- 13 minutes ago
Heat My Home Season 1 Episode 3 Engsub
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00:01I'm Ciaran McCarthy, and I've been working as a building engineer for nearly 30 years.
00:07I get asked all the time, how do I save money on energy costs?
00:12Well, retrofitting is all over the news lately,
00:15and in this series I'm travelling around Ireland,
00:18checking out homes that are getting energy upgrades.
00:21That dark blue is the coldest.
00:23This is typically what I'd expect to see in an old house.
00:26With prices only going up and the planet under pressure,
00:30more and more people are saving money and energy in their homes by taking on the retrofit challenge.
00:36I'll be showing you what's actually doable and what kind of grants are out there to help.
00:41From heat pumps to HVAC, I'll break down the technical jargon
00:45and make sense of all the retrofit lingo so it's easy to follow.
00:48You're just bamboozled with all the decisions that need to be made.
00:51So, come with me as we retrofit Ireland
00:54and discover how you can reduce your energy costs.
00:58This is Heat My Home.
01:05Today, I'm on my way to meet 39-year-old software engineer Adam O'Brien,
01:11who was currently living at home with his parents in Balancholic in Cork.
01:15This temporary stay is pending on a major energy retrofit of his grandparents' house,
01:21which he bought from the family two years ago.
01:23It's a 1950s-era bungalow on the Commons Road in Cork.
01:28Adam hopes to bring this house up from an F to at least a B2 energy rating.
01:33And he is doing a lot of the work himself on the house,
01:37to which he has a strong emotional connection.
01:39My mother grew up in the house.
01:41They moved in sometime in the 60s.
01:43My grandfather had gotten a job across the road in the HGW factory,
01:48which then became the Dulux Paint Factory.
01:50The house was freezing.
01:52We all lived in the dining room and the kitchen.
01:55And, of course, then they got the gas.
01:57But my mother would have been delighted that Adam has it.
02:00And the fact that he's doing all this work now to make it such a habitable and warm, comfortable house.
02:07My initial fears going into doing the work myself was,
02:10am I doing it correctly? Am I doing it the right way?
02:14Looking up YouTube videos, asking friends who've kind of done the same sort of thing,
02:18you kind of realise that any direction that you go will be the right one.
02:23There's no major mistakes.
02:24If anything does happen, it may take a bit more time and a bit more money,
02:27but you can go back from your mistakes.
02:29The initial dream was to get my own place somewhere that I'm comfortable in.
02:33I came into the house with three priorities.
02:35I wanted the place fully rewired.
02:37I wanted a nice big kitchen.
02:39And I wanted it warm and dry.
02:40After 15 plus years of renting in different houses,
02:43I've done a couple of winters without central heating.
02:46I'm just kind of craving somewhere warm and dry.
02:52Climbing the steps up to Adam's house,
02:54I can see he's well underway with the clearing out.
02:56And I'm curious to get a rundown on his plan of action for this big project.
03:01I see you're up and running with some work already anyway.
03:03Yeah, just a little bit of debris outside.
03:06You have a lot of the big thick old block walls and the breeze blocks.
03:10What's your plan on the outside from a kind of an insulation perspective?
03:13I'm going to go with the external insulation.
03:16So the entire house will be encased in hard insulation.
03:20It's the most expensive way to insulate your house,
03:23but it's a really good way because the dew point on the insulation is on the outer surface.
03:27So it just blows off in the wind.
03:29I'm dying to see how you're getting on inside.
03:31Will you show me around?
03:32Yeah, come on.
03:35So this used to be the good room.
03:37This floor was suspended.
03:39So I've started filling in the sub-base floor with recycled materials from elsewhere in the house.
03:46The important thing here is you've got to watch cold bridging,
03:48saying that you're going to have edge insulation around the edges so that the walls,
03:52which will be typically a bit colder, won't transmit any coldness.
