{"id":386289,"date":"2026-03-15T11:32:16","date_gmt":"2026-03-15T11:32:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/386289\/"},"modified":"2026-03-15T11:32:16","modified_gmt":"2026-03-15T11:32:16","slug":"retrofitting-will-heat-your-house-but-freeze-your-finances-the-irish-times","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/386289\/","title":{"rendered":"Retrofitting will heat your house but freeze your finances \u2013 The Irish Times"},"content":{"rendered":"

There are many reasons why people might want to retrofit <\/a>their homes, but saving money isn\u2019t one of them.<\/p>\n

A new Economic and Social Research Institute report notes that on average, uber-efficient A-rated homes consume almost as much energy (10,569 kilowatt-hours annually, to be precise) as F- and G-rated houses (10,964). Reality refuses to conform to convenient energy <\/a>models, with people in cold, inefficient homes often under-heating to save money, while their A-rated counterparts are more casual about turning up the thermostat.<\/p>\n

Even so, retrofits <\/a>are still calculated to save energy. After grants, a deep retrofit costs roughly \u20ac16,400 for an apartment, delivering about \u20ac700 annually in energy savings. If you don\u2019t mind waiting 23 years to get your money back, have at it.<\/p>\n

\"\"\u2018Over a billion eyeballs will be on the parade\u2019: St Patrick\u2019s festival CEO Richard Tierney<\/p>\n

It gets worse. For a detached house, your deep retrofit spend of \u20ac42,900 will likely deliver only about \u20ac900 a year in energy savings, so 48 years to break even. Bring on 2074.<\/p>\n

Here\u2019s another question, though: what about the opportunity cost? Stocks have historically averaged annualised gains of about 9-10 per cent, or 6-7 per cent after inflation. Invest \u20ac42,900 in global stocks at a 6 per cent real return and you\u2019d end up with over \u20ac703,000 after 48 years.<\/p>\n

Minister for the Environment Darragh O\u2019Brien recently said energy <\/a>bills will \u201cplummet\u201d if people take up the Government\u2019s increased retrofit grants, but the only thing plummeting here is your opportunity.<\/p>\n

Of course, there are other reasons \u2013 warmth, modestly higher resale value, lower emissions, out-Ber-ing your neighbours (the joys of one-upmanship, energy edition) \u2013 to do retrofits. But saving money? Not so much.<\/p>\n

Money spent today is money you can\u2019t compound tomorrow. That\u2019s why when Warren Buffett paid $31,500 for his house in Omaha in 1958, he called it \u201cBuffett\u2019s Folly\u201d. The Oracle of Omaha would surely see a deep retrofit <\/a>as an even greater financial folly, one that heats the house while freezing the finances.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"There are many reasons why people might want to retrofit their homes, but saving money isn\u2019t one of…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":386290,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[3],"tags":[9,10,18,38419,13,14,6,19,17,11,12,15,16,5,81744,7,8],"class_list":["post-386289","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-headlines","tag-breaking-news","tag-breakingnews","tag-eire","tag-esri","tag-featured-news","tag-featurednews","tag-headlines","tag-ie","tag-ireland","tag-latest-news","tag-latestnews","tag-main-news","tag-mainnews","tag-news","tag-retrofitting","tag-top-stories","tag-topstories"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@ie\/116232974960529030","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386289","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=386289"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/386289\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/386290"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=386289"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=386289"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=386289"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}