Original subtitles

♪ (Upbeat music) ♪

I'm Ciaran Mccarthy,

and I've been working as a building engineer for nearly 30 years.

I get asked all the time,

how do I save money on energy costs?

Well, retrofitting is all over the news lately,

and in this series,

I'm travelling around Ireland,

checking out homes that are getting energy upgrades.

That dark blue is the coldest.

This is typically what I'd expect to see in an old house.

With prices only going up and the planet under pressure,

more and more people are saving money and energy

in their homes by taking on the retrofit challenge.

I'll be showing you what's actually doable

and what grants are out there to help.

From heat pumps to HVAC,

I'll break down the technical jargon

and make sense of all the retrofit lingo

so it's easy to follow.

You're just bamboozled with all the decisions that need to be made.

So come with me as we retrofit Ireland

and discover how you can reduce your energy costs.

This is Heat my Home.

♪ (Cheery guitar music) ♪

Today, I'm on my way to meet Sylvia Thompson,

a retired speech and language therapist living

in Ballymacelligott, County Kerry.

The Limerick native moved into this very solid

1950s bungalow in the mid '90s

and now wants to upgrade it from an F to an A3 BER rating.

Sylvia is no newcomer to the sustainability revolution,

as she is a long-time member

of the Kerry Sustainable Energy Cooperative.

In 2015, I became a member.

Now I'm the secretary.

I'm hoping to be able to say,

I too have taken the measures that I'm suggesting to you.

It has always been a dry house.

But for me, I would have to say it's a cold house.

Even in the hottest summer day, it's very cold.

Now, sometimes, when we have a lot of heat,

it's very nice to have a cold house.

But a cold house in the winter, it wasn't really suited my needs.

So I would use heat, such as plug-in heaters,

and then I had central heating added to it.

But there wouldn't have been a lot of ventilation, but there probably

was ventilation in the form of what we might call draughts.

But unfortunately, as one gets older,

little things begin to happen to the old body,

so it's good to have a place that's warm and welcoming

and warmer than what it is at the moment.

I was visiting my sister who lives in a house with a heat pump,

and I realised I didn't have to grit my teeth to kind of move from

the warm room to the cold room.

Sometimes I have little dreams of what it will be like,

and I'll be walking the talk.

I'll be more environmentally friendly in my own life

in the way I'm living in my home.

And even though there is still a little car outside

that uses petrol,

at least my home will be zero emissions, I hope.

♪ (Cheery guitar music) ♪

I've arrived at Sylvia's house, and straight away,

I can see that she's worked hard over the years

to keep this building in very good nick.

The thing about 1950s cottages

is that it can be hard to keep the heat in and the damp out.

Hopefully, this is about to change in the very near future.

When you look at the outside of the building,

the building looks well kept.

The windows are in quite good condition.

I'd like to think I've kept it fairly well,

and I like the shape of it.

How much attachment do you have to the old house

before the builders get going?

I'm not so attached to that, really, because at this point,

I'm probably more interested in comfort.

Okay. I haven't changed the inside shape of it very much.

Well, look, do you want to show me inside?

Yeah. Great. Thank you. You're very welcome.

♪ (Buoyant piano music) ♪

Now, the place, as you can see, is a bit of a mess.

This stuff has to move out,

but this is a lovely sunroom in the summer.

How are the builders dealing with this room now?

Well, this room is considered outside.

But as far as I understand, the cladding or the wrapping

will just come as far as the edge.

Okay, well, that's unusual now,

because the cladding would be like an external installation.

So that's your wrap on the external of the building.

All of this external insulation will help form what's called

a thermal envelope around Sylvia's house

that will basically keep heat in and the cold out.

So now another room full of... Oh, yeah. Okay.

It's kinda cold in here, isn't it?

I'm very glad I have my coat on. Yeah, likewise.

A few layers on underneath.

So what building works will be happening in this room?

What's the big thing?

Well, the biggest thing for the whole house is that all

the floors are being dug up,

including this one.

There is little or no insulation currently under these floors.

It's going to be a major job to dig down there and put in hard core,

a radon membrane, concrete slab,

insulation, lay-under-floor heating pipes,

and complete with a concrete screed.