03:57To help reduce heat loss, putting an insulating barrier between the wall and the floor around the edges
04:02is a simple way to reduce thermal bridging,
04:05which affects areas of a building where cold can be transferred more easily due to breaks in the insulation.
04:12I tell you, the windows don't look that old.
04:14Are you keeping these or are you upgrading them?
04:16They'll be upgraded to triple glazed.
04:18On top of having the triple glazed, which will dramatically reduce the noise outside,
04:22the air tightness membrane around the windows will help with air leakage.
04:26So a kind of a double benefit.
04:28Next up on the interior tour, I take a look at the attic and there are no surprises here.
04:33This is typically what I'd expect to see in an old house.
04:36Sometimes you wouldn't even have insulation, but you have an amount of insulation here already.
04:40It's the only insulation in the house.
04:42So this should be taken out and replaced with new insulation.
04:46One of the most important things in an old attic like this is,
04:49like you see here, that's old sarking felt, which has no breathability whatsoever.
04:55So when you have all your insulating and air tightness and everything done in the house,
04:58you need to make sure this area can still breathe because it will be cold
05:02and you can potentially get condensation on the underside of the sarking felt.
05:06So you need to make sure you have adequate ventilation.
05:08The attic can be the main culprit for heat loss in any house.
05:12So I'm going to carry out a quick test to check for any possible trouble spots.
05:17What I have here is a thermal imaging camera.
05:20What it does show you is it shows you where some of the cold spots.
05:23So areas that are basically sucking cold into your house, right?
05:26When you look at here now, you can see the insulation in between the joists.
05:30It's doing a little bit of work. It's not deep enough.
05:32But the biggest issue is that the timbers in between the insulation are actually cold bridging.
05:37You can see them as cold lines on the thermal imaging camera.
05:40So what you'll be doing here now, you'll be laying insulation between the joists
05:44and you'll also be laying insulation over the joists.
05:47The benefit of that is they're no longer bringing coldness back into your building.
05:51We're done with the interior for now and Adam takes me to the garden to reveal his plans for the
05:57roof.
05:58So out here, I'm hoping to place solar panels.
06:01This is south facing, so it's obviously the best place to put them.
06:04And so the plans have about eight panels.
06:09Adam's plan to install solar panels on the south facing roof is a fantastic idea
06:14and will be a good source of electricity for the house.
06:18Even in dull Irish winter weather, solar PV is viable as the panels generate power from light, not heat
06:25and can still produce some electricity on a day with heavy cloud.
06:31After an in-depth viewing of the house, it's over to Adam's family home
06:35where we go through some of the costs involved.
06:39Although he's doing a lot of the initial works himself, Adam has decided to avail of the One Stop Shop
06:44programme for everything else.
06:47One of the advantages of going to the One Stop Shop was that I wouldn't have to manage multiple contractors
06:53across multiple weeks, months or even years. So this is a fantastic hub.
06:58Yeah, I mean, look, there is an awful lot to doing a deep retrofit.
07:01There's a lot of different contractors doing a lot of different things and they all have to be staged.
07:05And there's a bit of working putting all the grant together. So I guess there's a bit of value in
07:09all the project management.
07:11Yeah, there is entirely, definitely.
07:13So the total cost of all the works before the grants is a whopping 83,427 euros.
07:21And of course, the total cost of retrofit works after grants is 48,867.
07:28It's still a very large sum of money, but this is a single payment.
07:31And I suppose you're looking at the lifetime of your home as a long term investment and many years of
07:37living in a very comfortable home.
07:39And of course, dramatically reduced energy bills.
07:42Yeah. And I think it's somewhere that my parents and my mother can come over or my aunts and uncles
07:47and cousins
07:47and still get the feel that it's still in the family, but now it's something new and exciting.
07:54Right. Thank you very much. We'll see you again soon.
07:56Thanks very much, Ciarán. You have a lot of work to do.
07:58I definitely do.
07:59Best of luck. Take care.
08:00Thanks very much.
08:02So we've spoken about some very big figures there.
08:05And this is after Adam doing a lot of the demolition work himself.
