Kieran McCarthy: Securing funds for an upgrade

A one-stop shop can help with grants available for upgrades and a deep retrofit

Improving attic insulation is a typical staged project for improving the BER on your current home, and you would be well advised to exceed the recommendations. Retrofit grants with the SEAI are ceilinged at €300, around 30% of the cost to insulate the floor of a standard attic to 300mm in fibre-glass batting. Picture: iStock

Dear Kieran,

I wonder if you could help me with a query. I have with a big project I am considering at home. The question I have is can you do an extension as well as an upgrade to an old cottage with a one stop shop outfit and avail of all the grants?

Thanks for your help,

Fiona McNulty.

Hi Fiona,

Thanks for your question. I am picturing you living in an old stone cottage that has an open fire that seems toasty when the fire is lit but that you lose heat quickly and the house just isn’t big enough for day to day life.

Your aim is to renovate the existing cottage, carrying out a deep retrofit (energy upgrade), and extend it all in one go: sounds like a plan, so let’s see how a project like yours would likely work and, equally importantly, how the grants work and are they applicable to your project?

Leaving budgetary concerns aside, I guess the first thing you will do is to get the design of your house right in terms of the spatial layout. I do find that in many cases it is the rear of the cottage (ideally facing south or west) that gets special treatment here. Many people like to add more living space so that the kitchen/ dining area has more room, releasing more functional space back into the main cottage for bedrooms, living rooms, WC, storage, circulation, and so on.

Next comes the structural engineer. He/she needs to assess your existing house in terms of its current condition and structural integrity. Are the drains OK? Is there any dampness? How is the roof structure looking? Chimneys, drains, etc. Beyond this, the engineer looks at the extension. How will it stand up? How does it connect and tie into the existing building? Are any steel beams needed to create large span openings?

"How is the roof structure looking? Chimneys, drains, etc."

When all the new spaces are designed and the existing building is stabilised, next of course comes the deep retrofit analysis. The next consultant on the stage is the BER assessor. He/she can carry out a BER analysis of your existing property.

Usually the architect or engineer will propose an insulation system to the BER assessor for analysis. They can advise on the measures required to take your property to a B2 energy rating. It’s essentially redesigning the fabric of your building (new floor, wall, roof insulation, airtightness membranes, renewable heat source, new windows, mechanical ventilation) with the aim of dramatically reducing the heat loss from inside your house to the outside so that your new renewable heat source uses much less energy to keep your new house warm.

With all this information in place you are now ready to apply for the SEAI grants. In your case, you are applying for a deep retrofit grant (instead of single measure grants, eg, solar panels or attic insulation). As such the grant application for a full package of deep retrofit measures is quite a technical and detailed application so you need to employ a ‘one stop shop’ company to apply for the grant on your behalf.

You have the option of going to the one stop shop company for just the grant application or indeed the deep retrofit works too if you don’t already have the SEAI registered trades lined up. However, when it comes to the extension you may need another contractor as many one stop shop companies only perform the retrofit measures, not a new build/extension.

Kieran McCarthy, KMC Homes, engineer and builder. Picture Denis Minihane.

The one stop shop company will carry out a Home Energy Assessment with an energy upgrade proposal and estimate.

Once agreed, the one stop shop company makes the application to SEAI for the grants for your home. When approved, you can proceed to get up and running with your project. (The important thing to bear in mind here is that the grant monies are for the existing house works only so, for example, when calculating the grants for windows, if 40% of your windows are in the new extension and 60% are in the old house, it is only the old house windows that are applicable.)

Once the contractors begin on site you will need to keep a large body of photos at the different stages of your build; before, during and after all your renewable measures are installed. You will also need to ensure all your contractors are SEAI registered and that you collect all the certs from these contractors once their measures are completed and commissioned. Some items, such as your ventilation will in fact need third-party verification. You will need a final airtightness test once the building is complete and this will feed into your final BER assessment.

Your one stop shop company will guide you as your project proceeds on what information they require and when so don’t underestimate the administration and record keeping involved. One thing to keep in mind too is there is always the chance that you may be audited by SEAI. This might seem like a daunting prospect but it is all in the interest of quality assurance and of course to ensure that all the grant applications are bonafide.

If you have been adhering to the guidance and instruction from your design team and your one stop shop company you have nothing to fear. It is a long road but when you get that big payment at the end it will be worth it.

• Kieran McCarthy is a building engineer and director of KMC Homes, a bespoke A-Rated new home builder, serving Cork and Limerick. He is also co-presenter of the RTÉ property show Cheap Irish Homes;

• Follow Kieran on instagram @kierankmc for more home building information, tips and Q&A advice;
• You can also follow Kieran on the Built Around You YouTube channel and @kierankmc on TikTok.