how to stimulate deep retrofit There was a time when governments thought that simply offering grants for cavity wall insulation and heating system upgrades would be enough to stimulate mass upgrade of our building stock. But ‘shallow’ measures such as these may not be sufficient to drastically cut carbon emissions and make a real difference to occupant comfort and health, and convincing homeowners to upgrade their homes to a much higher standard will require a clever mix of psychology and smart financing Words: John Cradden There’s been a fair bit of hand-wringing over post-retrofit inertia over the last few years, with Irish figures showing that the numbers undertaking shallow energy retrofits has fallen off a cliff since 2011. So where does that leave those tasked with persuading sceptical homeowners of the virtues of undertaking deep retrofits, including those to the passive house standard? Much of the talk appears to have focused on whether or not we should move away from grant-based support programmes like the Better Energy Scheme to more market-based approaches like pay as you save. But at least part of the overall answer may well be found by looking more closely at the psychology of retrofitting, according to Fintan Smyth, building physics manager for Isover Ireland and Gyproc. A qualified architectural technician, BER assessor and trainer, and passive house designer, Smyth has been living and breathing the issue of how to market deep retrofits in Ireland while also working to promote a sustainability agenda. Among other things, he was seconded to
Ireland’s Department of Energy in 2013 to develop viable industry-led proposals for a national residential retrofit strategy as part of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland’s (SEAI’s) Better Energy Financing project, and earlier this year submitted a dissertation for an MSc in architecture: environment and energy studies (University of East London) entitled: ‘New expectations: assessing a marketing proposal for energy efficient retrofit in Ireland”. For Smyth, the issue is less to do with economics as the simple fact that people don’t want to buy something they don’t really understand. “We’ve got to find a way to make people want energy efficiency,” he said. “At the end of the day, it really isn’t about the money because if we, as individuals in a first world country, really wanted this we would find a way to finance it.” Smyth says this point really hit home recently while speaking about financing at an event in University College Dublin. During his presentation, he asked how many of the participants – the very folks who you would expect to ‘get it’ when it comes to the virtues of deep retrofits – had actually undertaken one on their own home. No-one put up their hand, he said. When he asked why, the only person who responded said simply that he couldn’t afford it. While he accepted that, Smyth also believes it has a lot to do with getting bogged down in the detail and over-thinking the problem, he said. “The more we know, the more we think we need to know and the more expensive it becomes (clockwise from top) Genuinely deep retrofit measures including external insulation to AECB CEO Andy Simmonds’ Grove Cottage; 300mm of platinum EPS floor insulation and attic upgrade at Tina Holt’s retrofit in Nottingham; and retrofitting of Munster Joinery passive windows at a Simon McGuinness upgrade in Salthill, Co. Galway