By Ted Healy of DNG TED HEALY

The Cabinet this week announced substantial financial supports to help people retrofit and upgrade their homes.

A number of different schemes will help homeowners insulate or retrofit their homes to tackle heating and energy prices and fight the climate emergency.

The home energy upgrade scheme will cover almost half the cost (45-51%) of a retrofit that would improve a home's energy efficiency to a high B2 rating.

The scheme is one of the centrepieces of the Government’s Climate Action Plan and there is a target of retrofitting 500,000 homes to BER B2 standard by 2030 and installing 400,000 heat pumps. An extra incentive has been put on the Government due to the spiralling costs of household bills as inflation continues to rise.

Grants of more than €25,000 will be offered to individual householders to help pay for deep retrofits to make their homes warmer and more energy efficient. The average cost of a retrofit is calculated at about €50,000.
It will also provide 80% grants for minor works, such as insulating attics or cavity walls. Bringing a property's rating from as low as E up to B would reduce the heating bills by as much as two thirds.

The sums on offer depend on how much work a householder will be getting on their homes. The grants are fixed and applied per measure like the installation of a heat pump or external wall insulation.

One example of the kind of support on offer is the State contributing €26,000 of the €53,000 cost of deep-retrofitting works on an average hollow block semi-detached home with an E2 rating.

Schemes such as the free energy upgrades will have income limits but the main schemes in the programme will be open to all homeowners.

All-in-one service

The key part of the plan will be the rollout of “one-stop shops” that will offer a simplified all-in-one service for applicants. The size of the grant and work needed will differ from property to property. An assessment will be done in a one-stop shop, which will be run by a private company, with SEAI oversight for quality control purposes.

This will arrange an assessment of the property in the first instance, as well as construction and paperwork required for the grant application. It will organise a finished assessment afterward in order to establish the new rating.

This is a change from the existing system, where homeowners have to organise the application and construction work themselves. It is thought the new system will make the process much more simple.