Vision 2030 and beyond for the estate 

Upgraded housing stock within the estate that achieve low energy ratings, lower running costs for residents, benefit the overall community & help to achieve climate reduction goals

Why even try to define a 2030 vision for the 515 within the estate or residents association area 

• Over 325 houses in the area are nearly 60 years old since they were built

• The vast majority of the original houses in the estate still have an open fireplace and the associated chimey stack. This type of solution within the house fabric is going to become less desirable and decrease the overall value of your property due to carbon related ruduction measures and current building regulations that discorage the installation of these types of solutions in newer build properties

• Even well maintaned houses require upgrades at some point in there lifetime e.g electrical wiring and plumbing 

• How can residents future proof their properties for the next 50 years, increase there property desirability and increase capital value in line with newly developed properties that are of similar size, cheaper to run and cheaper to finance

• In my opinion unless a property owner of a 60 year old house makes some decisions to sell there property at current market value or make a capital investment to upgrade and enhance there property they will get to a tipping point where there  property will start to decrease in value compared to newer build homes of similar size and location (however the desirability of properties in the estate and there value is primarily based on location and plot size), however, I believe we will get to a point were these factors will start to change and start to decrease the desirability and value of the overall housing stock within the estate. 

How and why to embark on this journey for the residents of the estate 

• Increase the value of existing individual housing stock within estate (current total housing stock in the estate would be worth 400 million plus)

• Leverage community buying power to achieve lower retrofit costs

• Leverage community grants, county council grants, SEAI grants etc

• Leverage lower funding rates for whole community and identify free funding oppurtunties for older house holders 

• Lower running costs and energy usage 

• Increase value of individual housing units 

• Prepare the housing stock within the estate for the next 50 years of usage and occupation 

Issues with a substantial amount of the current housing stock within the estate 

• 1960's housing stock will need to be upgraded sooner or later for wiring and pipework etc 

• High overall running costs due to low levels if insulation and inefficient heating systems etc 

• Low BER ratings, average E1, thus high C02 emissions etc 

• Low levels of insulation

• Electrical and plumbing components within houses getting to end of life 

A set of solutions that could be implemented for individual housing units & the overall estate 

• Community heating solution & investigate heating as a service (which would be a new initiative in Ireland)

• Ugrade from gas or oil to air source heat pumps 

• Individual solar & battery storage solutions

• Community solar & battery storage solution with any excess being sold back to grid 

• Utilise Solar as a service in certain cases 

• Community high speed charging units for electric vehicles 

• Various retrofit options for residential housing units tailored for each householder utilising all relevant grants available 

How could this type of vision be achieved 

• Engage with SEAI & DLRCC

• Identify all related community and individual grant options 

• Implement a set of mechanisms to review the requirements for each housing unit and the cost benefit analysis 

• Identify  and cost a diverse set of solutions using best of breed components that would suit infividual householders requirements 

• Identify an implementation partners that could facilitate a large scale project 

What changes should you make to a house to lower costs first (what is the biggest bang for the buck)

• Insulation within the house building fabric (walls, floors, roof & ceiling gaps) and heat loss (windows, doors etc)

after insulation and heat loss upgrades, you should look into the other types of solutions that will help to lower running costs and carbon emissions 

• Obtain a BER assessment, find and talk to people in the estate that have made changes to there houses and get their opinions on what changes worked best for them

• Heating controls i.e seperating the heating radiator circuit from the hot water tank circuit 

• Upgrade your radiators to the latest efficient models (low cost if you do not need to re pipe. The houses within our estate were installed with gun barrell pipes which will need to be relaced at some stage in the future as the are now in some peoples opinions end of life)

• More efficient heating system, look at a move from oil or gas to air source heat pump or similar (However a heat pump can end up costing more to run than gas or oil if your house is not well insulated or your heat pump is over sized for the overall house heat requirements)

• Solar panel for power / hot water and battery  storage solutions, which can reduce costs but are limited to roof space, house orientation 

• Low energy usage appliances, lightbulbs etc 

Is it possible for a home owner in our estate with a house with an E1 BER rating to get to a B2 rating for 30k plus grants ?