Hopefully, the end result will make it all worthwhile.

Please God, please God.

Even though the last room was a little on the cold side,

this room is colder again.

But I suppose you have more external walls here,

and you have a level of dampness here.

Because you have next to no insulation,

you're getting a level of condensation.

Now, you have the new external insulation on the outside,

so that will deal with the insulation issue,

so the walls will be a lot warmer,

so that will dramatically improve it anyway, you know?

♪ ♪

Making my way through the rest of the cottage,

I'm discovering a few trouble spots that could be culprits

for Sylvia's heat loss.

So I decide to carry out a test with my thermal imaging camera.

What it'll actually do is it'll show you where the cold spots are

in the house, which I'm assuming is a a lot of the house

and where the warmer spots are.

So what we'll do is we'll shine this on some of the existing walls.

So obviously, the dark blue is the coldest,

which is on the outside wall.

You can see the curtains in the beginnings of the window.

So you're seeing huge variations in the temperature.

So I'll be back with this little gizmo now in a few months,

once all the builders have finished the installation works to make sure

there's no more navies and there's a lot more greens, yellows,

and hopefully some reds as well.

And I'll be able to take the scarf off.

Yeah, we'll both be in T-shirts.

(Laughter)

I've had a good look at the floors, walls, windows,

and exterior of Sylvia's cottage,

and there is a lot of work to be done on this retrofit project.

Sylvia has hired a one-stop shop retrofit company

who take care of all of the grant applications

and carry out all of the work involved.

And the cost?

Bear in mind, there are substantial grants available

for most of the improvements Sylvia has lined up.

But even with those grants,

we're still looking at a pretty big outlay.

Okay, hold your breath.

You've probably already seen this figure.

I'm holding my breath.

Total cost of retrofit works before the grants, 100,980.

You kinda wonder, should you be

looking at the property prices nearby? But anyway.

Somebody told me,be better to knock my house down.

I was not happy with that comment.

So the total cost of the retrofit works after the grants, 71,380.

Dramatic improvement, still a high figure.

I mean, one can see why people don't go down this route,

except that I've had my life savings

and da-da, da-da. all of that.

You are doing a lot for the environment as well.

You're removing all the fossil fuels

and you're bringing the house into the 21st century,

which I know is very important to you.

I think you'll be a new person when you move back in.

Between the warmer house and the decluttering

and just a fresh outlook in life.

It will be a new you, we hope.

That's what I hope, too.

When you come back, you'll see the dark circles have all disappeared.

Yeah, yeah, yeah.

This is going to be a massive challenge.

We're going from a BER F up to, hopefully, an A3.

I admire Sylvia's bravery,

knowing that the builders are just around the corner

and they're going to be taking apart your house.

It's a huge job.

I just know that when she moves back in to a beautiful, warm,

insulated home with no fossil fuel,

it will make all the difference to her.

It's day one of Sylvia's project,

and the crew are getting in early to start on this massive job.

The project manager from the one-stop shop is Sean,

and he's here to give Sylvia the low down on what's happening next.

The excavator is going to come in through the front door.

We're going to excavate the concrete,

and we're going to lift the suspended timber floor inside here,

and we're going to place a radon barrier,

a radon on sump, build back up a grade,

and then we're going to put your 150 millimetre of insulation.

We're then going to run your under floor heating.

The excavator is here,

and its first job is to remove the living room floor.

But getting it into the living room is proving to be a challenge.

We're having an issue because on the count of the hallway

being so narrow, we can't actually turn the excavator.

So we're removing some doors and door frames initially with

an attempt to turn the excavator.

Issues such as this wouldn't be uncommon,

especially in more traditional homes where hallways are narrower,

rooms are tighter, door frames are smaller.

Hopefully now they'll get it around the door.

It's a tight squeeze and a progress is inch by inch, but finally,

the crew managed to get the excavator through the narrow door

and can begin to dig up the floors.

Just watching this man try to get in through that door

was something else. You know what I feel?

I'm in good hands here.

What's your name? Sorry.

James. James.

Oh, the same as your dad? Yeah.

