Episode 16 - Guide to Grants

In this episode, Kate and Jenny give you the details of how to avail of the energy efficiency, conservation, vacant property, and derelict property grants available in Ireland.

Grants mentioned - check out https://www.citizensinformation.ie/en/housing/housing-grants-and-schemes/ for a thorough guide:

• Home Renovation Incentive - if works were done between 2013 - 2018 you could claim up to €4050
• Solar / PV panels grant.
• Individual home energy upgrade grant - if you are choosing individual energy efficiency works e.g. insulation, PV panels, heat pumps. 
• Home Energy Upgrade grant - if you are doing a whole house energy retrofit that will get the BER to B2 or higher.
• Grant scheme to replace lead pipes and fittings. 
• Free energy upgrades - if you in receipt of welfare, carers allowance, etc. 
• Home Energy Upgrade Loan Scheme - low interest loan for energy retrofit.
• Vacant or derelict homes grant - if renovating a house that has been unoccupied for over 2 years.
• Conservation grant - if renovating a period property with conservation requirements on it.

Chapters

• 0:00 Episode 15 - Guide to Grants
• 0:36 Episode intro
• 0:48 Episode body

Transcript

Episode 15 - Guide to Grants

​[00:00:00] 

Jen: You are listening to rip it up the renovations podcast. 

hi, I'm Kate. I run the Instagram page, Victorian 

Rathmines. And I'm Jenny. I run the Instagram account, Worker's Cottage.

Kate: This podcast is all about renovation and interiors from the renovator's perspective. We've been through it a few times between us and it hasn't scared us off. In fact 

Jen: we loved it so if you are planning to do up your own home you can expect to hear lots of advice from our own experience along with plenty of tips and inspiration.

Episode intro

Jen: This is episode 16, a guide to all of the energy efficiency, conservation, vacant property, and derelict property grants available in Ireland. 

Episode body

Jen: welcome back from our holiday. Yeah. We took June off. We took June off, yeah. Refreshed, revived. Tanned, some of us. You're tanned. I never get a tan. I have more freckles though. [00:01:00] I definitely have more freckles.

Kate: I 

Jen: get them across my nose. Someone looked at me the other day and they're like, Oh, your arms are kind of tanned. And then they came closer and they're like, I don't know. You just have more freckles. They're just all growing into one. My freckles. It's 

Kate: on my face. Time to join them. So bad. 

Jen: Use your SPF SPF.

Constantly. Factor 50 every day. Okay. We're back. We're back from our holiday break. We're on episode 16 of the podcast. We call this season two? Yeah, celebrate. And we're going to talk all about grants because it's summertime. People are thinking a lot about things like solar panels and getting ready for winter, getting ready for winter.

Kate: I know it's a few months away, but like, you know, getting upgrades done, maybe for the cold winter months ahead, 

Jen: it's a good time to start thinking about it for sure. So there's loads of different kinds of grants, incentives, It's things that you could be looking at to get money back from your house and it is not straightforward.

Kate: No, it's not straightforward. It's definitely a paperwork exercise and in some cases it's a nagging the council for a response [00:02:00] exercise. But there's a lot. There's a lot to them but there's also a lot of money to be made if you're smart. You know whether we're talking about home renovation kind of sorry energy upgrades and that kind of renovation stuff or solar panels, or even like if you have an old house like me, there's historic structures fund.

So for protected structures for upgrades to your house for lead pipes, things like that. So there's probably a grant there for quite a lot of upgrade works you're going to be doing to the house. So exhaust everything you can, I would say. Absolutely. 

Jen: Absolutely. So before we dive into what the grants are and what they cover.

I think it's helpful to just go through like the actual steps for getting a grant. Okay. It's worth knowing. What you have to do first is, you have to apply for the grant before you do anything. Before you even, you know, start work or buy any of the equipment or, anything, apply for the grant first and get your offer in writing before you do anything.

Then you need to choose an installer from the list. Usually the SEAI is where, is the main body that provides all these grants, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland. And you [00:03:00] have to choose a registered installer from their list. You can't just choose, you know, anyone. Then when the work is all planned out, you need to pay That installer for doing the work or at least have a payment plan agreed.

