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‘I’d always dreamed of having an A-rated house, to get it with a retrofit is amazing’

Upgrade your home energy for far less than you might think, and get the money up front across a range of SEAI grants

Want to upgrade your home energy and boost your home's BER rating? The SEAI has all the information you need; with grants to help, it will cost far less than you might think

Thu May 25 2023 - 05:00

While there has been a lot of talk about the ‘unaffordability’ of upgrading one’s home to make it more energy efficient, many people are unaware of how much easier and impressive the process has become.

It’s a question of getting the balance right for your life. We all work hard to create comfort for ourselves and our loved ones. Once you realise just how much your life can be transformed by upgrading your home comfort, and how much support there is from SEAI (Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland), you’ll wonder why you didn’t do it sooner.

Cormac Madden's 1960s home has leapt from a G rating (one of the lowest BER levels) to and A3 rating (one of the highest), with the help of SEAI grants

Cormac Madden in Dublin, for example, had an old home that was built in the 1960s, where valuable heat was just pouring out of poorly insulated walls. After his home energy upgrade with SEAI grant supports, he no longer uses fossil fuels for heat and is benefitting from a much warmer and healthier home.

“It’s so much healthier and drier than it used to be,” he says, proud of the fact that it went from one of the lowest BER levels (G) to one of the highest (A3).

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The Building Energy Rating (BER) is a measure of how energy efficient your home is – the highest level being A1. Many Irish homes are in the D category or lower. The Government, through SEAI has made it a national priority to bring as many homes as possible up to a B2 BER rating (the target is 500,000 B2 homes by 2030).

Robert Settino – another homeowner in County Meath – also took on an old house, built in 1979. After another SEAI-supported transformation, he has a warm dry house that costs a fraction to heat compared to the vast quantities of energy he had been using to keep the chill out of his home and out of his bones.

“And,” he says, “something that we didn’t expect was, even though we live close to a busy road, when we close the door, it’s quiet. We don’t hear the traffic anymore.”

Johanna Walshe couldn't believe how easy it was to upgrade her home

Johanna Walshe from County Dublin couldn’t believe how possible her dream suddenly became when she embarked on her journey of upgrading her home:

“I’d always dreamed of having an A-rated house,” she said, “but to get it with a retrofit is just amazing!”

After moving into a 1993 house, she had a D-level BER (Building Energy Rating) with “a gale-force wind coming through the front door… we got external insulation and the heating upgraded to a heat-pump system, ten solar panels on the roof and all the windows and doors and attic insulation. We got an A1 rating. All our bills were halved… we never had a problem with hot water running out. We literally only have the heating on for an hour in the morning.”

One of the most transformative energy upgrades that many people discover for the first time is the heat pump. It’s a simple enough concept that usually isn’t what people might think it is. The heat pump system is a highly efficient alternative heating system to a fossil fuel oil or gas boiler. It uses less energy to create the same level of heat in a home.

If you install a heat pump in your home, you are not only improving the energy efficiency of your home and reducing your carbon footprint, but you are also addressing that most urgent of needs – creating a cleaner, healthier living environment in your home for you and your loved ones.

These days, we are all getting used to spending more and more money on burning fossil fuels and on our electricity bills. When you look into how the SEAI grant system works and the substantial grant supports available, it’s very much a no-brainer. Rather than pouring your hard-earned cash into ever-escalating bills, you divert it into upgrades that will stop the rot – and SEAI are right there with you all the way.

In other words, you take back control of your energy management. With the advice and grant supports from SEAI, you can create a comfortable, healthy, warm home that costs you and the environment less.

Just how much you want to upgrade your home and how quickly you want to do it are up to you. The first point of call should be to go on the SEAI website (seai.ie/grants) to see the full range of grant options and upgrades available.

It really pays to upgrade your home energy. When you look into how the SEAI grant system works and the substantial grant supports available, it's very much a no-brainer

You’ll see that there are options to suit different homeowner budgets and needs, with the option of completing a full home energy upgrade in one go or to do individual upgrades over time.

The Individual Energy Upgrades option gives you greater flexibility to choose the right upgrades for your home that suit your timescale, your needs, and your budget. You might want to take just a couple of steps initially. Perhaps you want to avail of the SEAI grant to upgrade your attic and wall insulation, install a heat pump, or get external wall insulation. There are over 1,000 contractors nationwide to choose from – all registered with SEAI to carry out individual energy upgrades.

If you are ready to go for a full home energy upgrade in one go and bring your home to a B2 BER rating or better, then you can choose the SEAI One Stop Shop grant option. The big advantage of going One-Stop-Shop is that they will manage the entire project from start to finish.

They will look after the ins and outs and the grant process, assessing what your home needs and applying their unparalleled knowledge and project-management skills so that the entire process is a hassle-free experience for the homeowner.

The value of the grants are deducted from the costs up front too – meaning that cashflow is king and there’s no forking out of monies and then awaiting with baited breath for the arrival of a grant after the event.

SEAI has a growing list of registered One Stop Shops to choose from on their website: www.seai.ie/grants/home-energy-grants/one-stop-shop

So, check out the good news today. It’s all supported by a big push from the EU and the Irish Government to get all homes in Ireland up to a wonderful, modern standard of living, to reduce energy consumption and help save on energy bills.

In no time at all, you won’t be wondering how can you afford to do this, but instead how can you NOT afford to do this.

https://www.seai.ie/home-energy/home-upgrades/

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