What's it like to work for your father?

Is he good? Hope he's nice to you.

Is he? No, no comment.

The excitement is over for now,

and the work can get properly underway.

Outside, the window installers have also arrived on a mission to bring

this cottage up to date and up to spec.

They're just replacing the older double-glaze windows

with new triple-glaze with a U-Value of 0.9.

When you say UV...?

it's a performance indicator for a window

or indeed any terminal element within the house,

be it a wall or a roof.

So that's how they assess.

So with your windows, we have a U value of 0.9

versus your previous double triple-glazed windows.

What forecast do you value?

Because we had in the certification of about 3 or 3.2.

That'd be toasty.

You'll be very warm, yeah, for sure.

And then there's trickle vents on the windows as well.

Those vents are adequately greatly sized for each room

to ensure sufficient airflow through.

Ventilation is obviously a very important factor for any retrofit,

particularly older, more traditional houses such as this one.

I'm delighted to hear that my windows,

my new triple-glazed windows,

will be three times more efficient than my previous windows.

I thought my previous windows were quite good,

but in order to keep in the heat

that is going to be generated by the heat pump,

you have to have the fabric of all parts of the house in good nick.

So that made sense to change all the windows and the doors.

And they fit in with the character of the house.

And the back of the house will look much better because, of course,

the oil tank will have gone, which is really ugly-looking thing.

♪ (Cheery music) ♪

Today, I'm back on the road to Kerry

to check in with retiree Sylvia Thompson,

who's in the middle of a full retrofit on her 1950s cottage.

Sylvia has faced some challenges along the way,

but the project is making good progress,

and over the last few weeks,

her home has experienced some dramatic changes.

Whoa, your house is taken apart.

It was really reduced to a shell.

I couldn't understand that.

They said you would have a new house.

It's certainly a new house.

And I suppose the main feature here, of course,

is your beautiful new under floor heating. I know.

Unlike radiators,

which concentrate heat in one spot and run at higher temperatures,

under floor heating uses lower temperature water

flowing through a much larger network of pipes laid under the floor.

A device that distributes water,

called a manifold,

directs warmth to each part of the house as needed,

helping to maintain a steady,

comfortable temperature.

Once the pipes are laid,

a thin layer of concrete secures them in place

and spreads heat evenly across the entire floor.

What the lads are doing here is they're screeding,

and they're just getting it roughly into place.

And now they have a screed rail,

and they're getting a better level again.

It's a work of art. Isn't it just?

It's like synchronised swimming

when all the crew arrive with their barrels and they start burying it in.

And of course, as soon as that goes into the barrels,

you're on the clock and it's starting to go off.

You got to get it down, get it approximately level,

get it screeded, get it finished before it goes hard.

The great thing about on the floor heating

is when you have an air to water system,

they tend to work at a lower temperature.

So you need a bigger expanse area of heating to compensate,

which is the ideal scenario when you've underfloor heating,

because then the whole ground floor

of your house is your heating element.

There's still a way to go before Sylvia can set foot

on her new warm floor,

so I'm leaving the crew to carry on their work

as I look at other ways of heating your home.

Solar panels have become much more popular and affordable over

the last few years,

and I want to find out more about how they work.

So I'm heading to Ennis, County Clare

to meet up with Darren O'Connor,

who has found himself becoming an expert on the subject.

Over the past few years,

Darren has installed a vast array of solar panels on his property.

So I hear you have a keen interest in solar photovoltaic.

So what's going on over here?

I run a business from the home,

and I was hit with a massive bill,

and I said, Right, this needs to be solved,

and we have the facility to be able to solve that problem.

I went and I put up, initially, 28 solar panels.

Then I had beautiful south facing garage,

so I put another 12 on that south facing roof.

And now I'm building a solar fence,

and there's plans to go further.

So these will pick up a lot of the sun during the middle of the day.

Yeah, we're not far off 12:now.

East and West will be working,

but they won't be working at high efficiency,

whereas this south facing roof will be

pumping out massive amounts of power.

Where is all this power going?

I can show you. Alright, let's go.

♪ (Bouncy music) ♪

Right. Quick little operation. What do you do here?

