Original subtitles

# #

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.

Look at the walls.

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 it makes 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.

# #

Today, I'm on my way to County Tipperary,

where I'm meeting up with Emma and Michael Morrissey.

They live in a four bedroom bungalow just outside of Clonmel,

which they built in late 2003 and moved into in early 2004.

They're hoping to upgrade it from its current BER rating

of a D1 to an A3 rating.

They have enlisted the help of a one-stop shop

who have a plan to complete all the works in just a couple of days

and get Emma and Michael back into the home of their dreams.

It was the dream house because we lived

in a corporation house beforehand,

and it was lovely to actually get the opportunity to build our home.

We did have the attic insulated

and the walls pumped about two years ago,

and recommendations came out of that.

So we started saving again,

and we would hear a lot of the grants that are available,

and we thought it was a good time.

There is a draught, we noticed in the house.

We could be sitting here at night time and the door would pop open.

Or if I go close curtains at night time,

I can feel a draught coming in the windows.

With all in that and to the prices of energy,

the electricity is going up

and solid fuel has taken a big jump this winter, we notice.

It's a good time to actually start changing for the next generation.

This will just be an advantage,

one little advantage that we can make it to change.

We have a new grandchild coming the first week in April, end of March.

It's a new generation in our house.

It's a new change all the way around.

We really have no worries apart from the upheaval

within the house for the few days that it's all been done.

# #

Before the upheaval starts,

I can see that Emma and Michael

have kept their home in the very best of order,

which makes me wonder what they're hoping to achieve

with their planned retrofit.

As I look at the house, it's in pristine conditions.

Actually, you know yourself now, it would take a bit of work,

but the bones of the house need to be upgraded a bit,

just the heating and all that.

That's what brings us here today.

Well, it sounds like a very exciting journey ahead.

Will you show me the inside?

I will. Yeah, come along. Thank you.

No, bother.

# #

What a wonderful kitchen. Thank you.

Thank you. Very much.

And are these the original windows?

Yes, you see everything is original in the house,

and now we feel it's time to change.

When you look at the windows like they're in such good condition,

you think that they are that they are...

It's just the tell-tale signs.

All these little draughts kinda make for a cooler house.

We're hoping that the work we'll have done will sort all this out.

Emma and Michael have chosen triple glazing over double glazing

because it provides an extra layer of glass

which reduces heat loss more effectively.

This means better energy efficiency

and lower heating bills.

Triple glazing can also improve soundproofing

and reduce outside noise.

You're getting a new heating system. Tell me about the heating system.

The heating system we're getting in is the air to water heat pump.

We have at the moment an old Firebird internal boiler,

so that's coming to the end of its life now.

We're getting new radiators and a new tank

and system is going into the hot press then as well.

What is an air to water heat pump?

Think of a domestic fridge.

It extracts heat from inside the unit to keep food cold,

and you can feel that heat being released to the back.

A heat pump works in a similar way, but in reverse.

It pulls in air from outside, extracts the heat,

and uses a refrigeration process to raise the temperature.

That heat is then transferred into water,

making it hot enough for your heating and your showers.

To finish off my tour of the interior of the house,

Emma and Michael show me to the attic where they've taken

the first steps towards a warmer home.

Tell me, you've already had some installation worked

on here already. We've had.

The floors are done. They've brought up the insulation.

There was 4 mil, but then as you know,

regulations changed and all that, they had to bring it up again.

So they have all new insulation between your ceiling joists?

Yes.

Tell me, what works are happening up here now

when the builders arrive?

Well, mainly the ventilation system is going to go up through here.

There's ventilation going into all the rooms,

and it's going to be plumbed up into the eaves here.

The benefit of living in a bungalow

is you have a full heat recovery ventilation,

you're going to go in.

So you've ducts coming from all the habitable rooms.

And rather than looking for a route for all those ducts,

they can go straight up to the ceiling into the attic,

criss-cross and a meet up with the ventilation unit.

If you were living in a two-store house, it would be a bit trickier.

Doable, but trickier.

