Electric Ireland sets up joint venture to create efficient, insulated superhomes

If your house has a BER of F or G and you fancy turning it into a B-rated home, Electric Ireland’s new joint venture with Tipperary Energy Agency’s Superhomes might help.

This pooling of resources, under the name Electric Ireland Superhomes, is an attempt to tackle the one million homes in the country in need of such upgrading. Of these, 700,000 have oil-fired central heating, says Stephen O’Connor, its chief executive. “It’s the whole house project,” he explains, something Superhomes has been doing quietly for the past five years, deep retrofitting more than 350 homes so far, with another 100 due for completion by October.

This kind of retrofit installs insulation in the attic and walls, improves air-tightness and ventilation as well as upgrading the heating. It’s a disruptive process, but here’s the carrot: you’re eligible for a third of the money back in the form of a grant.

O’Connor, who is an accountant, says the gross cost typically starts at about €50,000. With the grants available, the net cost to the homeowner will be from about €35,000, he says. These figures include windows – but at this price they will be uPVC, so if you want timber or aluclad or another higher-spec option this will increase overall costs. As will any requests for natural insulation materials such as paper, sheep’s wool or cork.

What sold for about €700,000 in Dublin and Cork

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What sold for about €795,000 in Dublin, Wicklow and Cork

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Ecologist and RTÉ TV’s Eco Eye presenter Anja Murray says the rational for upgrading her house in Dublin 8 was ethical.

“I was concerned about climate change,” she says. Her three-bedroom semi had oil-fired central heating and a BER of E, and she had a lot of questions about the process for the team. “It’s complicated and technical,” she says, explaining that she was impressed by the comparisons made on her possible insulation choices as well as analysis on the lifecycle of each. She lives in a concrete-built house dating from the 1920s and opted for exterior, mineral wool insulation. She also invested in triple-glazed, alu-clad timber windows. The house was replumbed and rewired with several heating zones added. All these extras added to the bill and all told, it cost about €70,000, she says. “It needed to be done. I now set the thermostat and don’t have to turn it on or off. I’m happy not to be burning fossil fuels.”

To start the process, engineers and technicians visit your home, do an energy survey and cost and create a retrofit design. They then supervise the project using qualified building contractors to make sure the works are executed to standards required. The company will also manage the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland's (SEAI) grant application. superhomes.ie