So ultimately, I make chocolate.

I make chocolate from cocoa bean into chocolate bar.

And then my wife has a chain of health food stores,

and she sells my chocolate.

This is how we make a living.

So you got your first instalment of solar.

You saw the savings you were beginning to make.

Month one, halved the electricity bill.

And then as the summer rolled on, my bills went to zero.

Now, when you come into the wintertime,

I will have a small electricity bill,

but are still sub 200,

which for me, running a business is a very affordable cost.

So, Darren, you're clearly a massive solar fan.

What money would you expect a reasonably

good system to start off with?

And how long is your payback time on a system like that?

So we're actually really lucky in Ireland.

There's zero VAT on a solar installation,

and we also have the SEAI grants.

So for an average home,

I would be expecting a 10 to 12-panel system,

somewhere in a region of 7,500 to 9,500 euros,

depending on whether you're adding a battery or not,

and then minus off your SEAI grant.

So you could, in theory, get a solar installation anywhere

in and around 5,500 to 6,500 quite comfortably.

Then we're looking at a return on investment,

sometimes of three and a half to four and a half years,

depending on how far into that investment you go.

So this shows the value of solar.

Not only can you generate enough electricity for your house,

But even in the depths of winter,

you can generate enough electricity to make a big dent on your ESB bills.

Back in Ballymacelligott, County Kerry,

the retrofit of Sylvia Thompson's 1950s cottage

is moving along at a blistering pace.

Over the last couple of weeks,

the heat pump has been installed.

Today, the attic insulation is being fitted

while the finishing touches are applied

to the brand new external insulation.

Sylvia is calling by for one of her regular inspections,

and she's getting comfortable with all the technical jargon

that comes with the retrofit.

The external wall insulation is part of what they call

this thermal envelope.

Note my good and appropriate use of all the terminology.

So they put what they call boards all the way around the house.

And then, of course, there's little lines of cracks in between them.

So then they put three layers of plastering on top of them.

So it has to be completely sealed all the way around.

So they've been very busy.

Inside, work on the attic is moving along quickly,

and Sylvia is looking forward to getting the details

from project manager Sean.

What kind of insulation is going?

So the insulation we use here, it's a mineral wool.

So unlike, I suppose, traditionally,

it would have been fibreglass insulation

that would have went up into these addicts,

and obviously it has varying implications, not most, I suppose,

in terms of health and environment, but mineral wool,

it's a lot more natural.

It's a natural fibre, and the thermal conductivity

is just as good as any fibre insulation

that would have went in the past.

And the rafters then, I think the rafters are

to be insulated as well.

No, not in this instance.

We're insulating on the joist here.

So this is what we call a coal roof.

So a coal roof would be the actual main area of the roof is cold.

So that's all sufficiently ventilated around.

But the insulation sits on the joist, so it keeps the house warm.

So if you think about the thermal envelope of the house,

again, it finishes here.

We're pretty much at this ceiling.

So the heat is retained within this area rather than heating the roof.

And what about the way I personally don't,

but some people store other things up in their attic,

but you wouldn't put things on top of this?

No, you wouldn't.

It's advised that you wouldn't throw it on the top of the wool

because it'll compress the wool

and that will have an Impact then on the thermal value.

And we're actually putting in a walkway from the attic hatch,

which will be going in afterwards,

over to the cold water tank.

So that's a requirement in order to service it afterwards.

So we're not, I suppose, anybody's,

not trampling on top of the installation.

♪ (Cheery music) ♪

Over the last few months,

Sylvia's retrofit project has seen her home taken over by builders

who have installed a big a range of energy-saving systems and kit.

I'm back to check on the final result.

Even with all the retrofit bells and whistles,

the exterior still looks like a traditional 1950s cottage.

So, Ciaran.

Hello, Sylvia. Welcome back.

Great to see you. Good to see you.

Thank you very much. Welcome back to my new house.

It looks like a new house.

There's so much work done since the last time I was here.

Yes.

And how are you? Are you recovering?

I'm recovering and enjoying it, and it's great.

Now that the sun has come through the clouds,

I can see your beautiful external installation.