That's you know, that's something that you can show. And then once all that work is done and you have to be very careful that it is in line with all of the requirements set out by the SEAI, then they provide a declaration of works, you, you hold on to that. And then they upload a bunch of forms to the SEAI website.

, then the SEAI checks everything that's been done against the requirements. That's nice. 

Kate: That's actually a really key one. And then they pay you. That's actually a really key one, I think, checking it against the requirements, because for a lot of grants and not just the SEAI grants, the works that initially qualified for the grant, like for the grant being granted to you say, have to be verified.

Yeah. So you can't just say, well, I have it in my hand now, I can go and do what I want. You have to stick to the requirements and someone will come afterwards and inspect that [00:04:00] you did it to the plan. 

Jen: Exactly. Yeah. Yeah. So there isn't any way to, to gain the system and nor should you, because the requirements that set out are, are reasonable and the money available is good.

But that is the process. So anyone thinking, you know, in most cases there is there is a special free energy upgrade grant. If you are on welfare or carers allowance, which you might qualify for where you don't have to pay the installer first, but in most other cases you do have to pay upfront. So just be aware that you have enough money to do that.

Kate: Yeah. 

Jen: Okay. All the grants then available. One I get asked the most, and it's such a shame because this is not available anymore, but loads of people ask about the Home Renovation Incentive. Yeah, 

Kate: I got that in Galway. I didn't get it in my last house here, but I got it in Galway. 20 percent back or something, was it 20 percent tax relief?

Yeah, 20 

Jen: percent in tax credits up to, I think it was 4, 000 or 4, 000, 4, 050. But it was only, if The works were done between 2013 and 2018. So if you're listening to this and you didn't know about this grant and you renovated a house between 2013 and [00:05:00] 2018, go and check out whether you might be eligible to get some of that money back in the form of tax credits.

But it is closed now. And, you know, any renovations done after 2018 do not qualify. Okay. 

Kate: And also, you know, you need the proper records of like what exactly was done by, again, a registered, you know, Plumber, whatever, whoever's doing the works. I know the works that qualified for us last time we put in a stove.

But I even think kitchen works and things like that all qualified back then. But I don't know if you get a grant 

Jen: to your kitchen now, would you? I don't. Well, you can get a grant, but one you can get, it's not a grant but it's a loan, which is kind of a grant because it's a very low interest loan, so you are getting some, you know, money savings.

The Home Energy Upgrade Loan Scheme. is a low interest loan. It's, it's primarily for energy retrofit. So you can borrow up to 75, 000 euro per property and up to three properties. There's a lot of money you can borrow there. It's run you know, in, in conjunction, like the money is actually lent from AIB and [00:06:00] Bank of Ireland, but the rate started only 3%, which is really, really low interest.

You must spend 75 percent of that on energy efficiency. But you can spend the remaining 25 percent on anything including decor including your kitchen whenever it might be so not a grant But you know, there's a way of getting some cheap money there. Okay, and I also 

Kate: think another grant Sorry, we'll come back to it a little bit later That might qualify for some of that decor stuff is the vacant or derelict homes grant So that's something we should definitely talk about after the energy upgrades.

Jen: Who? Who gives that grant? Is that the council? 

Kate: Yeah. So it's through your local council, but your house that you've either purchased or taken ownership of has to be vacant for a minimum of two years, and that can be done through an affidavit from the previous owner or energy consumption, you know, across electricity and heating and meter usage or meter readings from the house itself to show that it was low for that period.

Cool. Okay. That's a really good one. 50 grand. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Kate: Which is a nice 

Jen: chunk of change. That'll cover [00:07:00] a lot of your renovation., okay grants for solar panels, then as we record here. It's a lovely sunny day Yeah, it actually doesn't need to be a sunny day. The PV panels photovoltaic panels just work on light any kind of light So even on a cloudy day you get lots and lots of energy from them.

They have gotten so good Haven't they like the panels have gotten so good. The innovation is 

Kate: Brilliant. Yeah, and the payback period is much shorter than they used to be. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Because I don't 

Jen: have them, but I'm going to get them now. I looked into it when I first moved in and I think the payback period would have been something like 25 plus years.

Yeah. And now I'd say it's down to about 11. 

Kate: Yeah, I think even some of them, I, Depending on the number of panels and whatever, the size of your house could be down to five or seven years, depending on the type of house you have and the type of panels you put in, but yeah, it's very good. 