So you have all the benefits of the bungalow anyway.

That's it for the interior for now.

And I want to head out to the driveway to have a look at the roof,

where Michael has plans for seven solar panels.

This is a south-facing house,

so we will get most of our light during the day.

It will be the front of the house.

The great thing about solar is you're going to create a lot

of electricity, particularly in the late spring,

all during summer, right up into late autumn,

you'll be creating a lot of electricity.

A bit less in the winter, clearly, but of course,

all the savings you would have in the summer,

you can use to generally offset some of the higher expenditure

you would have in the winter.

On an annual basis,

you'll definitely be using less electricity, a lot less electricity.

That's a big benefit.

The Morrisseys are aiming to have this project done and dusted

in two working days.

I want to have a look at some of the costings,

and more importantly, the grants that are

available for the retrofit.

We better get the paperwork out. We will.

The torture bit.

See where it all lands.

The total cost of the retrofit before grants is 48,700.

No, in fairness, that is a huge amount of money.

It's a big bite.

When you put it all together, looking at things individually, no.

When you put it all together, you end up with a big figure like that.

That must have shocked you when you first saw it.

T'is a shock.

Yeah, but we'll be pleasantly surprised

when you see the grants that have come in. Right.

I'm ready. Off you go.

So the total cost of the retrofit after grants, 24,740.

That's that price. That's amazing, isn't it?

It's way under what we expected initially to have to pay out.

That must have been a huge relief. It was.

The grants were available to us. They were fantastic.

So you can see now why we went for everything at the one go.

It makes sense. It did, yeah.

Get in all the builders in one go, get all the work done,

and get all the benefits. Yeah.

And one of these days, quite soon,

we'll close our front door and we'll have a lovely, cosy home.

Everything will be done. No draughts. No draughts.

Yeah, absolutely.

Alright.

We'll see you soon. Okay, folks.

Take care. Bye-bye.

Bye-bye.

So there's an awful lot of work here ahead for Emma and Michael.

This house has been their family home for over two decades.

And now with the kids grown and the savings in place,

they're determined to transform their home into a warm,

energy-efficient haven that they've always wanted.

But will the time scale prove too much?

We'll have to wait and see.

The clock is ticking on this project,

and the contractors are on site in numbers.

The plan is to complete all major works within two days,

which is a tight turnaround.

But it's not going to phase plumbing contractor Warren.

It is a lot to get done in the time frame,

but from the moment we get here,

everybody is doing exactly what they should be doing

when they need to do it.

We all work really hard on the days

we're doing these to cause minimal disruption to the customers.

Today we'll be taking out the oil boiler,

we'll be taking out the old radiators,

the old cylinder and the hot press.

We'll be fitting a new cylinder and we'll be fitting new radiators.

We're going to have a new rad

coming into the room here and there is no pipe work for it.

So we will use the pipework on the other side of the hallway

where there's an existing rad already.

So we will put the rad here where it'll come straight through

and we'll be able to come straight through.

So the only bit of pipework you'll have is literally up to the rad

and there'll be no other extra pipework or anything.

Working alongside the plumbers on site,

the window contractors are on a tight schedule.

They only have a few hours to swap out the old for the new,

and they're just in time because the existing windows

leave a lot to be desired.

The old windows, they were leaking a lot of air.

The insulation detail around the window itself wasn't great,

so any air that came in through the cavity was then

starting to come in at the side of the window.

You can generate all the heat that you like

and try and keep it at a constant temperature,

but if you can't hold that inside in the house,

you're trying to heat the whole world.

It's not going to work.

So yeah, the new windows will get rid of all that.

So that will make the whole house a lot more efficient.

We're heading for the end of day one here at the Morrisseys.

Emma and Michael are dropping by to check up on progress,

and Emma is nicely surprised by what she sees.

I love the door. Oh, yeah, it's nice.

That's exactly what I wanted.

The windows are lovely, aren't they?

Yeah. They've got a good solid frame.

They look good solid, heavy windows. They did a lovely job on them.

Will we open that?

Yeah, open it up there and we'll see.

