There is a relationship between insulating your home, condensation, and ventilation. If your home is getting fully insulated i.e., walls roof and floor with new high-performance windows and doors installed, the overall air tightness of your home will improve so much, that the air leakage that once kept your home cold and draughty will be eliminated. When a home is air-tight and ventilation is insufficient, condensation can occur leading to moisture and mould growth that in turn affects the health and wellbeing of occupants. A ventilation system ensures a regular exchange of stale to fresh air and is a requirement of building regulations. For more information https://www.seai.ie/home-energy/home-upgrades/

The benefits include

• It can be planned in a holistic way so that the different type of works complement each other and no lock-in effects happen
• The disruption of having workmen in your home and noise and dust from the works is condensed into a single period
• Depending on how the grants are structure at the time it may be more beneficial to get a package deal, for e.g. insulation, doors and windows and heating and hot water
• You’ll be able to feel the benefits of a warm and energy efficient home sooner

A fabric first approach prioritises improvement to the building fabric through high levels of insulation and air tightness. Next, the efficiency of other systems in the home are improved such as hot water and heating, lighting and electrical appliances. Then renewable energy systems such as Photo Voltaic panels [PV] are installed to meet the remainder energy reductions.

A Building Energy Rating, or BER, is an energy label that indicates the energy performance of your home. The BER certificate and advisory report is the output of an energy audit and shows the energy performance of your home. The certificate is valid for 10 years. The BER certificate is compulsory for any building being constructed, offered for rent or sale, unless it’s a protected structure.  When applying for certain SEAI grants it is compulsory to get an energy audit and BER certificate done before and after retrofit works to show the scale of improvement of the BER and compliance with standards.

https://www.seai.ie/home-energy/building-energy-rating-ber/understand-a-ber-rating/

SEAI offer different programmes from Better Energy Communities to the National Home Retrofit Scheme to single measure grants that can be combined. Some one stop shops and energy companies provide further subsidies by  providing the customer with a discount in exchange for their energy credits. For more information on the various grants available, and the combinations thereof, go to https://www.seai.ie/grants/

Both AIB and Bank of Ireland offer green discounted loans for home retrofits. The credit union and REIL have teamed up in a programme called ProEnergy Homes that combines preferential rates with one stop shop advise and retrofit works. More information is available on their websites.