# Government programme to improve insulation in homes built before 2006



## AnnieC (10 Feb 2009)

Hi All,

Has anyone heard any details of this Govt. scheme?  Read a small piece in the Metro yesterday but it gave no information as to how to avail of the scheme.

Apologies for the vagueness of this post but I would be really interested as my house is a disaster in terms of draughts etc!

Thanks,

AnnieC


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## kkelliher (10 Feb 2009)

the scheme is presently only open to contractors looking to register on the approved installation list. It is also open for home owners to register their interest.

all the details are on www.sei.ie under the home energy scheme


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## Morgause (10 Feb 2009)

I was doing some digging on this as I'm also very interested in improving my home insulation and found this on the SEI website:  [broken link removed]

Seems to be that homeowners cannot apply for a grant yet as they are waiting to compile a list of contractors to take part.  I'm not sure why they are waiting on that if a person (like me!) is just going to use the grant to buy materials and do the work themselves.


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## mbro (10 Feb 2009)

Can you definitely buy the materials yourself and still avail of the grant? Would be perfect if i could shop around for the materials and get one of the contractors to do the work.


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## 3CC (10 Feb 2009)

There is some information on the SEI website but it is fairly brief.


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## Morgause (10 Feb 2009)

mbro said:


> Can you definitely buy the materials yourself and still avail of the grant? Would be perfect if i could shop around for the materials and get one of the contractors to do the work.



I'm not sure but I'm going to try and do it that way if at all possible.  

In my own home, I have found that most of the costs involved in home improvements are labour so I try to do most of it myself by buying and haggling for materials myself and doing the work myself.


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## kkelliher (10 Feb 2009)

you cannot use the grant to do the work yourself. the grant will only apply if you use a registered contractor on the SEI list and you cannot register just to do the work on your own property. The SEI website has the full details of the scheme


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## Morgause (10 Feb 2009)

kkelliher said:


> you cannot use the grant to do the work yourself. the grant will only apply if you use a registered contractor on the SEI list and you cannot register just to do the work on your own property. The SEI website has the full details of the scheme



Thanks for that info.  I'll just be buying the materials myself then!

They're talking about it on Pat Kenny right now.


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## AnnieC (10 Feb 2009)

Just had a look at the site there, thanks for the link.

Would any of you know, do the granted amounts for each type of work seem like a small proportion of total cost for the job or are they quite reasonable?  

Roof insulation and the heating grants would probably be what I would need most work done on so I'm just wondering about costs.


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## living:room (10 Feb 2009)

I checked the SEI web-site yesterday and there was no date on the post about the Home Energy Saving Scheme which made me wonder if it hadn't been updated to take account of the official announcement.

The Irish Times reported Prof. Owen Wilson of the SEI saying that the scheme was 'open for business' yesterday, but they don't seem to have the contractor element in place as yet.

One thing to be aware of - for your first application, you must request a minimum grant of €500. What this means is that if you just want to put in cavity insulation in your external walls (€400 grant) or insulate your attic (€250 grant), you have to commit to carrying out additional work in order to qualify. My understanding is that you can make as many applications as are relevant to your home but the first one has to be for the €500 min. 

Seems a shame to be putting this kind of restriction in place when nearly 60% of homes in Ireland are actually in need of this kind of improvement. Homeowners are going to have to pay approx. 60% of the costs anyway - in these straightened times wouldn't it make sense to help people do what little they can to improve their homes?


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## Shawady (10 Feb 2009)

I spoke to a guy from SEI last week about insulating my house. He told me this scheme was pending and from what I can gather, you registrer first, then you get a list of contractors that do the work you require.
Apparantly, this was done on a pilot scheme in some parts of the conutry last year and applicants could claim back up to 30% of a rebate.
Could be good timing for us as we badly needed our attic insulated and external walls drylined.


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## jasonr (10 Feb 2009)

As of last week it would cost €900 (quote received) to insulate my house using the Bead system. Who thinks after this grant is introduced that the cost of getting the same thing done next month will be considerably higher?????


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## kkelliher (10 Feb 2009)

jasonr said:


> As of last week it would cost €900 (quote received) to insulate my house using the Bead system. Who thinks after this grant is introduced that the cost of getting the same thing done next month will be considerably higher?????