Oh, wow. Yeah, it's lovely.

Oh, yeah. Isn't that nice?

Yeah.

It's lovely, isn't it?

God, it really puts a bit of light in, doesn't it?

It does. Even with a blind.

You'd be surprised with the blind open.

And they're really tidy, the tiles and everything.

There's no marking on the tile or nothing.

Because it's all been done together,

we can see the benefits really quickly.

In one day, to pull out 1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6 windows

and have them replaced and a front door.

That's great going.

Yeah. We've had really no hiccups at all.

And it changes the house.

I think it changes the house.

It looks very different.

But then it's something now that we'll get used to.

And we won't probably even notice it now in a couple of weeks.

But for now, it's like everything else.

Once you get something new,

it'll be lovely now coming into the summer.

Yeah, we're going to have to go back painting. Yes.

(Chuckles)

Today,

I'm on my way back to Tipperary to catch up with Emma

and Michael Morrissey,

who are carrying out a full retrofit on their modern bungalow.

This project is an unusual one in that all the works are to be

completed in just two days.

This is a big ask of the contractors involved,

so I'm very excited to see how it's all going

and to hear what's still left to be done.

Michael, good morning. How are you? Good, yourself?

< Emma's at work today, so Michael is flying solo.

You've a lot done since I was here last. Yeah.

You'd be amazed what can be done in the day or two.

What's happening outside today, Michael?

We have the heat pumps going in. Yeah.

A few radiators to be hung in the house itself,

and three windows going in at the back.

There's a lot going on here today,

and I'm interested to see how work

is progressing on the heat pump setup.

What they're effectively doing here is they're attaching the outdoor

unit to these rubber-oid legs.

There's a tiny bit of vibration as the fan goes around,

so you don't want that vibrating.

So it's a modified rubber, it can dampen the noise,

really, in the vibration.

With the outdoor unit installed, indoors,

Nigel is programming the heat pump system.

So the heat pump would have been designed for 45 degrees

to the radiators at minus three outdoor temperature.

These are steel rads which work fine with a heat pump,

as long as they're sized correctly.

Yeah, so it's an intelligent system. Exactly, yeah.

It isn't like... gone are the days when you walk into the house,

the house is freezing, you turn on the heating system.

These systems are already be monitoring the outside temperature

and the inside temperature, and they're aligning the heat

then to work with that. Exactly, yeah.

< The heat pump will soon be up and running.

Up in the attic,

I want to take a look at the demand control ventilation system

that works in conjunction with a new heating setup.

The interesting thing here is,

this man is lagging the extract

pipes from the demand control ventilation unit

to stop any condensation

because these pipes will be coming into a cold attic,

and the last thing you want is the warm air condensing

in the cold attic. That's why you're lagging the pipes here.

# #

It's not just domestic setups that can

benefit from demand control ventilation systems.

They can be used in a wide variety of commercial applications.

I'm paying a visit to Enniskerry,

County Wicklow,

to sit down with cafe owner, Peter Norton,

to find out more about the measures

he's put in place to make his business more energy-efficient.

Peter, tell us about your cafe and how you got

fascinated by energy saving.

Fascinated is probably the correct way of whatever.

But no, I bought here in 2001,

and we traded as normally and whatever,

and I just figured it could be done better

and more efficiently.

We basically looked at it,

we started off with the solar thermal,

which are the solar tubes as it generates the water.

Then when we could afford it, we went another bit,

and another bit, and another bit.

Obviously, running a coffee shop like yours,

you have to be very cost-efficient.

What was the initial cost in all these work?

How did that work?

The solar thermal, that cost about 5,000.

The heat pump cost about 6,000.

The big one was obviously the solar PV,

because unlike people's houses where they don't pay VAT,

you have to pay that on it.

There's also, it's a three-phase invertor we use.

It's supposed to a single-phase invertor,

so that's obviously more expensive as well. That costs us 19,100.

Then the monitor was about a thousand on top of that,

but the monitor is brilliant.

