Last week, the Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) published a review of Ireland’s retrofitting policies. It found that Ireland is falling behind its targets for heat pump and deep retrofits. Despite generous annual funding of more than €500 million towards the national retrofit plan, SEAI grants have not triggered the promised “renovation wave” which would bring a third of Ireland’s housing stock to a Ber of B2.

Why are more people not availing of the grants?

I can offer a perspective. I am a highly motivated environmentalist. I am currently renovating a 166-year-old townhouse, and despite my climate credentials and need to save money, I have opted not to install a heat pump. Nor have I gone for the new grants for windows or the existing insulation grant.

My highly skilled builder is not an approved SEAI contractor, which is a requirement of the grants – but most importantly, he was willing to undertake the work on a direct labour basis, instead of through one big contract. Because of that, by the end of the project, I expect to have saved money by forgoing the grants.

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The only SEAI home energy grant I availed of is the one for solar roof panels. My personal experience is that the retrofit grants are inflexible and cumbersome, and tailored towards approved suppliers and large contractors instead of small builders. There is an underlying assumption that your home is in an otherwise decent condition. Mine was derelict.

I bought a mid-terrace house that had been vacant for several years. It had no heating system or insulation. Most of the site clearance and demolition, which took months, was done by my partner to save money. Stripping away old plaster and layers of wallpaper revealed crumbling bricks, rotten timbers, mysterious damp patches, fire damage and mummified rats. Structural repairs had to take precedence over everything else.

I calculated that the thermal efficiency of the house would improve anyway once the basic works were completed. When renovating an older property, you need to prepare for not just the known unknowns, but also the unknown unknowns. In my case, these included repairs to the chimney, which have cost one sixth of my total budget. I share it with a neighbour, but won’t use it myself: a well-insulated, airtight building, but an open fireplace is an escape route for up to 80 per cent of the heat in a room. I don’t even intend to install a wood-burning stove, since these too involve burning scarce natural resources.

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I was advised by several builders that the most efficient way to heat the house was to connect to the gas grid outside my front door. It would have cost me just €255 to get a gas connection, but today I’d be regretting that decision, with gas prices soaring in the wake of the war in the Middle East.

Even a brand-new oil or gas boiler working at maximum efficiency of between 90 and 95 per cent can’t match a heat pump, with efficiencies of between 300 and 400 per cent. However, they are very costly to install, at €12,000-€18,000. To qualify for the SEAI grant for a heat pump, your home must achieve a high minimum Ber rating. For older properties, this usually requires tens of thousands of euro in upfront capital before a single unit of renewable heat is even generated. That may explain why the ESRI found that in 2024, Ireland had met just 3.5 per cent of the 2030 target of 400,000 heat pumps.

[ Why are so many properties derelict in Dublin city centre during a housing crisis?Opens in new window ]

The upfront cost wasn’t the only impediment. If I had applied to the SEAI’s one-stop-shop to avail of the various grants for insulation and heat pump, the effect would be to take big chunks of my project away from my builder, whom I trust to work within my budget and timeframe. Finding a builder is often the biggest challenge of all.

Instead of a heat pump, I aim to dramatically improve thermal performance with insulation and new windows and doors. Heat will be supplied by ultra-efficient infra-red electric heating panels (30-40 per cent less wattage than traditional convection heaters) in each room, at a total cost of €3,600 including VAT. Ten rooftop solar panels and a 5.2 KW battery for €6,600 (after the SEAI grant of €1,800), will power most of my needs for six months of the year.

But none of this has been easy or cheap. I will probably spend about €90,000 overall, doing a lot of the labour ourselves. Funding is still a critical barrier that low-interest loans and SEAI grants haven’t cracked. A study published last week by researchers in the Trinity College Dublin School of Engineering found that the adoption of electric vehicles, heat pumps and solar PV is strongly concentrated in affluent, owner-occupied and professional communities. The study found that expecting householders to pay for retrofitting works up-front disproportionately benefits higher-income households. In my experience, the grants also aren’t tailored to the challenges of old houses needing a lot of work, or the circumstances of people who may own their home but can’t access finance. Reforming the grant process should be a top priority. At the moment, small builders can’t readily absorb all the admin and technical specifications required by the SEAI.

A better model is the Vacant Property Refurbishment Grant, where allowable expenses are not tied to Ber improvements, though they include similar works such as insulation, doors and windows. Thankfully, I am eligible for the full derelict property refurbishment grant of €70,000. Without it, I couldn’t pay for the work. VAT should be eliminated on insulation products, grants means-tested and lending rules for bridging finance and low-interest loans relaxed.

Another key factor impacting the appeal of heat pumps is electricity prices. Measures to lower electricity costs should be prioritised over subsidies for oil and gas.

The ESRI report noted that some households increased their energy consumption after a retrofit. However, I will not be using any fossil fuels for heating, cooking or hot water, and instead I will be relying on a high share of renewable electricity.

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We underestimate the wider benefits of green technologies if we focus too narrowly on the payback period over the benefits of living in a healthy environment. This standard is never applied to gas or kerosene boilers, despite the fact that the harmful greenhouse gases they emit remain in the atmosphere for thousands of years.

The ESRI report is off-message, in my opinion, when it recommends so-called “low carbon fuels” such as HVO or LPG as alternatives to heat pumps – or worse still, connecting properties like mine to the gas network. This is a recipe for carbon lock-in, price shocks and more policy failure.

Abandoning climate action now would be a terrible mistake that would outlast us all.

Sadhbh O’ Neill is a climate and environmental researcher

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