All language subtitles for Heat.my.Home.S01E03.1080p.RTE.WEB-DL.AAC2.0.H.264-DoRN_track3_[eng]

# (Cheery music) #
I'm Ciaran McCarthy,

and I've been working as a building
engineer for nearly 30 years.

I get asked all the time,

how do I save money on energy costs?

Well, retrofitting is all over the
news lately,

and in this series, I'm travelling
around Ireland,

checking out homes that are
getting energy upgrades.

That dark blue is the coldest.

This is typically what I'd expect to
see in an old house.

With prices only going up and the
planet under pressure,

more and more people are saving
money and energy

in their homes by taking on the
retrofit challenge.

I'll be showing you what's actually
doable

and what grants are out there to
help.

From heat pumps to HVAC,

I'll break down the technical
jargon

and make sense of all the retrofit
lingo so it's easy to follow.

You're just bamboozled with all the
decisions that need to be made.

So come with me as we retrofit
Ireland

and discover how you can reduce your
energy costs.

This is Heat my Home.

Today, I'm on my way to meet
39-year-old software engineer

Adam O'Brien, who is currently living
at home

with his parents in Ballincollig
in Cork.

This temporary stay is pending on a
major energy retrofit

of his grandparents' house,

which he bought from the family two
years ago.

It's a 1950s-euro bungalow on the
Commons Road in Cork.

Adam hopes to bring this house up
from an F

to at least a B2 energy rating,

and he is doing a lot of the work
himself on the house,

to which he has a strong emotional
connection.

My mother grew up in the house.

They moved in sometime in the '60s.

My grandfather had gotten a job
across the road in the HGW factory,

which then became the Dulux Paint
Factory.

The house was freezing.

We all lived in the dining room and
the kitchen, and of course,

then they got the gas, but my mother
would have been

delighted that Adam has it,

and the fact that he's doing all
this work now

to make it such a habitable and
warm,

comfortable house.

My initial fears going in to doing
the work myself was,

Am I doing it correctly?

Am I doing it the right way?

Looking up YouTube videos asking
friends who've done the same thing,

you realise that any direction that
you go will be the right one.

There's no major mistakes.

If anything does happen,
it may take a bit more time

and a bit more money, but you
can go back from your mistakes.

The initial dream was to get my own
place,

somewhere that I'm comfortable in.

I came into the house with three
priorities.

I wanted the place fully rewired.

I wanted a nice big kitchen, and I
wanted warm and dry.

After 15 plus years of renting in
different houses,

I've done a couple of winters
without central heating.

I'm just craving somewhere warm and
dry.

Climbing the steps up to Adam's
house,

I can see he's well underway
with the clearing out,

and I'm curious to get a rundown

on his plan of action for this big
project.

I see you're up and running with some
work already anyway.

Yeah, just a little bit of debris
outside.

You've a lot of the big, thick old
block walls and the breeze blocks.

What's your plan on the outside
from an installation perspective?

I'm going to go with the external
insulation.

So the entire house will be encased
in hard insulation.

It's the most expensive way
to insulate your house,

but it's a really good way

because the dew point on the
insulation is

on the outer surface,
so it just blows off in the wind.

I'm dying to see how you're
getting on inside.

Will you show me around?
Yeah, great. Come on.

# (Cheery music) #

So this used to be the good room.

This floor was suspended.

So I started filling in the
sub-based floor

with recycled materials from
elsewhere in the house.

The important thing here is you got
to watch cold bridging,

that you're going to have edge
insulation around the edges

so that the walls,

which will be typically a bit
colder,

won't transmit any coldness.

To help reduce heat loss,

putting an insulating barrier between
the wall and the floor

around the edges is a simpler way
to reduce thermal bridging,

which affects areas of a building
where cold can be transferred

more easily due to breaks in the
insulation.

Tell me, the windows don't look that
old.

Are you keeping these or are you
upgrading?

They'll be upgraded to triple
glazed.

On top of having the triple glazed,

which will dramatically reduce
the noise outside,

the air tightness membrane around
the windows

will help with air leakage,

so a double benefit.

Next up on the interior tour I take
a look at the attic,

and there are no surprises here.

This is typically what I'd expect to
see in an old house.

Sometimes you wouldn't even have
insulation,

but you have an amount of insulation
here already.

It's the only insulation in the
house,

so this should be taken out and
replaced with new insulation.

One of the most important things
in an old attic like this is,

you see here, that's old sarking
felt,

which has no breathability
whatsoever.

So when you have all your insulating

and air tight as everything done in
the house,

you need to make sure this area can
still breathe

because it will be cold and you can
potentially

get condensation on the underside
of the sarking felt.

So you need to make sure you have
adequate ventilation.

The attic can be the main culprit
for heat loss in any house.

So I'm going to carry out a quick
test

to check for any possible trouble
spots.

What I have here is a thermal imaging
camera.

What it does show you is it shows you
where some of the cold spots,

so areas that are basically sucking
cold into your house, right?

When you look at here now,

you can see the insulation in between
the joist.

It's doing a little bit of work.

It's not deep enough,

but the biggest issue is that the
timbers in between the installation

are actually cold bridging.

You can see them as cold lines on the
thermal imaging camera.

So what you'll be doing here now,

you'll be laying insulation between
the joists,

and you'll also be laying insulation
over the joist.

The benefit of that is they're no
longer bringing coldness

back into your building.

We're done with the interior
for now,

and Adam takes me to the garden to
reveal his plans for the roof.

So out here, I'm hoping to place
solar panels.

This is south-facing,

so it's obviously the best place to
put them.

And so the plans have about eight
panels.