08:08He still has a load more to do.
08:10And I'm looking forward to coming back to see if he gets it all done, because it is a huge
08:15task.
08:20It's day one on site for the contractors and Adam has popped by to check on progress for the first
08:26big ticket item of this retrofit project, the new windows.
08:31I'm feeling excited about it because it is obviously the first step.
08:34It's something I've been kind of waiting for.
08:36It's the first big job to getting it warm, getting it dry, getting it a bit quieter as well because
08:42of the main road.
08:42I understand that my grandmother kind of got used to it over the years.
08:45Also, for some of the windows that are being put in, they're essentially smaller panes for less vibration.
08:50It's not the end of the line for the old windows, as Adam has a plan for them.
08:55The windows that were taken out, they had to cut the frames to take them out properly.
08:59The initial idea was that the quickest thing is to kind of just break the windows themselves and just take
09:04everything out.
09:04But my brother down in West Cork was hoping to get the windows to be able to recycle them into
09:09a greenhouse.
09:09So it's another aspect where the windows will be recycled.
09:12The windows are in and the next job to be tackled is the external insulation,
09:17which consists of slabs of rigid insulation covering the entire outside of the house.
09:22The guys are putting it together and it provides obviously a greater layer of insulation,
09:27a greater layer of keeping the heat in to the house.
09:30The guys start with kind of a white plinth at the bottom and then kind of build up with this
09:34kind of rougher insulation material
09:36that can take on a bit of plaster. The guys only started this morning, so this has only been a
09:40few hours.
09:41The only difficulty for them really is just being able to cut around windows and everything else.
09:45Say the gable wall doesn't have any windows, so that will just be plonk, plonk, plonk straight away.
09:50The work continues at a blistering pace, but lead contractor Jamie has spotted a problem that could slow things down.
09:58This being your neighbour's alleyway, they've been kind enough to allow us to do this wall,
10:03but at the very end of the wall there, that gate would need to be removed.
10:07Right.
10:08And then attach it to their wall so we can insulate that part.
10:11Alternatively, we can go all the way down to the end of this laneway.
10:14The little bit at the corner, the workaround will be, we can do internal insulation on that room there,
10:20on the wall facing out if you get there.
10:22Okay, I'd have to assess, like for the internal, what would that look like?
10:26The gable end wall comes as far as this line here.
10:30So the gate is attached to the other side of this wall.
10:33So if your neighbours don't allow you to move that gate, we can't externally insulate this section of the wall.
10:39Now the workaround would be, this whole wall here gets an internal slabbing.
10:45I have to think about it, I don't want to annoy the neighbours more than I have to.
10:50Yeah, yeah.
10:51And so it does, again, kind of more doubly insulate this room as well.
10:55This has always been the wettest one.
10:56You can kind of see remnants of mould and everything in this corner.
10:59Sure.
10:59So I'll just have to assess it.
11:01Because it's just a small other job for myself to get done.
11:04But yeah.
11:09Today, I'm on my way to catch up with Adam O'Brien from Cork, who's carrying out a deep retrofit
11:14on his grandparents' house, which he purchased a couple of years ago.
11:18Since I last visited Adam, he has done an amount of work on the property.
11:25Both the windows and external wrap have been installed, and the solar panels, which will supply a good portion of
11:31his electricity for the house, have been fitted on the roof.
11:36But there's still lots to be done, and Adam's place is a hive of activity.
11:41Hello, Adam.
11:42Ciarán.
11:42I'm seeing loads of vans outside today.
11:45What's happening?
11:45So the ventilation system is being finalised, put in, the second fixing, as it's called.
11:51The conduits were put in previously for it, ducting for all the air.
11:55So now they're popping it in and checking it out.
11:57And then while they're up there in the attic, they're finalising all of the attic insulation.
12:01So they're rolling out a lot of new insulation for me.
12:04OK.
12:05Sounds very exciting, but just show me around.
12:07Yeah, absolutely.
