Kildare County Council faces huge challenge to retrofit homes
Investment
Some 4,500 homes owned by Kildare County Council rely on oil, gas or solid fuel.
And, says Cllr Angela Feeney, it will be a huge challenge to upgrade the heating systems in these homes in the coming years.
Cllr Feeney and Cllr Aoife Breslin sought information about how dependent the council’s housing stock is on solid fuel.
Cllr Feeney called for more money to be made available to fund the transition.
She also criticised the fact that houses with lesser needs were refurbished ahead of dwellings requiring much more work.
KCC official Annette Aspell said that the cost per unit of changing over is €10,000 and that has increased in line with costs.
She agreed that it would be better to tackle the houses in need of greater work first, but the money is not available.
KCC’s housing stock consists of 4,980 units, not including units provided through long-term leasing schemes, of which the majority are heated by way of modern heating technologies such as heat pumps (due to the timing of their construction).
Ms Aspell also said the council is actively pursuing the national energy efficiency retrofitting programme (NEERP), which allows for a set budget per annum, to carry out works based on a maximum cost per unit across the councils housing stock.
In a report she said that to date some 175 units have been retrofitted with an additional 69 units scheduled for the 2022 works programme.
“It has been our recent experience that the allowances available through the NEERP have not been sufficient on a unit-by-unit basis, however KCC has provided funding above the grant sum if and when required.”
All new build social housing units provided by the council will comply with new regulations and so will be highly insulated and heated using heat pump technology.