Episode 45 - the SEAI Traditional Homes Pilot Scheme

This is the second of two episodes that we recorded with the SEAI's Housewarming podcast. In this episode, we talk to Steven Farrell from the SEAI about the new Traditional Homes Pilot Scheme. This is for you if you are doing up a period home and have maybe found it difficult to navigate the currently available grants because your home is listed or has conservation restrictions. Visit SEAI.ie to find out more about this pilot scheme.

Follow the podcast on Instagram @ripitup_podcast_official, or follow us - Jenny is @workerscottage and Kate is @victorianrathmines

Transcript

Jen: Welcome to Rip It Up, the renovations podcast.

This is the second of two episodes that we have recorded with the SEAI's Housewarming Podcast. In this episode, we talk to Steven Farrell of the SEAI about the new traditional homes pilot scheme that is becoming available. This is for you if you are doing up a period home and have maybe found it difficult to navigate the currently available grants because of things like conservation restrictions on your home.

There's loads of great tips in here, so let's get into it.

Kim: So Kate and Jenny from the Rip It Up podcast, thanks a million for joining us again on house warming. Uh, you're very good to come back talking about something a little bit differently today. SEAI has launched a new traditional homes pilot, which means that people who are enlisted buildings or you know, hundreds of years old homes.

Can actually avail of our grants, but I'm not the expert on this. My colleague Steven Farrell is, and he also joins us here today. Thanks a million, Steven. [00:01:00] No problem. So tell us, what is this new traditional homes pilot from SEAI? 

Steven: Good question. Come here. I feel like I need to upgrade my house guys. Besides using we'll have been true, uh, the traditional homes pilot.

Okay. We're focusing on homes that were built and we use Indicatively 1940 or earlier. Okay. But the main difference is the, the wall construction. A lot of these homes are built from solid masonry, brick or stone or clay. Uh, they may have seen glazed windows, uh, kind of timber frames, slate tile roofs and so on, but they need to be, they need to be treated differently.

Um, in terms of the older construction, such as the one described, they manage moisture. Uh, different to modern forms of construction. So, uh, years ago the walls were built to ticker, so when it rains, the moisture, uh, seeped into the wall and it evaporated over time. So that whole wetting and drying cycle passed through, whereas modern forms of construction that came into play.

Post 1940, your cavity wall construction, [00:02:00] your hollow block wall construction, or your timber frame construction, they were designed to keep moisture out. Uh, so, so it acts differently. So what we've done is we've developed a pilot program that was launched in October, uh, last year, um, that allows the necessary flexibility for treating these homes.

So they need to be insulated and apply a different strategy. Um, a lot of experts in the market. Say, do as little as possible, but just what's needed. So you're taking a different approach. You don't super insulate these walls. You kind of take a lighter approach and do a different retrofit strategy in terms of air tightness, a proper good ventilation system, and then maintenance because a dryer wall.

Is is a warmer wall, okay? And a lot of people forget that. So in terms of repairing your gutters and so forth. So we're trying to get people to focus on that. In terms of traditional homes, pilot, uh, it's delivered to our panel of one-stop shops who are expert panels, who will bring a homeowner through a whole retrofit process.

But what's different in the traditional homes [00:03:00] pilot is. We ask the homeowner and the one stop shop to engage accredited architect, engineer or building surveyor to bring that element of building conservation expertise, um, and moisture management expertise into the whole retrofit process. And another key part of the traditional homes pilot, which is so important, is we don't ask people to chase really good.

B, your values of A, B, or C. We say what's appropriate for the home is, is what's needed. And we don't have energy improvement targets. So it's kind of taken that sensitive approach. And I suppose as a pilot as well, we're just trying to inform the market, prime the market, um, engage with the experts, um, train up and listen to the frustrations from the installers on the ground and just develop the market in the area because.

300,000 of these homes that were built, uh, pre 1940, that need to be addressed from an energy pers, uh, efficiency perspective, but done in a nice, sensitive [00:04:00] way, respecting the, the heritage culture and so forth of the building. 

