Considering buying an E2 house - help!

Sarahsan

Hello,

I am considering buying a small E2 house (end of terraced house), around 70m2, 2 floors + attic. Ideally I would want to improve the BER (to a B rating), and do an attic conversion before moving in.

I know this is an impossible question, but would anyone be able to provide any kind of approximate costs for this kind of work? I don't want to get in too over my head, I have no idea about these things or where to even consider starting, as this would be my first home.

Thank you!

BryanF

What is your budget for carrying out the works?

Now the following is given with absolutely zero info on the house other than what’s stated above.. the way your talking you’ve 30k to spend in the attic ( if it’s a hip roof the attic may not be worth checking veering) and another 30k to spend to go from E to B rating (maybe windows and heating system)

and that’s before you find anything wrong with the wiring etc

Alkers

External insulation, new windows and doors and a small solar PV system would get you to a B at least I would say and should be doable for 20k. Allow another 5k or so for a condensing gas combi boiler. This would be assuming no other changes or upgrades are required to radiators, pipes, wiring etc and wouldnt include any interior decoration.

No idea of the cost of attic conversion sorry.

Alkers

There are a few seai schemes, including through an post which should give you an idea of costs yourself.

xper

https://house2home.ie/ is one of the SEAI's one-stop-shop home energy improvement suppliers and has an online calculator to pick and choose your upgrades and give you a ball park figure for cost after grants and BER improvement. Its a sales pitch of course so assume the figures are optimistic.

One advantage you have in your situation is you would not be too adverse to carrying out disruptive work such as floor upgrades so its an ideal opportunity to do a deep retrofit. I suspect you also won't be able to avail of a one-stop-shop supplier if you also want to carry out additional major work such as an attic conversion and you'll have to manage the grants applications, get a registered contractor, etc yourself.

circadian

I was considering an attic conversion myself but the quotes I was getting were all over the place and generally more than I'd be willing to invest at the minute.

I've taken those funds and put it towards a full retrofit since there are grants for most things. You may find yourself trying to strike a balance if a conversion is required due to lack of space. Without knowing much about your home or what your budget is I'd say you'd most likely wrapping the house, installing new windows and doors and a new boiler if needed. These would be fairly high impact in bringing the BER up, whether that's to a B rating or not, I don't know.

C. Eastwood

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118977849#Comment_118977849

If you are wrapping the house with EWI, the cavity must be filled.

New electrical will cast approx €10,000

circadian

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/118998029#Comment_118998029

Sorry, I'm struggling to see the context of your comment here. Neither myself or the OP mentioned anything about a cavity wall or rewiring of a house?

C. Eastwood

It was mentioned. Apologies

Gotfoodforphil

Hey, did you go ahead with this? Replied to another post of someone doing stomping similar and looking to get an upfront estimate of full upgrade costs. Online one stop shop calculators are varying wildly in their estimates!

The house is an E2 rated 3 bed semi-d, built in the 1970’s and around 100 sqm in size.

KildareMan

I used Electric Ireland Smart Homes last year on a detached 127sqm. I went with External wall insulation, heat pump, new radiators, external doors and some windows and a ventilation system in the hot & wet (kitchen, bathroom). Already had attic insulation. Built in 1990. It cost a lot, although I got all the grants available.

The only way to get any sort of concrete figures is to engage with one of the one stop shops and seek quotes.

Brianboru39

Hello Kildare Man,

could you please give me an estimate of your works ?

I am just in the process of planning for almost identical job and size u have done

thanks

Gotfoodforphil

Thanks for the reply! As Brianboru39 has said, curious about the total cost?

Is it electric Ireland that do a heat pump orientated upgrade only? No boiler upgrades, etc.?

KildareMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120284276#Comment_120284276

If you go for the same, that's

External insulation

Heat pump system

Replacement radiators (all mine were undersized as it was for the old heating system)

External doors

Windows (I only needed 4 replacing)

Ventilation system

After the grants which were approx €24,000 I paid just over double that. Bear in mind I paid in 2022 so prices have gone up since then.

Final BER rating (from a C2) is A2. I have the option of improving on that with further window replacement & adding Solar PV. Not really considering that (the PV) at present as we've an odd shaped roof that won't take many panels. Maybe when panels get to 1 to 1.5 kw plus each I will. That or put them up on a frame along one side of the garden. I question the replacing more windows though as the same assessors (not Electric Ireland Superhomes) only highlighted the ones that we replaced as part of the upgrades in the first place.

Long and short of it though is the house is at a constant temperature (set currently to 19 degrees) and we've put a light duvet on the bed and turn our bedroom rad off at night.

KildareMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120285518#Comment_120285518

See post above re costings.

You don't need to go the heat pump route if you don't want to, although it kinda goes hand in glove with the external insulation. First thing that happened when work started on ours was draining the old system and removing the boiler (we were LPG with the big tank in the garden). It was great to get rid of that tank as a. it was incorrectly installed by Calor in the first place (about 300mm from boundary wall rather than the 3m it should have been) & b. was able to move steel shed back a good bit.

Alkers

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120414622#Comment_120414622

Once you have the external insulation done and the rest of the measures implemented, your heat demand will be significantly reduced and to me, the payback of retrofitting heat pump is not there.

KildareMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120415291#Comment_120415291

Unlikely you'd end up with as high a BER though. Bear in mind as well that if your upgrade plans don't meet SEAI criteria you won't get the grants, as the stated aim of seai with the upgrade program is to bring a dwelling upto a minimum A3 standard.

My heat pump is significantly more efficient than the condensing gas boiler it replaced, by over 200% in fact. Or put another way for every kW consumed by the heat pump it's producing at least 3kW of heat.

Alkers

We are A3 without heatpump.

Agreed your heat pump is significantly more efficient but the problem is a unit of electricity is significantly more expensive than a unit of gas so the end benefit to you is not so noticeable, after a 10k+ investment.

KildareMan

https://www.boards.ie/discussion/comment/120417709#Comment_120417709

Great to have a warm house isn't it.

You are assuming I'm using the same amount of energy now as pre upgrades. As I said before the heat pump is significantly more efficient that my previous condensing boiler (Worcester Bosch), presently 300% efficient. As a consequence I'm using significantly less energy - my energy bills are half - I'm presently saving approximately €1,600 in energy costs p.a.

To my mind all the upgrades were worth it.