Jen: It's only because my roof 

Kate: is so small.

Jen: I can only fit a certain amount of panels. But they're brilliant. And so what you can get for those then, there's a few stipulations. Your home must have been built and you must have been living in it before 2021. So it doesn't qualify for [00:08:00] brand new bills, basically. And then you connect your Solar panels back into the ESB network and then they will get in touch with your energy provider and and all that.

And there's another kind of additional thing that you can get here, which is selling the electricity generated from your solar panels back to the grid. Yes, I've heard about this. It's not loads. 

Kate: Yeah, I heard some people complaining that the rate you get back is quite low. Okay. Yeah, I could be wrong in that but I've heard it's not great now It could have been better.

It could it could have gotten better in recent years, but Failing that I suppose you could put in batteries. 

Jen: Yeah, so batteries are If you can fit them, they're about the size of a kind of a large suitcase So if you have space in your house to fit batteries It's such a brilliant idea because you can have your batteries charging up all day and then charge your car overnight, do all your laundry overnight or, you know, run your appliances, whatever it might be.

It's probably the most, it's probably the best use, I would say, is it? Yeah, I'd say 

Kate: you'd probably [00:09:00] have to map out, I suppose, when your peak energy that you're getting from your PV panels is coming in and try and align it with that. And if you can't align it with that use, then maybe battery packs are your best option. 

, and depending on how big your roof is here, the sky's the limit because the grant goes all the way up to What's the maximum for this 

Jen: 162,000 thousand kilowatt you were? So it's avail. That's because it's available to businesses. So if you're a business owner or you're running you know, even schools or anything like that, you can, you can apply If you're huge roof, you can get a lot of money 

Kate: if you have a big sprawling kind of bungalow.

Yeah. With a huge, huge roof area. I think PV and PV panels are going to be your friend here, but the grants are insane for them. So definitely consider those. So 

Jen: it's tied back to how much energy output the solar panels that you get provide. So there's some calculation to be done on your end, but it's a lot of money.

Yeah. You can really cover a lot and then it's free electricity. 

Kate: Yeah. And have a, yeah, you probably get someone to estimate kind of your usage. And if you think, [00:10:00] you know, don't, there's no point putting in a load of panels. Right. over and above your usage unless then you're investing in the battery packs.

Yeah, exactly. That's essentially it. 

Jen: And then selling the money back to the grid. I know it's not loads, but up until December next year, so December 2025, , they're giving you tax credits. So up to 400 euro of the income you make, From selling your energy back to the grid is tax free. So, you know, nice bit of chunk of change.

Yeah, it is for sure. Okay. So that's solar panels or PV panels. And on a nice sunny day, it's very hard to argue against getting them. Like they're just a no brainer. They're really, really good now. They, they, you know, they've come along and leaps and bounds in the last five years or so. Then there's all the individual home energy upgrades.

This is through Better Energy Homes with the SEAI and this covers everything like your insulation and that covers cavity walls, dry lining, external insulation, everything like that. Upgrading your heating controls, so if you've got like a smart system that you can control, that is, you know, provides more efficiencies because you're able to.[00:11:00] 

Yeah, but that makes a major 

Kate: difference because in my house at the moment, that's not renovated. There's one zone, one zone on the boiler. And that costs so much because during the summer months, we're not going to put on the heating. So then we've no hot water. Oh, you get it. It's literally one zone. So in our last house, when we renovated, we put in.

One, two, three, four zones. So upstairs radiators, downstairs radiators, extension underfloor, and the water. And the more you can kind of divide that up into zones, like, it makes a major difference on control of the amount of heat in your house, while you're heating. I think 

Jen: I've got three in this tiny house and it really helps because this house gets Could you imagine us with one?

Kate: One 

Jen: zone. 

Kate: So we had to put on an electric shower for now. But yeah, there's loads to be done in these grants. Like, there's loads to be had in these grants as well. 

Jen: So heating controls are great. PV panels can come under that as well. Just make sure you, most of these grants, you can't apply for two at the same time to cover the same thing.

So if you're getting a grant today, for solar panels or for PV [00:12:00] panels, then you can't also get the individual home energy grant that would include solar panels, if that makes sense, they can't cross over. Heat pump systems, that comes under the individual home energy upgrade grant. And even the surrounding things like the technical assessment to see whether you can even get the heat pump in the first place that comes under these grants too.