Kim: Okay, brilliant. Thanks a million. Steven and Kate and Jenny, you're both in very old homes, but Jenny, yours wasn't listed, so this doesn't apply to you.

But Kate, yours is listed. So this traditional homes pilot would've been music to your ears. But you kind of missed the boat. I missed the boat. I 

Kate: remember just seeing the ads for it just as we had kind of planning gone in maybe. Yeah. Or we were kind of waiting for our planning permission to come through.

Um, so we just missed it. But we did renovate, you know, I said in the last episode that we renovated, um, a Victorian home and got it up to a B two, but it's, it's not an easy process. Like, and we got a lot of. Conflicting information in a lot of very expensive quotes. Yeah. So this would've been absolute music to my ears.

Steven: It's a very good point, Kate. 'cause what we found is, um, as we were developing the program, um, the market just needs to be kind of made aware of, of, of the different sensitivities that need to be taken into account when you're dealing with these. Types of homes built [00:05:00] in this era. Um, and that's why I suppose a key part of the pilot is that we're engaging these accredited architects and engineers who have that knowledge in building conservation and moisture management and so forth, so they can ease, ease people's concerns.

So they know they're making a big, big investment. They want to know what they're installing is compatible and willand the test of time. 

Kate: There are some. I won't say all, but there were some quotes and, and, uh, I suppose work proposals, we got to say that we could just use normal insulation and just, you know, put in new windows and yeah, just insulate the floor.

Like what would happen in an old house like mine if you did stuff like that. If you did 

Steven: stuff like that. And, and do you know what it's, that's that awareness piece. What happens is in a lot of those homes, as I was saying from the start, these are solid wall construction types. Um. And say if it's an exposed, say, if it's it's brickwork that's not rendered, you're driving rain, and that moisture and capillary action moves the moisture inwards and the [00:06:00] fear is that you'll get a buildup of the relative humidity between.

The new insulation you install. So it could be um, uh, EPS or PIR on the wall and solid masonry, and you could have damper mold growth in those zones and it can come true to the surface of the wall. So these manifest over time. Um, and it's for people to understand the importance of, I suppose, looking at the retrofit strategy, get the necessary experts involved there.

There's great analysis out there that you can do from the outset, uh, wolfie analysis, Wolfie Pro that can actually simulate your wall. And kind of put up a design with data backing up a safe solution. So what we're trying to avoid is trapping moisture within the wall and the negative effects from that, such as condensation, relative humidity, and then mole growth.

Uh, which is, which is issues down there. Um. 

Kim: And Steven, we were out in clock, Jordan, in temporary to one of your traditional home pilots. Yes, with Clifford Guest and he was in this amazing old, [00:07:00] um, farmhouse. It's hundreds of years old. It's been in his family for six generations. So he was a great example. I mean, we saw the house, it's absolutely fabulous.

We were in the bedroom and he said, some of my family members were born here. Some of my family members died here. He's now sleeping in that room, but it's old stone work. And he actually lifted up the, um, the plaster that they're using. Lime plaster. And you know, it does feel different in your hand, but Kate, you're in a listed home in Dublin.

Hmm. So the difference between all of these traditional homes, they are varying. Steven, so tell us a, a few examples of the types of homes. I know they're pre 1940s, but how old are they and what types of homes do we have? So we had Clifford's Farmhouse and Kate's listed homes, but what else is out there?

Steven: Well, you, you've also, a lot of the applications that we're seeing coming through now all around the country, which is great. Uh, built in the 18 hundreds. You could have exposed brick facades. That could [00:08:00] be, say, 250 mil deep, or you could have the cottages in the country that could be a 600 mil masonry wall.

And they all need to be treated differently. You need to assess, um, what's the existing position? Is there cement render from possibly mal adaption or informed upgrade, uh, from the outset, um, has, has. I suppose the necessary work done to, uh, preserve the situation or not of the house. Um, in terms of what does the homeowner want to do in terms of their budget.

Um, and kind of I informed in terms of we want to get to an A rate and a B rated home. So there's a variety of homes out there, and I suppose what we're looking to do is test the market and see what's coming in for us, coming in at us, and then getting a sense of, well, how much is. Are this, is this natural material, how much is the consultation piece?