12:08Let's go up and check it out.
12:08I'll follow you.
12:10The mechanical heat recovery ventilation system that Adam is getting installed is a system that brings fresh air into your
12:17home while recovering heat from the stale air it removes.
12:20It works by passing outgoing warm air through a heat exchanger, which transfers its heat to the incoming cool air
12:27without mixing the two.
12:30This means you get fresh, filtered air at a comfortable temperature, reducing energy loss and improving indoor air quality, all
12:38while keeping your heating bills lower.
12:43One of the reasons I wanted kind of a heat recovery unit is because the house has been very damp
12:47in corners.
12:48Even with the windows open in the summer, it doesn't move the air within the house.
12:51So it'd be very interesting to see that that's able to extract all the moisture and that condensation as well
12:56from the house to kind of keep it, you know, not go mouldy.
12:59And I see you've also fitted your solar inverter.
13:02Yeah.
13:02So the solar inverter and battery were placed in a few weeks ago.
13:06They were connected up to the solar panels here on the rafters.
13:09So that's the connection.
13:11And you have a battery fitted as well?
13:12Yeah.
13:12The system is a three and a half kilowatt solar system outside, the five kilowatt battery.
13:17And that battery, I do actually have a direct connection to it.
13:20So if there's ever an instance that I'm, you know, the power is cut in the house and I need
13:24to just run something off of a plug, I should be able to pull directly from the battery as well.
13:29And then anything extra is actually fed back into the grid.
13:32The one stop shop helps set it up to get it fed back into electric Ireland.
13:36The other benefit of the battery is there's a setting on the system so you can have your night saver
13:40electricity fill the battery at night as well.
13:42So you can actually put your reduced price electricity into the battery at night, kind of, particularly in the winter
13:47when you wouldn't be generating as much power, you know.
13:50Adam's ultimate goal is to someday get off the grid and become self-sufficient with his energy needs.
13:57His dedication has me wondering about the steps your average household would need to take in order to get fully
14:03off the grid.
14:05This curiosity leads me to County Kilkenny to meet with Mike Wilkinson, who is some way down the road towards
14:11his own energy independence.
14:14I hear you've been living off the grid. Can you tell me a little bit about that?
14:18That's right. My wife and I have been living off grid here for the last two years.
14:22And it's been a dream of ours for the last five years.
14:24But realistically, we've only been doing it for the last two.
14:27But I think the best thing to do is to come and show you the setup.
14:31Okay, lead the way.
14:34So the first thing you're seeing then and hearing obviously is the wind turbine.
14:38These are known as micro turbines.
14:39They generate AC electricity, which is then sent into a control unit inside the shed there, where it's converted into
14:46DC and stored into batteries.
14:47And of course, with the wind turbine, you can generate electricity at night as well, when you wouldn't be generating
14:52any electricity from your solar.
14:54Absolutely. And not just at night, even on days like today, where it's quite grey and dull or in the
14:59depths of winter, we can still have a source of power coming in that we can store and then use
15:03inside the house.
15:05And when it comes to solar panels, what kind of an array have we got? How many panels?
15:08We're running 36 panels at the moment, but they're all small ones because we bought at the wrong time, unfortunately,
15:15but we're due to upgrade that in the near future.
15:16Currently, we're running 1.4 kilowatts from the ground mount array and 3.6 kilowatts from the rooftop array. Combined,
15:24we get roughly 5 kilowatts.
15:28I have never seen such an array of battery power in one room. How did you go about designing a
15:34system like this?
15:35There was a bit of trial and error involved. Technology is moving so fast in the industry that it's hard
15:41to keep up with what's the latest thing.
15:43So we started off with camper van kind of stuff in mind. We found out very quickly that that wasn't
15:48quite powerful enough to run a whole house.
15:50So we were scaling that up and scaling that up until the point where we realized that, no, you have
15:56to go with domestic level stuff in order to live a modern lifestyle off grid.
16:00If someone was inspired by your story and was starting today, what tips would you give?