So it's really, really good. It doesn't cover windows and doors. It doesn't cover gas or oil boilers. But everything else to do with You know, those more efficient energy upgrades it covers. So those are brilliant. And you qualify if your house was built before 2011 for insulation and for heating controls, or if your house was built before 2021 for heat pumps and renewable energy.

And you just follow the process then that we laid out at the start, get your works done, claim the money back. 

Kate: And on some of these, are there any. Required BER outputs or? So 

Jen: there is, yeah, there is, especially the home energy upgrade grant. This is like a deep retrofit. This is the deep retrofit. So the one we just covered.

If you're doing a major job in 

Kate: your house, 

Jen: [00:13:00] you should definitely consider this one. Yeah. So the one we just covered is kind of everything chunked up into little pieces. So, individual home energy, if you're planning to just, you know, find someone to install it and do a piecemeal, maybe you get a, insulation here or a new heat pump there.

Kind of like a, a menu and you choose the bits you want. That is where you go for the individual home energy upgrade grant. The deep retrofit, the home energy upgrade one, that's like the entire house needs to be done. Yeah. And the criteria, qualifying criteria for that is that your house needs to be built and occupied before 2011.

So it doesn't really cover new builds. It has to currently be at a B3 or lower Rating, which is still pretty high. Yeah. And The works need to get it up to a B2 or higher. So if you're living in an older house, you know Like my G. Like your G. We have a G at the moment. Your 1930s house at a G is, is, yeah.

Perfect. And there's some other stipulations there. But if your house is more than say, kind of [00:14:00] 13, 14 years old and you've got a low BER. Yeah. But the qualified criteria is that the works that you do must get the overall rating, the BER rating, up to a B2 or higher. 

Kate: Yeah. This deep retrofit. My God, there's so many kind of different areas that are covered in it and they're all dependent on, you know, whether you have like a mid terrace apartment, so there's different levels available to different size or different types of houses, I guess.

But it covers everything again, like attic, rafter insulation, cavity wall insulation, same kind of stuff you were talking about before, you know, your heat pumps, but all put in together. And then I think when you're totting all this up, like you could be up at around 50 grand. 

Jen: Yeah. 

Kate: It's really good. If you get everything.

If everything qualifies. Yeah. So like, if you were. About to break ground on a major kind of renovation and everything's dug up anyway. This is the one you should be going for, I think. 

Jen: Yeah. It's 

Kate: absolutely worth the paperwork. 

Jen: And you want your house to be at a B2 or higher anyway. You know, that's the goal.

So, then you're getting lower mortgage rates. Exactly. You've got your green. Yeah. That's one we need to talk about. I have the green mortgage rate. Do you have one? You know, you can tell me don't at [00:15:00] the moment. 

Kate: I'd say if the bank knew my PD already, they wouldn't have given us a mortgage. Do you know that, conservation areas or kind of protected listed structures are actually BEOR exempt. Yeah. Which I think in itself is criminal to be honest in this day and age. We should be all looking to get our BEOR of our house higher. 

Jen: But then you can't because a lot of the conservation planning stipulations that come back mean you can't swap out single glazing windows.

That's 

Kate: a whole other discussion and it's something we might talk about another grant. After we talk about energy upgrades, it's how to keep your house in the stone age Or conservation grants. So I'll talk about some of those as well. To clarify, 

Jen: we're all for conservation. Absolutely. Anyone listening to us might have followed Kate's journey.

I love it. She's incredibly sensitive to restoration and, you know, maintaining and conserving Preserving everything, but 

Kate: there's got to be a balance, I think, you know, we can't be heating these houses to [00:16:00] blow it out the windows. Yeah. 

Jen: But yeah, so if you, if you get to be two or higher, you qualify for green.

Mortgage, and that is a really low mortgage rate I'm on at the moment. And I've also heard that some 

Kate: banks now are doing it on a scale basis. So if you, say, get one of those BOI or AIB loans to do some of those energy upgrades and you do them and you prove the works, you automatically get that upgrade on your mortgage or 

Jen: that that reduction on your mortgage.