So we're trying to build up that knowledge to be able to, I suppose, be able to address the 300,000 homes that fit that bracket, uh, between now and the end of the decade and beyond. [00:09:00] Uh, so you're, you're getting a, a wide variety of homes from. Solid brick to solid masonry to clay structures, and, and some of them are protected, some of are proposed protected architectural conservation areas as well.

So we're getting all that information and the constraints from the market and we're hoping to design a solution. That we'd be able to grant age the vast majority of these going forward. 

Kim: And Jenny, your home is hundreds of years old, but it wasn't listed, but you were still trying to do a home energy upgrade while, um, you know, being respectful to the age of the home.

So what types of materials did you use and how did you, um, stay within the traditions of the, of the home and, and, and what it was built for? 

Jen: Yeah, good question. So, um, the, the house is built in the 1890s originally and was absolutely Baltic and I, there's just no insulation whatsoever. Um, so obviously I wanted to go for comfort.

I wanna go for warmth. I also really wanted to get my bills down because there's [00:10:00] nothing like insulating a house. Well, I. To get your bills down to, to almost zero. So it's, it's really, really important to, to look at it. I didn't have the same issues with, um, material types as some of the older houses did.

I didn't need to worry about lime plaster. I didn't need to worry so much about breathability, so I was able to, to, to use just the more traditional or just the more modern, sorry. Um. Uh, insulating materials, just kingspan, uh, you know, throughout was, was, was fine. Mm-hmm. Um, so, so there wasn't really any, any concerns there?

There wasn't anything I need to think about. I did have, uh, somebody in the last couple of years to up a house who wanted to remain really sympathetic to the environment as much as possible, and they used hemp, uh, insulation. Mm-hmm. For many reasons, which worked out so, so well because. It's obviously a very sustainable, uh, good bio based material.

It's a really, really good bio, um, option for people, but it's also super breathable and it's, it's really, really suitable for, for old homes as well. So it was lovely to see that in, in a, in a very old home from a conservation perspective and materials perspective. 

Kim: And are, [00:11:00] you have, um, obviously. Hundreds of followers, thousands of followers.

On your Rip Up podcast, um, Instagram page, and you said that the traditional homes pilot was something that everybody was asking you about, so, uh, you got them to send in some questions. Yeah. Did you get loads? Yeah. Hello? We got 

Kate: loads. Brilliant. Believe you, Melanie. There are a lot of the questions I would've asked myself to be honest, because these are things like that I wanted to know.

Yeah, and I would want to know if I was applying for this grant now, or these grant, the red foot now. So one of the main things was how, what's the process, I guess? Mm-hmm. So I bought an old home, protected, or not protected, but I know it's an old home, hundreds of years old or whatever. So. Where do I start?

Yeah, it's a great, 

Steven: it's a great question. And sometimes that can stump people. Yeah. Yeah. And they end up being distracted and go spend the money elsewhere. Um, on our website, you just, you just go into our website and type in traditional homes pilot, and there's a great, um, introductory page there. It'll say important facts like, um, you don't have to hit a B two.

So we have [00:12:00] that flexibility and also it'll show you the list of one-stop shops. That are partaking in the, in the pilot, in the traditional homes pilot. So what you do is you see the list of one-stop shops. You click into the contact details, you make contact with the one stop shop. They'll have a quick call and they'll help you link up with a, a conservation architect mm-hmm.

Or uh, an engineer and so forth. And then you start the process from there. They'll complete, uh, a home energy assessment, but they'll also work with the architect to do a kind of a building condition survey so you get a sense of where the house is at the preparatory work you need to do, and more importantly, you get a sense of the materials and the costs associated with it.

So that's probably the first port to call. Get onto the website. Go into the SEI traditional homes pilot page. You'll see the list of, uh, one-stop shop providers call around, call two or three of them, get a sense of what they do. Um, how open to the project they are and go from there. 

Jen: And is that contact from the one stop shop, are they with you throughout the process?

