Inside View from Ireland: Insulation Grants in Ireland

February 08, 2009

Insulation Grants in Ireland

ALTHOUGH I WORK WITH people who train specialists and consultants in how to measure a home's insulation qualities, I don't know much about the Irish government's latest offer to provide home owners with grants to insulate their homes. According to the press release, the TV report and the breaking news item, Minister Eamon Ryan thinks the average home owner could save EUR 700 annually by using government money to patch up their homes. In our case, that means the Minister thinks we could potentially reduce by more than 1000 litres the amount of heating oil we burn every year. That would be welcome but the grants available won't take care of our biggest leaking structure because there will be only EUR 400 authorised for external cavity wall insulation. We could get an additional EUR 2500 for internal dry wall insulation but that will shave space off the rooms of the house.The bulk of the grant assistance (EUR 4500 in our case) would be used for external wall insulation (at right) but that's not a real player for a three-year-old home like ours. We'll pay a few hundred euro to get our home appraised for its energy value and then queue in the Sustainable Energy Ireland system to see if we can draw down the grant. And if everything works as planned, we'll make a few videos outlining the process of reducing our annual heating costs. Insulation, insulation, insulation. It's passive and it's smart.