Amazing. Yeah. And actually, I know you have to pay someone to come out and do the BER rating, but that The assessment is actually covered in the grant too, so it's really, really good. Yeah. Really good. Totally worth it. Yeah. So what else can we do? Energy? Lead 

Kate: pipes. Oh, lead pipes. 

Jen: Yeah. So it's not necessarily energy but just health.

Yeah, 

Kate: we definitely have lead, old lead pipes somewhere under our house because the tap water tastes absolutely cack. And like, out of the shower, in the bath, if you see like green, I'm not talking like mouldy algae green, but it's like deposits from old lead pipes. It will actually stain a ceramic [00:17:00] bath.

over time if you were drippy tap there. Imagine what it's doing to your insides. This is why I drink bottled water at the moment until all those pipes have been changed. And like they'd be changed now up to my gate with that into the house until we're pulling everything up we can't. So 

Jen: this grant, the scheme to replace lead pipes and fittings covers pipes into your house and pipes within your property as well.

And unusually, So all the grants we've spoken about previously pretty much, you get a percentage back of what you paid. So you get a lot of money back but it's not 100 percent of what you've paid. For this one, for the lead pipes, it is 100 percent of the qualifying work up to 5, 000 euros. Although if it's a tiny job under 750 you're not, you don't qualify.

So between 750 and 5, 000 it covers it 100 percent to replace your lead pipes and the fittings around it. So what you need is your water supplier who would be are they called Irish water anymore? Irish water. Because they're already brand. Anyway, your water supplier, you will have gotten a notice from your water supplier or your council or whatever to say that there's a water, there's a [00:18:00] notice the quality of water from the lead pipes.

Then you have to send that off for a lab test. So that lab test has to be six months, within the last six months. Then you're gonna need to get a notification from a registered building professional to say, yes, your pipes are in fact, indeed, lead pipes. And then once that's done, again, slightly unusually, you can actually use any contractor, as long as they have a tax clearance, you know, certificate or TAN you can use any contractor to replace those pipes and you get the value back for a hundred percent of it.

So it's, you know, definitely swap out your lead pipes if you're listening. You don't have to pay a penny and just get it done. 

Kate: Yeah. 

Jen: Great. 

Kate: Is that all energy? 

Jen: Another one that can cover you 100 percent is if you, we said this earlier, the warmer home scheme, if you are on welfare or you're receiving a carer's allowance or there's some other stipulations there as well If your house has been built before 2006 and if your BER rating is C or below, then you can apply for some of those grants, the Deep Energy Retrofit, the Deep Retrofit one [00:19:00] and the Individual Energy one will be covered 100%.

Kate: Great. 

Jen: That's amazing. So you don't have to put your hand in your pocket at all. The one stipulation on that is that you might have to pay some of it back if you sell your house within five years. Okay. But other than that, it's, that's really good. No brainer. Yeah. Yeah. 

Kate: I love home energy upgrades because what my sustainability had on my old job 80 percent of our carbon footprint sometimes is from our home 

Jen: and 

Kate: like heating our home and heating the water and like running our.

Household. Yeah. So I think it's an absolute no brainer that we get this down as low as possible. And that brings me into conservation grants. Right. So 

Jen: this is your specialty. This is my specialty 

Kate: because we had a protected structure in our last house and it was obviously a G because nothing had ever been done to it.

No one was living in it for 40 years. It was pre the derelict homes grant or vacant homes grant as well. So we didn't get that grant either, but we got it up to a B2 rating. We got it up to a B2 rating, keeping the original floorboards intact. We kept [00:20:00] the timber sash windows. We kept all the original plasterwork, cornicing, ceiling roses, all that kind of stuff.

And we managed to get a B2 rating. So you can do it now. You guys put a lot of work into that. It's not easy, but you can do it. It seems like you can't really do that anymore. So to get a conservation grant, you have to keep the original single pane. Single glazed, you know, sash windows. I'd love, 

Jen: I mean, if there's a conservation specialist listening, I would just love to get the rationale behind that.

Kate: Well, I think it's the old glass, right? So if you look past, if you walk past some of these beautiful old buildings, you'll see kind of a dimply wavy glass. And like, it is beautiful. Don't get me wrong, but the amount of heat loss through those, when you can put in slim double, double glaze units in these frames that will look.