All the way through to the end of the build, 

Steven: till the end of the [00:13:00] build? Are they That's brilliant. Yeah. Yeah. So, so what the one stop shop does is in its simplest form, the one stop shop was develop to try and help home to remove the barriers to retrofit. So the retrofit, retrofit experts, they'll provide information for you to make a decision.

They complete all the necessary paperwork, which stump a lot of people because if there's a bit of paperwork there, they're experts at doing this. Uh, plus as well, they deduct the grant up front, which is very important. So you could have, um, a traditional upgrade. It could come to 70 K. 

Jen: That was actually my next question.

That was, yeah, so it's an important scenario, but like, affordability is huge. It's huge. 'cause I know a lot. Across a lot of things, not just SAI grants, but across a lot of things that, some of the things I was looking into recently. If all things work out really well, if you've loads of money that you can invest up front 'cause then you get it back.

But not everyone has that. So to remove that barrier, that makes it a lot more accessible. That there 

Steven: was something that came back, like people, people want to do. The right thing and, and invest in, I suppose, the comfort of their home, the [00:14:00] energy savings, the environmental benefits, proving their asset value, all those key parts of what people want to do.

But that overall cost can be a stumbling block. Now we know the balance. It can be a lot, but if you have a 70 k, um, cost from a, a retrofit. Um, and you get 20 5K of that deducted up front. Yeah. 

Jen: Yeah. That's a huge, it's a 

Steven: huge help in terms of the proposition You're going to the financial institution or wherever to try and get that money together to do that.

Yeah. Um, and another key aspect is a lot of homeowners worry about, oh, am I going to get the grant in the end? Um, when does the grant come true? Because that's deducted off upfront. Mm-hmm. It puts the responsibility back on the experts to do it right and get the grant paid to them as opposed to yourselves.

Coupling that. Then with the low cost finance that's in place at the minute as well, where you can get very good interest rates on the loans of 3% or lower, which kind of helps them in that part of the equation as well. 

Kim: They're the new, um, SBCI loans that have been introduced recently. So, [00:15:00] um, if you're going through a one-stop shop provider, you can get a really low interest loan for.

Home energy upgrades. So it's something to consider as well. If you're embarking on a renovation and you are overwhelmed by the price, that this is something that you can do. You know, you, you're getting a grant, but you, you're also, um, you know, uh, a lot of people would be entitled to these loans as well.

So we are trying to make it more accessible for people to, um, carry out a home energy upgrade. Yeah. So it's 

Steven: so important, especially with the. At the different cost of living demands and so forth. Yeah, too. What we find with the traditional homes, also, and you probably know this, a lot of stuff can be done.

In terms of repairing your property beforehand? 

Speaker 5: Yeah, 

Steven: like you see a lot of these older houses out there where the gutters are leaking, tiles have slipped, pointing in, in the, in the brickwork is missing. There's gaps in the brickwork and even at your window and seal junction. So moisture is getting into the wall and the problem [00:16:00] is the wetter the wall.

The colder the wall is. So the, the first port of call is to do those, to fix those areas and, and maintain your building. Mm-hmm. And then go from there. And because we're not looking for super insulated wall structures 'cause it mightn't be compatible Yeah. With the structure, um, you don't have to put as much insulation on the wall.

Mm-hmm. Like for example, a dry wall could be 25%, uh, reduce the heat loss by 25%, which is, which is. It is noteworthy. And then if you install say 50 mil of say, calcium silicate, you could reduce it further. So you've done a lot there without kind of major volumes of insulation and you're doing the basics in terms of making sure that the wall is dry and it remains dry and as much as we can do.

Jen: Yeah. Yeah. So I had a question actually, uh, come in on that one around somebody was told this, this was one of those big. Ancient houses down the country, uh, near where I from in, in East Claire, and really, really thick [00:17:00] wall, at least 600 mils, if not more old stone walls. And they were given the advice that the.

House or the walls needed to be dried out before anything could really be done. Yeah. Is that realistic advice? And if so, how does somebody go about doing that? And I hope the answer is dehumidifier. 'cause the answer to everything in my life is de Yeah, possibly dehumidifier time. Yeah. I mean, they were given the advice to kind of.

