Home Energy Upgrades with Electric Ireland Superhomes
Future Proof your Home, with Hugh Wallace, Architect & Designer
Retrofitting, meaning when a substantial home energy upgrade of a home is carried out through a combination of measures and can be quite a complex process . However, in today’s climate, it is a necessary step in future proofing your home and ensuring its value and comfort is significantly less diminished in years to come. It’s absolutely a worthwhile investment in your future. As work continues on my own home renovation, I want to dispel some of the questions surrounding retrofitting, and illustrate how Electric Ireland Superhomes are here to make the process as seamless as possible.
When to Retrofit
With limited housing available, many people are opting for older homes or ‘doer-uppers’ (myself included!). These homes hold so much opportunity to reinvent and there is also quite a sustainable aspect to renovating existing housing stock. Older homes tend to have a poor building energy rating also known as a ‘BER’ especially if the house has not received any energy upgrades in the past.
A home’s BER rating can be a good indicator of how much carbon emissions and how much you will spend when heating your home. For example an A rated home is the most comfortable and energy efficient while also being lower cost to run while a G rated home which is at the end of the scale being the least energy efficient and requires a lot of energy to heat and costly to run.
With poor BER ratings, a house can be cold, damp, mouldy and quite uncomfortable to live in. Retrofitting can play a huge role in both transforming and future proofing your forever home particularly in terms of cosiness, energy efficiency and improving your BER.
Get the lowdown on grants
Last year, the SEAI increased home retrofit grant funding making it more affordable. There are two pathways for homeowners when it comes to home energy upgrades. The first pathway is individual grants where homeowners manage their single measure/upgrade project and apply for grant funding, each individual measure can improve the home’s BER rating / energy efficiency. The second pathway is carrying out a whole house or deep retrofit in one installation using an SEAI registered One Stop Shop like Electric Ireland Superhomes where they look at a range of measures which ensures you a minimum B2 BER rating and manages the process from start to finish including SEAI grant funding. We are seeing fossil fuel boilers being phased out for new builds over the coming years. From Ireland’s Climate Action Plan where residential housing accounts for over 25% of Ireland’s total energy emissions, it is clear that home energy upgrades are required to reduce our home carbon emissions.
Electric Ireland Superhomes: A One Stop Shop
Electric Ireland Superhomes is committed to fossil fuel free heating and therefore focus on an air source heat pump as the main element of their whole house approach to retrofitting. They replace a home’s fossil fuel such as oil and gas and install a heat pump as the primary heating source. Air source heat pumps, as their name suggests, extract heat from the air. It is a tried and trusted renewable technology that extracts energy from the air outside, even in temperatures of -20 degrees, which is converted to heat and distributed throughout your home and fills your hot water cylinder.
Electric Ireland Superhomes is an SEAI registered One Stop Shop for home energy retrofit. A whole house energy retrofit involves carrying out a number of energy upgrade measures in one installation to achieve a warmer, more comfortable, energy efficient home and a BER rating of between B2 and A1. Their whole house fossil fuel free approach considers the following retrofit measures: a renewable energy heat pump, insulation to a high standard, airtightness improvement (reducing draughts and heat loss), advanced ventilation and solar photovoltaic (PV) if required.
As a One Stop Shop, their experienced team look after all the key stages
of a home energy retrofit, from retrofit design, through to contractor
selection, project completion and management of SEAI grant funding.
Their aim is to provide quality assurance, peace of mind, and, when the
retrofit is complete, the best home possible.
Not only are you reducing your carbon footprint with a home retrofit,
other benefits improving your home’s energy efficiency include a warmer
cosier, healthier home, a consistent temperature and instant hot water,
increasing the property value.
Investing in your home’s future is the soundest investment you could
make, and with the SEAI grant funding available through Electric Ireland
Superhomes, there has never been a better or easier time to do it.
Catch Hugh Wallace in discussion with Electric Ireland Superhomes Head Retrofit Advisor David Flannery at the DFS Interiors Theatre on Saturday April 22 at the permanent tsb Ideal Home Show, in the RDS Simmonscourt, Dublin.
Plan your visit and get 2 tickets for the price of 1 – Save €15 HERE!
For more information on Electric Ireland Superhomes and retrofitting, visit www.electricirelandsuperhomes.ie