Pretty much identical from the, the street. I think this is where I kind of draw the line between conservation and, you know, being realistic with our B E R and our energy consumption of our houses. So if you're going for something [00:21:00] like a conservation grant, if you're in a, an architectural conservation area, or you have a protected structure on the record of protected structures you can get these.

Grants. So covers things like, you know, your windows, any kind of woodwork around the house any kind of structural stuff, repointing, any of that kind of stuff you do again, like the previous like the previous grants, you have to use kind of registered people. And there's usually a list of kind of registered conservation specialists that will work in your area, but also again, the works will have to be inspected and whatever.

The key one for this, if you're going for this. grant or any of these grants is they're at a particular point in the year. So you have to apply. Dublin City Council, I know this year was, I think the end of January was the closing date. Yeah. And they're granted in March and that's it for the year. So they give them out at the start of the year and that's it.

So if you're renovating in August, you better get it in January because you're not getting it later on. And this is a lot of 

Jen: paperwork. Let's start now. 

Kate: I mean, There's a bit to read up on for [00:22:00] sure, and you kind of need to have quotes ahead of time and details of the work and maybe photographic survey. So the grants are there.

They try and give something to everyone, almost. I didn't get it this year, but they are there. I'm a little bit bitter to be honest, but they are there. But you can get grants again for some of this work, but I wouldn't call them energy upgrades in any way, shape or form, but they're there if you have a protected structure, you need to do upgrades to.

Okay. Yeah. And then looking at other old buildings, the one we mentioned earlier is the vacant home grant or the derelict home grant. 

Jen: I love this one because I just walking around and seeing empty houses or derelict homes, I think it should be outlawed. 

Kate: Yeah. And it's a serious, again, it's a serious chunk of change.

It's like 50, 000 for a vacant home and up to 70 for a derelict home. 

Jen: Yeah, so there's loads 

Kate: covered under this vacant or derelict homes grant. So 50 grand for a vacant home and 70 grand for a derelict home. You need to look at exactly what classifies as a derelict home.

I think it used to [00:23:00] be in certain areas of the country 

Jen: as 

Kate: well. It was mapped, but I think they've broadened that now to different areas. It used to be kind of like inner Dublin city, if they were close at all. In those kind of map or mapped areas. But the 50 or 70 grand, like again, you just have to prove vacancy or kind of dereliction.

So covers everything from like demolition, substructure stuff. So the key thing for these vacant or derelict homes grant is you have to prove the vacancy or dereliction. So when you take ownership of the house, making sure that you have a kind of an affidavit from the previous owners to say, you know, it was empty for those two years, or again, energy usage over those, over that previous two year period.

But then once you have it, you can tee up the work same as you have done for the previous grants, but also you can't. Start the works until the grant is granted. Okay. So don't live in the house until the grant is granted. That is a 

Jen: cost. Cause you could be renting. That's a major cost. 

Kate: That's [00:24:00] why I'd say stops a lot of people from applying for it.

So you can apply for it, but you can't move into the house you just bought until it's granted. 

Jen: So make sure that the value of the grant you're getting is more significantly more really than the rent you would be spending. 

Kate: I mean, ideally, like this would work for someone who maybe. Is renting and can keep affording to rent until they have this, you know granted to them or the family they could stay with until it's granted or something, but like the time to actually apply.

And get it granted, like you want to be on the phone every day, like really pushing, pushing for an officer to come out and do the previous inspection or the kind of initial inspection. And then a whole other kind of complexity to this is if it's also vacant and a conservation area, you need both people to come out and have a look at it.

So again, big money, but a lot of hoops to jump through but it's big money if you can get it. So yeah, the key thing here is if you buy one and you think it's vacant or you're viewing houses at the moment, you think they're vacant, ask the agent, ask [00:25:00] the owner or the seller at the time you're viewing a house, has this been vacant for two years?

Because if you can kind of get that up front, you know, you're going to be qualifying for this and have everything ready that Maybe you can apply for it prior to all your paperwork going through for the sale of the house. I don't think it actually has to be in your name. 

Jen: Oh, amazing. Okay. So I think you can do it in the run up.

So it's like the property is granted it, not necessarily you. Okay. That's good. So 

Kate: you could potentially like when all that kind of, you know, solicitor's work is going on to buy the house, you could have already applied for the sub frame. 

Jen: Amazing. Yeah. Okay. So lots, there's loads available. There's loads.