Pump the heating, you know, for, for a while, which I dunno if there is the right thing. It doesn't seem 

Steven: natural. Um, and how long 

Jen: are we looking at there? You know, 

Steven: it, it, it probably like the real world. You need to get the work done. You want to get the work done, and at the end of the day, you want to get the excess moisture out.

From leaks and, and the building not performing, but as well, I suppose it depends on the retrofit strategy, because you're gonna be putting vapor open, capillary active ins, installations on the wall, which will work Okay. If there's a bit of residual moisture Sure. It, it, it'll come out as well. 

Speaker 5: Yeah. 

Steven: Um, so it's kind of a, getting the balance right.

But that's where key, the key part is get the conservation expert in. [00:18:00] Mm-hmm. Um, but I'd be going down the dehumidifier route as well, so for, so happy to hear that because the drying will happen naturally. Yeah, with the environment and the pressure difference between the outside and the inside. Um, but the main thing that I would always see is make sure there's not excess moisture coming in after the, the upgrade.

Speaker 5: Yeah. Yeah. In terms 

Steven: of not having that maintenance, continued maintenance. Because if you look at the moisture wetting mechanisms, and it, I don't want to go too far into it, but driving rain is huge. I, I'd see it like a. A beach ball, uh, vapor. So some moisture vapor that moves in the air is like a f football in terms of volume.

Mm-hmm. And then the, the vapor diffusion. So in terms of gas in the air, that's like a tennis ball. So the big areas trying to stop water. Uh, rainwater getting in into the structure, um, because it just basically reduces the thermal conductivity. Mm-hmm. So you're getting increased heat loss if you can keep that wall dry.

Have insulation solutions on the wall that will promote the permeability and capillary [00:19:00] of the system. Um, you're in good place in the outset. 

Speaker 3: Brilliant. I think the first board to call any old house is a dehumidifier. Yeah. I think everyone has their own one. It's just the nature 

Steven: of time, like leaks happen, uh, gutters slip, slates slip, and it's left deteriorate and moisture.

It gets into the structure. 

Speaker 5: Yeah. And, 

Steven: and the key thing is to recognize that and put a plan in place to, I suppose, mitigate it. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. Yeah. And, 

Steven: and make sure it doesn't happen again after the retrofit works happen. 

Speaker 3: Yeah. It's interesting that you said, you know, don't do the quick fixes because my. My first house in Dublin was derelict.

Speaker 5: Yeah. 

Speaker 3: So they had done nothing to it. Right. So everything was almost original, which is almost, it's good. Which is what you want, right? Yeah. In an old house now. Now the other side of it, the house we're in now, we bought a family, had been there for 50 years. They had done a lot of DOI. They had done a lot of upgrades.

They had ripped up floorboards, they had chased walls. There was actually. Power cable going diagonally across one wall. We found one day into for wardrobes. Oh my God. So like there was a lot of DIY work done, [00:20:00] but part of that DIY work was where they slapped gypsum plaster. Yeah. Where they should have been lime.

Yeah. And what happens Or vinyl wallpaper and put it over it and yeah, it's a layer of insulation and the walls look fine and. A couple of years later where you pull off that wallpaper and the walls crumble. 

Steven: There's crumble and there's mold behind it. Yeah. And all the, the issues with that in terms of respiratory and kind of, you know, these, these kind of concerning health issues 

Jen: and you're wall falling down, it, wall falling down, 

Steven: and the fabric deterioration.

So, so the first port of call is to get that gypsum plaster off the wall because it traps moisture and so, and you're letting the wall breed after that. But the problem is mal adaption and having the awareness and a lot of homeowners as well, uh, want to make, they just wanna make their house warmer. And healthier and cozier and, and get that, those added benefits.

Mm-hmm. But when, when an expert comes out and says, oh, I'm not just gonna make your house warmer, I'm gonna have to do remedial works that you haven't envisaged or costed it kind of, it, it, it can, it can put them off even more. So it's, it's trying to get them to understand the importance of [00:21:00] stepping back.

