How to save money AND the environment

Properly insulating your home is a no-brainer not just in terms of warmth and comfort, but also in significantly reducing the cost of your heating bills.

Furthermore, new EU regulations that came into force recently means that all homeowners who want to sell their houses are required by law to obtain a Building Energy Rating (BER) certificate, which shows how energy efficient it is – how much it costs to light and heat.

While it may seem like nothing more than another layer of paperwork to add to the already massive bundle that has to be worked through sell a house, the scheme is an incentive to encourage homeowners to invest in making their homes better insulated, and in doing so help reduce carbon emissions as well as save money.

The residential sector in Ireland produces 24pc of our annual CO2 emissions, according to Sustainable Energy Ireland (SEI).

Many Irish homes built before 2006 were poorly designed or equipped when it came to insulation, with the result that many homeowners have had to fork out on huge heating bills in order to stay warm.

In fact, the Government estimates that as many as one million of the country’s 1.7 million houses need better insulation to achieve reasonable energy savings.

All new houses built since 2006 have had to comply with the Building Regulations 2002 standard, which requires the fitting of high quality insulation and heating controls, among other things.

You can making your home better insulated by a number of simple jobs with equipment or materials that don’t cost the earth, but if your BER rating is likely to be poor, you may need to invest thousands more to bring it up to scratch.

However, there is good news for homeowners in this situation, as the Government has just launched an ambitious €100 million national insulation programme, which will provide grants to towards fitting better insulation into some 50,000 homes this year. The grants are available now.

To qualify for the scheme, which is being administered by SEI, householders will still have to pay the bulk of the costs of an insulation job.

For instance, the scheme will provide a maximum grant of €250 towards the cost of attic insulation, which is one the cheapest and simplest. This counts for about one third of the estimated €830 bill.

If you want external wall insulation, which is the most expensive insulation method, you can apply for up to €4,000 under the scheme to offset the €19,000 that such a job would be expected to cost.

There are also grants available for heating control upgrades too.

All of this will no doubt help the improve BER ratings for houses across the country.

BER ratings and what they mean

• A BER certificate is similar to the energy label on your fridge that shows a scale of A1-G. A-rated homes are the most energy efficient and G the least efficient.
• Over 80pc of new homes, which have been rated since the beginning of 2007, have achieved a B-rating.
• SEI has published indicative ratings for typical homes, showing that those built before the 1980s should achieve a low D or E. Those built from the1980s onwards should get a high D; those in the 1990s should get a C2; and properties built since the millennium will typically achieve a C1.
• Older houses with good retro-fitted insulation and heating controls should only expect to achieve a B rating at the most, as an A rating would be very difficult to achieve.
• The SEI’s website has a Home Energy Survey section that can help you decide which home improvement projects will make the greatest energy savings and reduce your bills the most.

You can get a list of registered BER assessors from the SEI or through Onlinetradesmen.com.

The cost of a BER assessment is not regulated so prices will vary. Indeed, some newspaper reports have highlighted wide disparities in prices quoted from some assessors and also the length of time taken to do the job.