Behind the scenes,

Peter is taking me to see

the engine that's driving the reduction

of his energy bills in the café.

This is the heat pump,

and it takes the hot air out of the kitchen,

which is the other side of the wall.

Takes all the heat out of it.

It also helps us save on energy

because we don't have to use the extracts in the kitchen.

It's often dis-replaced our emersion, so it's brilliant.

That's basically taking heat from the warm air

that you're expelling in the kitchen

and creating a hot water store for all your indoor hot water needs. Yes.

You're getting heat from waste,

really, which is really what it's about.

I mean, this is a real circular movement here

in terms of energy efficiency?

100 percent.

We used to have one big oven,

and what we did is replace it with two smaller energy-efficient ovens.

The main benefit of this, obviously,

is the fact that different things

are cooked at different temperatures,

so therefore you can maximise the energy efficiency of it.

So we're reducing it by non-consuming it,

if you know what I mean.

Outside of the facts and figures,

what is the overall benefit to your business?

I personally believe that a business owner

has a duty to the community, their employees,

and we are very sustainable.

We're a lot more profitable than we used to be.

And then even from our staff and our customers' point of view,

they love what we're doing.

There is some customers who come here specifically

because of what we do.

Peter's cafe is proof that even small businesses

can take control of their energy use.

With the right upgrades and planning,

savings on energy use can be real and measurable.

It's about using energy smarter,

and that's something we can all do,

whether it's a business or at home.

# #

Back in County Tipperary,

and the two day retrofit

of Emma and Michael Morrissey's three bedroom bungalow

is entering its final stages.

The last major works to be carried out is the installation of seven

solar panels to the south facing elevation of the roof.

This is a It's a straightforward process,

but Michael does have some questions for supervisor Lewis.

The installing of them and the fact of damage, and leaks and that.

We get a lot of questions about that.

We obviously use tried and tested mountain system

and how it works is it makes a very small hole

in each part of the roof.

That small hole is then filled

and covered over by plastic flashing,

and then the original slates go back in.

So the roof is entirely water tight after that.

You'll never hear a panel rattle and it'll never move.

And in terms of the integrity of the roof,

it's almost better than before we started.

And the panels themselves, what's the lifetime,

guarantee, lifetime of?

Depending on the panel manufacturer,

the panels generally have 20 to 25 years warranty standing over them.

The mounting systems are similar.

I think the inverters are 10 years off the top of my head.

Obviously, it's still fairly new technology,

but if they're willing to put 25 years in it,

then obviously, they're confident it's going to last that long.

Before the contractors finish the job,

Lewis has some maintenance tips for Michael

to ensure the solar panels work their best.

The actual panels themselves, they've got self-cleaning glass.

All we'd recommend is once every one or two years,

use a service of the electrical side on the inside.

Apart from that,

it's just once the lads have finished here today,

plug it in and go, and then you're fine.

You're talking about self-cleaning glass now.

How would you mean?

The glass has tiny little groves in the glass, and the water,

as it comes down from the rain,

gathers in those little groves and pulls all the dirt out,

and that's how it works.

If something did land on it or whatever,

you'd have to really obscure quite a large percentage

of the panel before it was affected.

So once they're up there,

leave them up there and let them do their job.

# #

# #

Just 48 hours ago,

Emma and Michael Morrissey's dream home

that they built in 2003 was invaded by a host of different contractors

who were given the task

of carrying out a retrofit that aimed to improve

the home's BER rating from its current D1 to a much cosier A3.

It was a huge endeavour for the one-stop shop to coordinate.

I'm back for one final visit

to see how it all finished up

and to find out about Emma and Michael's experience

of the whole process.

The amazing thing about your project

was it only took a few days. I know.

How was the whole process?

It was busy.

It was very quick, very busy,

but we were only exhausted for a couple of days.

But I suppose you would have had as much upheaval

if you had to move out and take your gear out of the house.

Sure, I think we would have had more upheaval, to be honest.

We just continued on with work and life went on.

So your original BER was a D1. That's right.

We all remember from school that D1 was never a great result to get.