Taking off whatever is needed to, to get the baseline right. And then going from there. 

Kim: So your followers are super interested in this scheme and a lot of them are considering buying traditional homes or in traditional homes. So what types of questions are they asking you? Mm-hmm. And I 

Speaker 3: think one of the main things I got was, what's the difference?

Between insulating or improving an old home versus a newer modern construction home. 

Steven: What I would see is you do as little as possible, but as much as you need to do. Yeah. And so forth. And it's important that you understand an element of building conservation, moisture management, so you're not insulating the homes.

As much as you would say in a 1980s home, it could be just a vapor open insulation to U value, maybe of 0.5 or 0.6. 

Jen: I had a question. What are the common reasons for grants not being awarded? I suppose that listener was kind of thinking, they don't want to go through the process and find that, you know, they were supposed to do this or they didn't have that, or whatever.

So what, what are the main kind of pitfalls for people to, 

Steven: um, and, and thankfully there's not that many because with, with the, with the one stop shop, and [00:22:00] the way it works is the grant is abducted upfront, so the homeowners felt the benefit. And then they go through the work. But the, the main thing is you don't start works before a grant offer is awarded.

Um, you don't buy or install the material. Um, and then it's signed off by the one stop shop and the architect at the end of the project, once they're in place and, and are certain specifications are met. Say for example, if a heat pump is installed that it meets the minimum requirements in terms of a specification.

So if those aren't hit mm-hmm. There will be questions of over grant payment. Yeah. But they can all be. Ironed out and, and, um, confirmed upfront. Uh, so the risk is very minimal. 

Speaker 3: And you mentioned heat pump. What's the suitability for old homes and heat pumps? Um, quite, quite good. Really? Okay. On the basis 

Steven: that, on the basis that it's fully designed, it's sized correctly, there's a proper heat analysis done in terms of the space.

It's going to heat, it's commissioned, it's installed and commissioned. And the homeowner. Understands how it works. Mm-hmm. Okay. What we find a lot of is people focus a lot on [00:23:00] the, the heat G loss through the wall, and they install heat pumps and. I dunno. We want the same attention brought in the installation standards, the design, installation, commissioning, and the handover side of it.

But a heat pump will perform based on the, the size it's designed and speced for within the volume of air it needs to hit at high efficiencies. The problem is, if it's not installed correctly and operating optimally, those efficiencies drop. So a lot has to do with the installation and the commissioning.

Speaker 3: Okay. Okay. And you mentioned one stop shop. Either there, do you have to go one stop shop for everything or is there any particular grants that are like most impactful, most valuable that people should kind of consider first 

Steven: for the traditional homes pilot where you're looking for grant support on traditional homes?

From a whole house perspective, A whole house design, which we'd promote it's, it's via the one stop shops. Okay. That's the way we've taken it and what we've done is we've made sure people are linking up with designers. And practitioners to get the best advice in terms of [00:24:00] the building conservation and the moisture management side of things as well, which is, which is really important 

Jen: for this grant.

Does somebody have to do it all in one go, one big renovation, or could they piecemeal it over a few years? 

Steven: The one stop shop is, is kind of a whole house design. Okay? So it's designed all in one go. So you're looking at the strategy as a whole and, and you're taking it from there. Uh, so it's, it's very much a whole house design, so it kind of doesn't work.

I don't think that chimes even well with retrofitting a traditional home, doing a measure by measure, because if you insulate the walls, okay, there's, there's extra heat generated within the house. You need a proper ventilation system to kind of reduce the risk of the extra risk of, say, relative humidity built up or moisture in the WA in the air.

So we always kind of promote a whole house design, which can mean multiple measures. 

Kim: And Steven, we have a housing crisis at the moment, and. You can't get more sustainable than doing up what you already have. Yeah. So this is where the traditional homes pilot comes in. So you know, we are restoring hundreds of years old [00:25:00] homes that do exist already.

That's great. How does this pilot become a permanent program? 