In present market i dont think it will as there will be alot of contractors on the list looking for the work. 

It will be in your interest to get as many quotes as possible


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## z103 (10 Feb 2009)

> What do you mean by Before and After BER?
> For a homeowner to qualify for the Before and After BER grant they must undertake a BER before commencing any measures AND a subsequent BER once measures are completed.


That, coupled with the paperwork and the fact you have to use a 'registered contractor' makes the scheme not worth the money and hassle IMHO.

Builders' suppliers often do bargains on insulation. This would be far better to pursue.


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## Vinnie_cork (10 Feb 2009)

jasonr said:


> As of last week it would cost €900 (quote received) to insulate my house using the Bead system. Who thinks after this grant is introduced that the cost of getting the same thing done next month will be considerably higher?????


 

I suspect this will happen, I insulated my attic before christmas costing €150 aprox to do myself... The grant available is €250... I assume the cost for getting someone to do it would be at least €500-€250 grant = €250 paid by you, but only €150 to do your self.

I'll wait to see before I rant to much. I would be interested ig having walls bead insulated and upgrading mt boiler & heating controls.


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## kkelliher (10 Feb 2009)

Vinnie_cork said:


> I suspect this will happen, I insulated my attic before christmas costing €150 aprox to do myself... The grant available is €250... I assume the cost for getting someone to do it would be at least €500-€250 grant = €250 paid by you, but only €150 to do your self.
> 
> I'll wait to see before I rant to much. I would be interested ig having walls bead insulated and upgrading mt boiler & heating controls.



€150 to do it yourself is a material only cost. Of course it will cost more to get someone to do it for you.  

I would assume that in general there is a higher % of people (for many reasons) who will pay to get work done as apposed to doing it themselves. 

Nobody can "rant" about it based on the assumption that its cheaper to do it yourself as that is not a fair comparison givin that you could say that about anything you get done.


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## Patrick2008 (10 Feb 2009)

I think people have to make sure they are getting value from builders etc who are offering this service as the usual thing to happen in Ireland with grant schemes is to inflate the price etc. This has happened in Construction, agricultrural etc. Solar panels went up in price as soon as they were grant aided. The same happened with Wood pellet boilers. I am thinking of setting up a service where I work with the client and openly show all costs and offer a 20% fee for this service. As I work in construction I can get boilers, insultation etc 50% cheaper than others. It should cost no more than €10,000 for someone in a  1970's semi D to achieve a B rating.


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## eamonn123456 (10 Feb 2009)

I was on the pilot scheme.

Overall happy with the outcome.

I paid 5300 for 11 DG windows with eglass and argon.

I paid 2500 for cavity wall insulation (EcoPearl by Gilmartin group) + blown rockwool by them as well in the attic.  The house is 2200 sq ft detached by the way.

I claimed 2000 euro back, which is the ceiling amount, or 30% of your costs, whichever is less.

Pros:
2k back.
Using reputable firms that presumably want to stay in the scheme so expect good followup and aftercare (I feared cowboys as regards the insulation, as it would be easy to scam pumping a wall).
DG windows went in without any problem whatsoever - great contractor.
My contacts in SEI and their agents pushed to get it done as much as possible but were hidebound by others in charge, and the fact it was a pilot meant teething probs.
Incidentally the house is way warmer now.

Cons
Dragged on longer than it should in terms of paperwork and getting started.
Had to do a fair bit of chasing.
Started later than scheduled and caused me some problems due to family events, was not ideal but we worked round it.
Not happy with aftercare by one of the contractors, issue was found and is ongoing, and will be escalated to SEI probably tomorrow.  Hope they can put the pressure on as IMO it is not acceptable to be on such a scheme and have zero aftercare.
Grant itself not paid yet but expected this week.
BER survey was box ticking exercise which told me nothing new and cost me 100 and was mandatory.
On the pilot I had no choice on the providers, could have got same windows about 200 cheaper ( I had to haggle hard to get him down to 5300).  So with the BER and that, my effective grant was 1700.  Better than nowt tho.
No choice in the type of insulation being pumped in or blown in attic.
Choices should be better in the actual scheme.