16:05OK, make friends with an electrician, be first one. A lot of this equipment can be bought individually.
16:13And realistically, you have to spend a good six to nine months learning about how to set it up.
16:18So everything that's done here is always done from a safety point of view first, because at the end of
16:22the day, you're investing somewhere in the parish of 10,000 euros into this.
16:26And if you do it right, it'll last you 10 to 15 years minimum. However, a small mistake could cost
16:31everything in that.
16:33Living off the grid certainly has its challenges, but with the right amount of solar, wind and battery storage, it's
16:40definitely achievable.
16:41It takes planning, patience and a willingness to adapt. But the independence it offers makes it all worthwhile.
16:48For anyone looking to make the switch, start small and learn as you go.
16:54Back in Blackpool, County Cork and the retrofit on Adam O'Brien's grandparents house, which he purchased a couple of
17:01years ago, is moving into its final stages.
17:03All the work in the attic is done. And today it's time for the installation of the heat pump and
17:09underfloor heating.
17:10It's one of the biggest changes to the house to get the heat back into it.
17:14I've been working for a couple of months to try and get the floor installation to an acceptable level.
17:19So, there's been a lot of communication with the retrofit company. I was obviously concerned that they may come in
17:24and say,
17:24Oh no, that's not right. This is not right. You should have done this. So, kind of, essentially a critique
17:29and then pushing back the project another few weeks.
17:31But that doesn't seem to have happened.
17:33The floors are level, the water pipes are in place and project manager John is doing a last review to
17:39ensure all is up to scratch.
17:43Let's check in here to make sure there's nice, even centers on the pipe work that the lads have laid.
17:49Everything looks good inside here.
17:51As you can see, they've reached all areas of the room. There'll be no coal patches here once the job
17:54is up and running.
17:55Now, your underfloor will be tested today and it will maintain pressure. So, we know that there's been no damage
18:00done to the pipe work before the screed is poured.
18:03It's a big moment for this project. Everything has been installed and tested and it's time to pour the concrete.
18:11So, this seals everything on the floor and becomes essentially a mass for the pipes to heat up.
18:16It needs to be of a certain consistency or density to be effective across the house.
18:21And then the screed is a self-leveling screed. So, it should come out to a nice level across the
18:26entire house.
18:27And once the screed is dry inside, it may take a few days to up to a week to cure.
18:31And then I should be ready to kind of start designing and developing inside.
18:35So, this is very much the watershed, the kind of end of the major stage of like a lot of
18:42the DIY construction development work.
18:45And it's on to design next.
18:51It's been almost a year since work began on this big retrofit project for Adam O'Brien near Cork City.
18:59Insulation, windows, floors and heating have been fitted to bring this 1950s bungalow bang up to date.
19:06I'm really looking forward to seeing the results.
19:12I'm hoping Adam's hit his target and today I'm making one final visit to see how the place looks now
19:19all the work has been completed.
19:21Well, how's it going?
19:23Thanks.
19:23Good now, how are you?
19:24Very good, very good, very good.
19:25Do you want to come inside and have a look?
19:26Yeah, let's go.
19:31Wow, it's roasting in here.
19:34Yeah, it's a definite change to what it was before.
19:36We won't need the jacket.
19:37No, definitely not.
19:39So, how has everything been going?
19:40It's been going very well.
19:41Things have really come together in the last few months.
19:43It's been a massive DIY project.
19:45So, just kind of going room by room just to kind of finish it off, get it to my comfort
19:49level.
19:50It'll be kind of nice and warm and everything else in here.
19:54Well, Adam, this room is completely transformed since I was last here.
19:57And the one thing I'm really noticing is like there's busy traffic outside and I can hear very little of
20:02it.
20:02Yeah, massive change from when the double glaze was in.
20:05Being able to kind of sit down and chill out in the sitting room, nice and quiet.
20:08Just ignore kind of any weather or traffic outside has been amazing.
20:12And I see you've refitted your precious stove.