Steven: That's a great question. Basically what happens is, in the general gist of it, is like we, we put a pilot in place to get a sense of the challenges out there to prime the market, get homeowners aware of the sensitivities and requirements, build a supply chain in terms of these people who install these, uh, lime term of plasters and so forth.

What we do is we take the learnings, say from the first a hundred homes that come through the process and. We develop a mainstream program, like there has to be a mainstream program there. There's like, there's 300, 270 5,000 of these homes there. Um, so it's the learnings we get back from the pilot that will help us inform how we're gonna go forward in terms of addressing that key cohort.

Kim: And do you think this will encourage people to buy traditional homes, whereas before they might be put off and. What is your advice for someone who is trying to get on the property ladder or you know, moving home? What's your advice for them if maybe a traditional home is in the [00:26:00] mix there? 

Steven: That's a great question.

Uh, and do you know what you see more and more people like saying, do you know what, I can buy that existing property there. There's a vacant homes refurbishment grant does the SEI grant, if they're informed, there's excellent supports there. But what I would say is, prior to purchasing, I'd engage, um, an architect engineer.

Or surveyor or expert in the area to give you a sense of what you're getting into in terms of the repair work, what it's gonna cost to bring it up to a, a good, comfortable level in terms of comfort and so on. So that's probably key to get your head around that. So you're putting all that whole equation together.

Recognizing the grants that are available to help you bring that derelict property back to life. So getting good, good advice from the outset is pretty much key, I would feel. 

Kim: And Jenny, do you think, obviously you're in touch with a lot of homeowners, a lot of people on on the house want, are people open to buying traditional homes?

Jen: I think people will be screaming for the rooftops for this grant. I really do. 'cause I think the grants available are amazing. I think if I was [00:27:00] to pick a top question, I get asked, aside from how do I get more storage into my house, it's probably grants. And do I? Very good. I don't navigate the grants and I think.

It does, it does really address all the pitfalls that people come up against, which is, you know, I can't work around a conservation lien on my house, or I can't hit the B two or whatever it might be. Or, I can't fail of X, Y, Z because the, the, you know, the building materials or a bbc, whatever it might be.

So yeah, I think it's gonna be. Absolutely diverse. There's a great 

Steven: connect there because the Department of Housing have a conservation advice grant support program in place that you get, uh, 67% of the grant amount, I think it's 5K for that, that conservation advice. So you can get a good report and then you can put it against, so.

The SEI, traditional homes pilot. So you have your advice support, and then you have your, your doing your installation support as well. Mm-hmm. So it's there. So in terms of if people are interested, I would encourage 'em to go to our website, look at the OneStop shops that are partaking in it, or if you want to get in touch with us directly, it's one stop shop at SE, ie.

Mm-hmm. And we're dealing a lot of [00:28:00] these homeowners one-to-one as well. That's the beauty about having a kind of a relatively small number. We get, we get to know the design professionals. And a lot of the homeowners as well. It's all positive. It's just to get a bit more momentum underneath it. 

Jen: Yeah. 'cause it's heartbreaking to see empty houses around the country.

Do you know? It's just so frustrating. Oh. 

Steven: The situation we're in, to see what can 

Kim: be done. And especially with Clifford, who is part of this pilot program, and it means so much to him and his family. I know it's great for people who are house hunting mm-hmm. Um, to be able to buy a traditional home and avail of these grants.

But for someone like Clifford. Where this house has been in his family for hundreds of years. Six generations were brought up there. For him to be able to bring it up to spec, to be able to live there himself means so much to him. There's so much emotional attachment for him that, um, it's absolutely fantastic to see.

And, um, we're very excited about this pilot program, which will hopefully become permanent very soon. Steven. So, uh, Steven Farrell from SEAI thank you very much for joining us. Thank on Housewarming and Kate and Jenny from the Rip Up podcast. [00:29:00] Thanks a million.

For regular. Rip it up listeners. We'll be back next week with our listener questions Mini episode.

Jen: So if you have a burning question for us, send us a voice note or a message on Instagram @ripitup_podcast_official or email us, ripitupearlybird@gmail.com