Q&A: How will the new home retrofitting scheme work?
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The Government is to announce the biggest home insulation scheme ever offered in the State on Tuesday. Here is how it will work.
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.
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.
Schemes such as the free energy upgrades will have income limits but the main schemes in the programme will be open to all homeowners.
The programme for government targets retrofitting 500,000 homes to B2 standard by 2030. It also aims to install 400,000 heat pumps, about 36,500 of which are expected to be local authority-owned homes. The Government believes the most efficient way to hit its climate targets is to retrofit existing homes.
An extra incentive has been put on the Government due to the spiralling costs of households bills as inflation continues to rise.
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.
The scheme will also pay out fixed grants for various measures such as the installation of heat pumps, ceiling and wall insulation, and work on external doors and openings.
Some €8bn has been allocated under the National Development Plan (NDP) up to 2030. However, the overall bill for retrofitting that number of homes would work out at about €25bn.
Government sources say they don't believe they will reach their 50,000 target of houses retrofitted this year but expect the rollout to ramp up quickly when the benefits of retrofitting become more widely known.
There is €1bn in the NDP for retrofitting, and the Government is confident the funding guarantee for the next 10 years will ensure builders are confident to hire people because they can expect the availability of retrofitting work to remain stable.