• I believe the answer is yes, however there are a number of hurdles that need to jumped and a lot of hard work is required by the home owner

The basic fabric of the 325 house built by park developments

• External block concrete wall with no insulation

• Internal non load bearing internal concrete walls on the ground and first floor

• Raised ground floor with no insulation (floor board on top of rafters)

• First floor with no insulation (plasterboard on underside of rafters and floor board on top of rafters)

• First floor ceiling minimal insulation between rafters and plasterborad below rafters 

• Single glazed windows 

• Boiler and electrical distribution in garage, hot water tank / imerssion in airing cupboard and cold water tank in attick 

• Electrical distribution board, power sockets for rooms and kitchen on seperate breakers, lighting circuits and and switches on seperate circuits 

• Radiator, hot water cylinder and cold watet tank all gun barrell back to boiler and all on one single circuit

Upgrades a home owner can do themselves but these upgrades take time, hard work and you live in a building site 

• Insulate the raised ground floor with 100mm insulation between the rafters and remove old electrical pipework and replace with new electrical wiring and pipework 

• Dry line internal perimeter house walls with 100mm insulation (downside you lose overall room size)

• Remove and replace non load bearing concrete internal walls with stud walls that include high levels of insulation / sound proofing (this also allows internal room changes, electrical changes etc

• Upgrade and refit all glass windows and doors to 1.2 u value units or below 

How owners of older housing stock face much higher costs related to deepretrofit solutions and the current SEAI grant structure

• The National Residential Retrofit plan 2026 is defined below

https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/658e9beb/Nat-Retrofit-Res-Plan-2026.pdf

• The SEAI current grant structure does not fully take into account the difference and cost implications of executing the same grant upgrade on a house built in 1960 compared to a house built 1995, the difference can be considerable and in most cases executing the same upgrade will cost more to complete on the older property

• Changes need to be made in the current grant structures to make the cost of upgrading older and less energy efficent homes cheaper to achieve for the home owner ?

There are many different solutions that are available but in my opinion, insulation is the number one solution that should be considered

Home owners of housing stock with a BER rating of E1 and between D2 & B2 and rental requlation changes from 2026 to 2030

• There are a lot of regulatory changes related to the renting of properties and associated BER ratings 

https://www.oireachtas.ie/en/debates/debate/dail/2025-11-20/49/

https://assets.gov.ie/static/documents/housing-for-all-a-new-housing-plan-for-ireland.pdf

• So to be able to rent out a property you need to be at a BER D2 by end of 2026 and a BER B2 by 2030, thus a substantial amount of housing units in our area could not be rented out legally as they are BER E1. Now ask the question how will this affect the value of your house in the future 

Real world data related to current running costs and reduction in running costs achieved through energy upgrades to help other householders to make informed decisions

• Of the 515 housing units within the estate there are approximatly 6 or 7 different designs, thus it is quite easy to calculate overall energy usage and costs for similar housing stock that has not changed since being built or has had some minor upgrades along the way e.g all E1 BER rated units in the estate 

• There are also a number of housing units that have recieved various types of upgrades that have increased there energy efficiency, running costs and improved there BER ratings, thus if some householders were will to provide certain types of data relatedvto the energy upgrades, costs, reductions in energy usage, increased BER rating and uplift in property price or lower funding costs .i.e green mortgage rates. This typevof informaton would provide a valuable dataset to allow other householders in the same type of housing unit to make more informed decions based on capital cost, return on investment and any uplift in house valuevcould be achieved

Note: If I had 1 million euros to buy a house in the area that I have lived all my life, would I buy a 1960's house with an E1 rating that costs €850K & 150K to upgrade to BER B2 or would I take my 1 million and buy a house with an A+ rating for the full 1 million ?

I know which choice that should be made and why the area requires a residents association and some people to make vision 2030 a workable type of solution for the area and the house holders in the area. Unless we move forwards we will move back...

 Above are only  a set of thoughts and my personal opinions and would need to be fully investigated to verify if any of the points above would be achievable and beneficial to the overall residents within the estate.