It's a bit confusing. So what I, what I would say to summarize it, if you are, you Planning energy upgrades to your house and your house is you know new ish but you know not brand new build. Yeah. Sit down and think what type of energy upgrades do you want. If you're just looking for PV panels or solar panels that is a standalone grant and you can go for it.

If you think you might want other energy upgrades like the insulation, like the heating controls, like the heat pump etc then go down the [00:26:00] individual home energy upgrade grant route through Better Energy Homes. If you think you're going to do the entire home just needs a Full job, then you go for the deep retrofit ones, that's the home energy upgrade one and that is if your house is older than 2011 . If you are in receipt of welfare, job seekers, carers allowance, et cetera, then go for the warmer home scheme.

If you're a B or C or below, your house before 2006. Check out a loan if you think maybe you don't qualify necessarily for the grants or if you've already used grants or something like that. You can get a low interest loan on the home energy upgrade loan scheme up to 75k per property. And those low energy 

Kate: loans, or low rate loans for energy upgrades will dwarf.

Like the amount you'd be spending on heating the house for a week. 

Jen: Yeah, it's free money effectively. So like it makes 

Kate: so much sense to do it. So much sense. 

Jen: And remember you can spend 25 percent of that on anything, including decor. So that's really good. As long as you make a minimum of a 20 percent improvement in the overall BER rating.

Then if your house is [00:27:00] very old and you might have a conservation on it, there's that grant 

Kate: to think about. Yeah, so the key one to think about in conservation is these won't be really energy upgrades. They're more keeping an architecturally significant property. The same 

Jen: yeah, 

Kate: and that's what these grants are for and if you might have rotting timbers or rotting windows or whatever It's very expensive to kind of keep these houses looking the same.

So that's kind of what the conservation grants are But keep in mind that they are once a year. 

Jen: Yeah from 

Kate: at least Dublin City Council I'm sure it's so start now 

Jen: because it's likely to be January potentially anyway 

Kate: get your application in before Christmas or whatever at least the end of January, but you know, around the Christmas timeframe, there'll be awarded in March and then you've no in until the next year again.

So think about that and then your vacant and derelict homes grant just to kind of recap on that. If you're looking at houses, you think they might be vacant or they're derelict and try and get kind of some sort of agreement from the agent that it is vacant and maybe you can get that application in in parallel with buying a house.

Amazing. And that 50 [00:28:00] grand will go a long way to your 

Jen: substructure and whatever else you need to get done. And get rid of your lead pipes. And, you know, if you're new to grants and you, you have done work between 2013 and 2018 and you have proof of that work, then see if you can go back and and get some money back from the Home Renovation Incentive.

But it's closed now, so it has to be pre 2018. 

Kate: Yeah. It'd be great to have that one back. It would, yeah. But there's so many there. Yeah, there's loads. There's probably a roundabout way of getting the same thing. 

Jen: And map them out. Like map them out. Because some of them, if you get one you can't get the other, you know, you kind of, it's, you can't get them all necessarily.

So just map out what you might get back, what the timelines are, and make sure it's worth it. So where should I go to find out more about these grants, Jen? I would go, well, start on our Instagram, but no, go Citizens Information has an amazingly well put together and succinct guide to grants. I think better than any of the other websites.

I 

Kate: think so, yeah. It's all in kind of one place. And then from there, it'll bring you to maybe the SEAI website for the [00:29:00] conservation ones. And that'll probably bring you to your local council sites. So I'd say start there, You know, delve a bit deeper into the ones that you might qualify for and go from there.

So that's 

Jen: citizensinformation. ie. 

Kate: Yes. 

Jen: The other thing, if just looking through websites and trawling through pages makes your head melt, then get in touch with the SEAI and talk to someone. They're very approachable and they have lots of information and people willing to talk to you about what you can get.

Kate: Yeah. But make sure you apply for every grant you can. 

Jen: Get all the free 

Kate: money. Free money guys. Free money. That you can spend on. All the fun stuff in your house. Lovely furniture. Really 

Jen: nice paint. Alright, well enjoy your free money listeners. Yeah, yeah. Thank you for tuning in. Talk to you next 

time. See two weeks.

Jen: If you found that episode useful, please do us a huge favor by giving us a like, and a few stars and especially click that subscribe button. Thank you