Sir, – John FitzGerald highlights the major benefits of retrofitting his 1970s semi while identifying some of the drawbacks associated with such an undertaking (“My wife was sceptical, but retrofitting our 1970s semi with a heat pump was a smart move,” August 17th).
As a result of the upgrade John’s house went from a Ber of D2 to A2 – a very significant improvement. The sale of solar electricity to the network, the self-generation of electricity needs and the savings on heating bills produced a sizeable saving of €2,600 on energy usage in one year.
These savings coupled with reduced carbon emissions represents a substantial win for John and his family. He doesn’t shirk mentioning the time taken to carry out the project and the disruption caused by the work involved.
His summary on the face of it seems to cover all bases except for one very important factor – the overall cost of the project and the amount John and his family had to spend from their own resources after grants etc had been considered.
RM Block
The savings produced by the retrofit need to be set against the outlay by the houseowner in order to calculate the payback period.
There is no doubt that the upfront cost of this type of retrofitting is the biggest single obstacle to the adoption of these energy-saving technologies.
Maybe John can revisit this topic in a future column and furnish readers with the figures referred to above, – Yours, etc,
GERARD FARRELLY,
Fairview,
Dublin 3.
