The Better Energy Homes grants (BEH) were introduced to help subsides your home energy efficiency. The Better Energy Homes grants require that a BER cert is submitted with the grant Declaration of Works when all the works have been completed. There is also a €50 allowance on the grants to get the Ber cert done on your house.

How to find out the year your house was constructed for the Better Energy Home Grants

The easiest way to find out the year your house was built is to check your Meter box. Most of the meter boxes installed have a date stamp of the year of manufacture.

If you cannot find the year on the meter box, you can look at your windows next. The date stamp for windows is usually between the 2 pains of glass. The date stamp on the windows can be hard to find but look at the front and rear windows as sometimes the sun will fade the writing.

If the top two approaches fail to find the year of construction you still have 2 more options. You can look on the OSI website on their map viewer section. Find your house on the map and on the right-hand side you can cycle between different years the photos were taken.

Your final option to find the year of construction is to check the planning permission of the house. this is last on the list because it is the hardest option. Some councils have all their applications online and you can look there but there are still some councils that have not populated their online planning maps.

Heat pump SEAI year for grant

The heat pump better energy homes grant requires that the house was built before 2011. Many people have asked, can they get the heat pump grant if their house has been granted planning permission before 2011 and construction started before 2011 but their meter box was not installed before 2011. The answer is NO for this, and this is because SEAI has set the grant that it is not allowable for houses that were occupied after 2011. This means you cannot live in a house if you do not have electricity so you needed an ESB connection to live there.

What Better Energy Grants can you get?

For the majority of the grants, your house has to be built before 2006. These grants include:

• Attic Insulation grants (€300 plus €50 BER Cert subsidy)
• Cavity wall Insulation grants (€300 plus €50 BER Cert subsidy)
• External Wall Insulation grants
  • Mid Terraced house or Apartment (€2750 plus €50 BER Cert subsidy)
  • Semi-detached house (€4500 plus €50 BER Cert subsidy)
  • Detached house (€6000 plus €50 BER Cert subsidy)
• Internal Wall Insulation grants (insulated plasterboard or Drylining)
  • Mid-terrace house or Apartment (€1200 plus €50 BER Cert subsidy)
  • Semi-detached house (€1800 plus €50 BER Cert subsidy)
  • Detached house (€1800 plus €50 BER Cert subsidy)

Better Energy Homes Heat Pump Grant

In 2018 SEAI introduced a grant to install a heat pump.

SEAI will provide a grant up to €3500 if you install an air to water heat pump in a house built before 2011. To avail of the heat pump grant, a technical advisory must assess your house and provide a report to detail if you house is heat pump ready or to detail, the level of works require to install a heat pump.

Technical Advisory Report for Heat pump grant

We are registered technical advisors for SEAI. We come to your house and do a survey on all the building fabric elements to assess if your dwelling is heat pump ready in terms of building fabric insulation. If your house is not applicable for the grant we will provide you with a report to show you the cost to upgrade your building fabric and the grants that you can apply for while doing this.

SEAI allows €250 of a subsidy for the Technical Advisory report. The €250 will only be paid if you draw down the heat pump grant.

Timeframe to get the insulation grant works completed

All the SEAI grants allow 6 months from the date of application of the grants to submission of the declaration of works (DOWs). This means that you should only apply for the grants after you have spoken to the contractor and assessed their cost and availability. You will also have to get a BER Cert done after all the grant works. The BER cert will tell SEAI what energy saving the additional insulation or grant pump made to the house energy rating.

BER Cert for SEAI Grants

A BER Cert is required at the end of each SEAI grant application. The BER assessor takes the grant application form with them and fills in the values that represent the BER before works were done and after SEAI grant works were undertaken. There is a €50 subsidy toward the cost of the BER cert for the SEAI grant application. Only SEAI registered assessors can fill in this form.