Overall it was a bit of a stress as I was never sure it would all come together, and meantime I was losing time and winter was upon us.
Great to get grants for bread and butter items that most people would be interested in (instead of solar / wood pellet which I wasnt interested in - not to go off topic).
Glad I did it but took a lot of time and energy to chase.  If it hadnt come together I'd be raging.  

Hope this helps.


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## living:room (11 Feb 2009)

I spoke to SEI yesterday and they confirmed that they will be open to processing homeowners grant applications before the end of March.


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## BarneyMc (11 Feb 2009)

eamonn123456 said:


> I paid 5300 for 11 DG windows with eglass and argon.


 
Eamonn, I would love to replace a single pane window in my house... I don't think the new grant covers this though?? What a shame if it doesn't!! I would havae thought it would be top priority to move all to DG windows!

I also think it's a poor reflection on our house building standards if houses built just over 3 years ago can qualify for energy improvement grants


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## eamonn123456 (11 Feb 2009)

Not being funny but am not sure what you mean - do you want to replace all your windows or just one?

Not sure if just doing DG will qualify, you might have to do more than one measure e.g. cavity and / or attic insulation, replacing heating controls, thermostatic rad valves.  Don't think standard condensing boilers were covered.  In any case we exceeded the ceiling for the 2k grant so it didnt matter what else we got done, as long as we spent at least 6,666 so that 30% was = 2k.

Also think there is no point doing this unless you have substantial works, as they might only give you the grant once in a lifetime.


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## circle (11 Feb 2009)

I know that underfloor insulation isn't explicitly mentioned on the list, just wondering if anyone has heard more about this as it seems odd that walls but not floors are included as I would imagine that the payback value would be higher on floors if they are easy to access?


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## BarneyMc (12 Feb 2009)

eamonn123456 said:


> Not being funny but am not sure what you mean - do you want to replace all your windows or just one?


 
Only one of my windows is single glazed so I just want to replce it 

Just though it was a reasonable expectation that a grant would be provided for such a basic home energy improvement. Indeed if I did have single glazed throughout the house would it not be better to replace with DG before upgrading my boiler?


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## eamonn123456 (12 Feb 2009)

Totally agree that DG should be part of it - it was part of the pilot, crazy if its not part of the actual scheme.


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## VByrne (15 Feb 2009)

Hi there,
Eamonn123456, one question I would be interested in asking you is, when you say you had no choice in which insulation was to be used, did anyone explain the reason for this. The one thing that concerns me is, in the attic where any ventilator trays used in the soffit, because when blown cellulose is used it must have these trays to comply with the agrement certificate for building regulations. 

Mineral fibre in any form has never been tested for fitness for a particular purpose and has no such cert when used in an attic, if it where to be tested I do not believe it would have a different result than cellulose, you can contact the Irish agrement board and see it has never been tested.


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## eamonn123456 (15 Feb 2009)

No reason given.  They only had one contractor and rockwool is what they do.


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## ascottdub (9 Mar 2009)

People. GEt on the site suggested above and read it.

It is a total scam, as you can't do the work yourself and save money. You ave to get a BER cert, use one of their contractors, have the work done after a deuction, do another BER cert and then apply for grant.

Most people will be better doing it themselves.
Unless I've read it completely wrong

Thanks


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## coolaboola (12 Mar 2009)

@ ascottdub

You don't have to get a BER cert to avail of the scheme  (there is an option, however, for a before and after energy survey - but it is not mandatory)

Your grant must be approved before work can commence.  

(You do have to get a BER cert if you wish to sell or rent your property)


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## angela59 (12 Mar 2009)

Hi,

Anyone any idea of the rollout date for this scheme - or are they still waiting to get approved contractors?

Angela59


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## Ms_Frugal (11 Apr 2009)

Hi Angela,

The scheme is fully rolled out now and there is a long list of contractors who have registered.

Good luck!

Ms_Frugal


angela59 said:


> Hi,
> 
> Anyone any idea of the rollout date for this scheme - or are they still waiting to get approved contractors?
> 
> Angela59


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