20:14Yeah, I had that installed previously just to try and get a bit more heat into the house prior to
20:18the energy upgrades.
20:19But haven't necessarily needed it yet, so haven't fired it up this season at all.
20:24It does slightly impact your BER, but a lot of people nowadays like to have the stove just so that
20:30they have that backup plan in case there was a power cut.
20:34In this room, I had a problem with cold bridging here where the external insulation couldn't be put on.
20:40It was just approximately about a metre, metre and a half where the sort of gable end of my bungalow
20:45and the neighbour essentially have a gate there.
20:47So they were very kind to allow the external insulation to come up all the way along the laneway that
20:53they have access to, which is on their property line.
20:55And so for this room, I put in insulated boards here, insulated plasterboard, just to kind of cover that last
21:00little bit.
21:01I did the entire wall to keep it uniform because I didn't want any like little notches or little bits
21:07of the wall coming out.
21:07It doesn't take too much away from the room itself. It still feels quite spacious. So yeah, it was a
21:13very easy decision to make.
21:17The new insulation and on the floor heating ensure Adam's home is cosy and warm today.
21:22But I want to see just how warm it is compared to a year ago.
21:27So let's have a look at your attic now that you've all the insulation work done.
21:32God, there's a huge difference. This is keeping your heat downstairs.
21:36And of course the attic is now cold because you're keeping the heat downstairs and none of the heat is
21:39coming up into the attic.
21:41Yeah, it's great to see all the extra fluffy insulation up here really encapsulating that envelope.
21:46Throughout this renovation project, Adam has been aiming for a BER rating of B2.
21:53Has he achieved this goal?
21:54So all this work has been done to dramatically improve the energy efficiency of your home.
21:59So the real question is, where did your BER land?
22:02Yeah, the BER, so when this whole project started, the BER was an F.
22:05So it was pretty, pretty like at the bottom, G obviously being the lowest.
22:09And so it was reassessed recently. So I'm happy to report that I have an A1 rating.
22:16Really, that is an amazing achievement. Well done.
22:19Well, that's amazing. That is superb, yeah.
22:21So it's really good to have that to kind of show off the level of work and the investment and
22:25time that I've put into the house.
22:29My work here is done and dusted. All that remains is for Adam to throw his new hall door open
22:35and welcome family and friends to have their own tour of his transformed home.
22:41It's a change to what it was.
22:43It's so different from what it was originally.
22:45He's had frustrated times and everything, but he's stayed motivated and fairness through it all, you know.
22:50He's put a lot of love and blood, sweat and tears into this, so it's fantastic to finally see that
22:55it's all paid off.
22:55Hopefully he'll have many happy years in his cosy new home.
22:58Well, Adam, to celebrate the lovely warm house you've welcomed us into today, I brought around a little bit of
23:03champagne.
23:04Thought we might have a glass and raise a toast.
23:07Hey!
23:10If you marked my ceiling.
23:13I think I'll just add it to the snag list.
23:16Kind of excited to see how the winter fares inside here.
23:19Two years ago when I was last in here when it was all intact.
23:22It was very cold, wearing a hoodie the whole time, trying to get the fire going.
23:25Not great, but I'm hoping to kind of like sit on one of the couches, look out onto the dark,
23:31sleety, snowy weather
23:32and just be warm and comfortable inside and just that kind of cosy feeling.
23:37Thanks everyone for coming.
23:38Cheers!
23:39Cheers!
23:40Cheers!
23:41Well done.
23:41This has been a long road for Adam.
23:43Getting hands on and taking on any kind of renovation project yourself takes a lot of courage,
23:48especially when you have all the technology of the deep retrofit to think of.
23:51But now their cherished family home is safe and warm for generations to come.
24:02Get some really quick and clean.
24:04And we have to wish to be here too much,
24:14So much for all the day.
24:15Bye!
24:15Bye!
24:17Bye!
24:19Bye!
24:19Bye!
24:22Bye!
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