Lower heating bills benefit tenants, not landlords, while rent caps mean they won’t get higher income from letting out cosier homes
Small builders find it easier to undertake retrofits than to build houses, as they don’t have to tie up large amounts of capital in buying and holding land. Photograph: iStock
Even with grants, modifying one’s home is expensive. Younger households may be able to reap the savings in their energy bills over a long period. However, these households rarely have much surplus cash. Pensioner households are more likely to have a savings nest-egg, but may not be around long enough to get the financial return on their outlay. And the work itself may be quite disruptive.
Public authorities should spell out urgently what areas will get a district heating system. Spending a lot on retrofitting buildings in those areas would not make sense. Instead, those efforts should be targeted where district heating is unlikely to be feasible, including rural areas and smaller settlements.
The public sector is the largest landlord in Ireland, with about 150,000 local authority homes let to tenants. Only a quarter of these have sufficient insulation to be suitable for conversion to electric heat pumps. So the State, on behalf of public-sector landlords, has the responsibility to upgrade the rest of this housing stock, and a programme of work is already in train.
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