And I know you were hoping to get into the As.

Yes. What did you get in the end? A2.

Great. Yeah, so we're really chuffed.

That's an amazing result. It is.

It has just brought new life to the house.

Yeah. And we're really finding the benefits of it now.

Well, having spoken about the house so much and your new A rating,

I'm dying to see what it's like inside. Will you show me around?

Lovely. Thanks.

# #

The one thing I'm noticing about this room straight away

there seems to be a lot more light than when I first saw it.

There is, yeah, because we always really had light here

because of the four windows.

But with the extra pane of light, we do see a difference, definitely.

And the room is so quiet.

We have a reasonably busy road outside, you can't hear a thing.

The triple-glaze windows have done the job.

We would hear noise to a certain extent,

but it has kind of reduced it.

So now your living space has been renovated

you've in a much more efficient house.

What's it like to live?

It's very comfortable, very cosy, very quiet.

It's lovely.

We have the ventilation system then over the cooker,

so it takes out all the smells,

the steam from cooking.

And we have no condensation on windows.

All that helps.

The ventilation system helps with that.

And we have that throughout all the rooms.

No draughts any more.

At the back of the house is the outdoor unit of the air

to water heating system,

which I know can be the source of a low-level humming noise.

Would you be that conscious of it now in the summer

if you were sitting out? No.

I think initially, the first few times

and maybe first coming into the summer that we set out,

but then you don't hear it any more.

It's like a noise that you get used to.

It's not particularly intrusive. No.

The interesting thing about a heat pump is

it needs a very efficient envelope

because it doesn't send a phenomenal amount of heat into the house.

So what it does send in, it needs to stay there,

which is why you've got all the work done

on the envelope of your house.

I know in the past, you've had the walls pumped,

you've got extra insulation in the attic.

So you have a very efficient envelope now,

which works particularly well with the heat pump, but you need it.

You can't just replace an oil boiler with a heat pump.

Not unless you have the efficiency work done

on the envelope of the house.

It's kind of a package deal then, isn't it?

Yeah, it is. Exactly, yeah.

The transformation here is just great,

and the A2 rating is an an absolute bonus.

But I'm curious to hear about the final part

of their retrofit package.

Michael, how is the solar working out for you?

Good, yeah.

Most of the work was done upstairs on that.

I actually have an app on the phone.

You can see here, your savings for the year,

your savings for the month, and your daily savings.

It all tallies up at the end of the day.

Simplifies it then. Great.

When you can track it then,

you can improve a little bit on what time you do your cooking

and all that things to coincide with better rates.

Even time of the day.

The great thing about the solar panels is our electricity bill

was nearly 300 before we got the solar panels in,

but our August bill was 114 euro.

A huge difference. We were really surprised.

So things are working

and we're beginning to see the benefits.

It's time for Emma and Michael to show off

their new energy-efficient house.

Friends and neighbours are here to see how the Morrisseys

heat their home today.

But guest of honour for the grand tour

is their first grandchild, Ellie.

It's lovely. It's really nice.

The windows make huge difference. Yeah, definitely.

That's really compact, isn't it?

Yeah, it's very nice. It's fabulous.

It's cosy, fabulous, yeah.

Just amazing looking.

Huge difference, yeah.

It's like a constant steady heat, which is lovely.

You've done a fantastic job.

The house was great before the works was done,

but it's even better now.

It's been a long road in some ways, but it was great to have it done.

We have almost like a brand new house, we feel.

It took us a little while to get used to how it works,

but we really enjoy it now.

It has changed the house, changed the heating,

changed the atmosphere in the house. It's lovely.

I'd really recommend it to anybody.

Don't be afraid, and it's a great experience.

My bit of advice would be to get your project manager

and to hand it over to them.

Emma and Michael's house was already immaculate on day one,

but within just a few it's become warm,

modern, and energy-efficient.

It just goes to show you that you don't need to dig up floors

or uproot your life to transform your home.

With their new grandchild now,

part of the picture,

it's a perfect, cosy, healthy space,

just in time to share it with a new member of the family.