Yeah, I mean, that's amazing.

You can see that it's hollow.

People are often asking me, How durable is it?

If you know the old, as you say, sliotar.

I wouldn't see you damaging with a sliotar.

But if you did, or a sharp object or something, if you did,

the plastering company can come back and they can repair it.

Then good as new.

Last time I was here, we were in our coats and scarfs indoors.

I can't wait to see what the temperature is like inside now.

Wow.

Total transformation,

particularly in terms of the heat.

I mean, it's so much warmer, isn't it?

Yeah, I mean, certainly don't need your coat. Definitely.

You won't be needing jackets inside here, I can tell you.

If you remember, Sylvia,

this was an area that I was a bit concerned about

because of the cold bridging detail around the edges.

But they've done a lovely job.

They've insulated the wall here

and they've curved it nicely towards the reveal of your window

and then curved it out again outside. They've done a lovely job here.

Well, they were a hard-working crew.

Well, Sylvia, this room is totally transformed, isn't it? Yeah.

And of course, you have your

underfloor heating with your new floors.

The stove is back in.

Its rightful place. With a new frontage.

Compared to the olden days,

maybe this time last year in the autumn,

would you have had the heating system on much now at this time?

Well, I would have needed it on

because even in the middle of the summer,

when you came into the house,

the house was really cold.

Or else you wear lots of clothes.

You were putting on the insulation onto yourself,

and now the house has its own insulation.

One room that really interests me

is where all the high tech heating gear is located.

This is my favourite room in the house

where you get to see all the artillery.

This big box, which looks a bit like a fridge,

is actually what they call your indoor air to water unit.

So now, instead of you controlling your heating system

like you did in the past,

you turn it on and off depending on whether it's cold or not inside,

now the thermostat does all that work for you.

So if you set the thermostat to 18 degrees or 20 degrees,

that thermostat will call your motorised valves,

which will call hot water from your indoor unit here,

depending on the temperature in the room.

So it does all the thinking so you don't have to.

The transformation of Sylvia's house is amazing.

What was once a cold cottage is now a cosy home.

How cosy? We're about to find out.

So if you remember the last time I was here, Sylvia,

I had this thermal imaging camera. I remember that.

We were seeing a lot of blues and dark blues,

and we were trying to get rid of those.

So let's have a look at the walls now and see where they go.

Yeah, I mean, straight away here, now, we were looking at the walls.

That's a huge improvement.

You can see all that navy and blue are gone compared

to what we saw the last time. It's chilly today.

It's not particularly warm.

It was great to see the installation doing its work. Good.

Seeing all the blue the last time made me feel blue

I'm delighted to see the blue has gone.

An encouraging view.

Of course, you went to the extra length, Sylvia,

of doing all the floors,

and they should be dramatically better than your old floors.

Straight away there, that's exactly what you want to see, isn't it?

All greens and yellows.

Greens and yellows again there now.

And you can see the benefit

when you look at the thermal imaging camera,

the benefit of doing all that work.

After my personal tour, it's time for Sylvia's friends

to have their first look at the new warmer pad

and see how it all works.

That's all the technology.

The temperature is very good.

comfortable in the house.

It's quite remarkable, the difference.

It's balmy warm, whereas before,

it was a house that was hard to heat.

Oh wow.

I'm delighted for her because her house is now warm, it's bright,

it's spacious, and for the next few years of her life,

it's going to be great.

So I'd like to congratulate you, Sylvia,

and you went from being an F up to an A3.

So you have first-class honours.

(Applause)

I would recommend it.

It's a big undertaking.

Some people said you're mad to be doing it.

You're mad to be doing it at your age,

which... I'm not really particularly interested in age.

So you have to ignore all of that.

If this is something you want to do, go and do it.

And other friends who've had retrofits done said,

later and later and later, you keep just enjoying the comfort of it.

What's been amazing about this house is, of course,

homeowner Sylvia, in her retirement,

to take on a project like this on her own,

but with a great team around her who really helped bring it together.

And now she has a wonderful, newly retrofitted

and renovated home to enjoy for many years to come.

Subtitling RTÉ 2025.