and promote reuse and recycle schemes in the area. In year one, Murtle Market estimate that over 41.5 tonnes of carbon will be saved. An integral part of these savings will come from the sustainable retrofit of Murtle Lodge, making it fit for purpose and reducing its environmental impact.
Outcomes and achievements
Camphill School Aberdeen applied for funding from the Scottish Government’s Community and Renewable Energy Scheme (CARES) and received a grant of £31,462. This funding contributed towards several improvements, such as:
- Replacing 10-year-old electric storage heaters with a high-efficiency air source heat pump.
- Introducing a low temperature, high surface area heat distribution system through underfloor heating, pipework and controls.
- Improving thermal efficiency through the addition of high insulation levels.
- Replacing conventional bulbs with LED equivalents.
Prior to this work, an for both the building’s energy efficiency and CO2 emissions. This equated to an annual running cost of £7,586 for heating, hot water, and lighting. The improvements made during the retrofit have resulted in £5,219 of savings per year, with a new annual running cost of £2,369.
Lessons learned
Camphill School Aberdeen faced delays due to the site not being suitable for the use of ground screws and earlier testing of the site would have prevented this delay. Camphill School Aberdeen also mentions that in future it would plan for exterior works to be carried out in the warmer seasons, as cold weather conditions caused hold-ups in completing the lime wash of the buildings.
Published December 2024.