Adam's plan to install solar panels
on the south-facing roof

is a fantastic idea

and will be a good source of
electricity for the house.

Even in dull Irish winter weather,

solar PV is viable as the panels
generate power from light,

not heat, and can still produce
some electricity

on a day with heavy cloud.

After an in-depth viewing of the
house,

it's over to Adam's family home,

where we go through some of the costs
involved.

Although he's doing a lot of the
initial works himself,

Adam has decided to avail of the
one-stop shop

programme for everything else.

Let's see how we're doing generally.

One of the advantages of going
to the one-stop shop

was that I wouldn't have to manage
multiple contractors

across multiple weeks, months, or
even years.

So this is a fantastic hub.

Yeah, I mean, look, there is an
awful lot to doing a deep retrofit.

There's a lot of different
contractors

doing a lot of different things,

and they all have to be staged,

and there's a bit of work in putting
all the grant together.

So I guess there's a bit of value
in all the project management.

Yeah, there is entirely, definitely.

So the total cost of all the works
before the grants

is a whopping 83,427.

And of course, the total cost of
retrofit works

after grants is 48,867.

It's still a very large sum of money
but this is a single payment.

And I suppose you're looking
at the lifetime of your home

as a long term investment and many
years of living

in a very comfortable home, and of
course,

dramatically reduced energy bills.
Yeah.

And I think it's somewhere that my
parents,

that my mother can come over,

or my aunts and uncles and cousins

and still get to feel that it's
still in the family,

but now it's something new and
exciting.

Alright. Thank you very much.

We'll see you again soon.
Thank you very much, Ciaran.

You have a lot of work to do.
I definitely do.

Nice to look. Take care.
Thanks very much.

< So we've spoken about some very big
figures there,

and this is after Adam doing a lot
of the demolition work himself.

He still has a load more to do,

and I'm looking forward to coming
back

to see if he gets it all done because
it is a huge task.

# (Buoyant music) #

It's day one on site for the
contractors,

and Adam has popped by

to check on progress for the first
big ticket item

of this retrofit project, the new
windows.

I'm feeling excited about it because
it is obviously the first step.

It's something I've been waiting
for.

It's the first big job to getting it
warm, getting it dry,

getting it a bit quieter as well
because of the main road.

I understand that my grandmother got
used to it over the years.

Also for some of the windows that
are being put in,

they're essentially smaller panes
for less vibration.

It's not the end of the line for the
old windows,

as Adam has a plan for them.

The windows that were taken out,

they had to cut the frames to take
them out properly.

The initial idea was that the
quickest thing

is to just break the windows
themselves

and just take everything out.

But my brother down in West Cork
was hoping to get the windows

to be able to recycle them into a
greenhouse.

So it's another aspect where the
windows will be recycled.

The windows are in,

and the next job to be tackled is
the external insulation,

which consists of slabs of rigid
insulation

covering the entire outside of the
house.

The guys are putting it together,

and it provides obviously a greater
layer of insulation,

a greater layer of keeping the heat
in to the house.

The guys start with a white plinth
at the bottom

and then build up with this rougher
insulation material

that can take on a bit of plaster.

The guys only started this morning,
so this has only been a few hours.

The only difficulty for them,

really, is just being able to cut
around windows and everything else.

Say the gable wall doesn't have any
windows,

so that will just be plonk, plonk,
plonk, straight away.

The work continues at a blistering
pace,

but lead contractor Jamie has
spotted a problem

that could slow things down.

This being your neighbour's
alleyway.

They've been kind enough to allow
us to do this wall,

but at the very end of the wall
there,

that gate would need to be removed.
Right.

And then attach it to their wall so
we can insulate that part.

Alternatively, we can go all the way
down

to the end of this lane way.

The little bit at the corner, the
workaround will be

we can do internal installation on
that room there,

on the wall facing out, if you get
me. Okay, I'd have to assess.

For the internal, what would that
look like?

The gable-end wall comes as far as
this line here.

So the gate is attached to the other
side of this wall.

So if your neighbours don't allow
you to move that gate,

we can't externally insulate this
section of the wall.

Now, the workaround will be this
whole wall here

gets an internal slabbing.

I have to think about it.

I don't want to annoy the
neighbours- Sure, I get it.

More than I have to. Yeah.

And so it does, again, more doubly
insulate this room as well.

This has always been the wettest
one.

You can see remnants of mould
and everything in this corner.

Sure.
So I I just have to assess it

because it's just a small other job
for myself to get done. But yeah.

# (Cheery music) #

Today, I'm on my way to catch up
with Adam O'Brien from Cork,

who's carrying out a deep retrofit on
his grandparents' house,

which he purchased a couple of years
ago.

Since I last visited Adam,

he has done an amount of work on the
property.

Both the windows and the external
wrap have been installed,

and the solar panels,

which will supply a good portion
of his electricity for the house,

have been fitted on the roof.

But there's still lots to be done,

and Adam's place is a hive of
activity.

Hello, Adam.
Ciaran.

I'm seeing loads of vans outside
today.

What's happening?

So the ventilation system is being
finalised, put in.

The second fixing, as it's called.

The conduits were put in previously
for it,

and the ducting for all the air.

So now they're popping it in and
checking it out.

And then while they're up there
in the attic,

they're finalising all of the attic
insulation.

So they're rolling out a lot of new
insulation for me.

Okay, sounds very exciting.
But just show me around.

Yeah, absolutely. Let's go up and
check it out.

The mechanical heat recovery
ventilation system

that Adam is getting installed is
a system

that brings fresh air into your home
while recovering

heat from the stale air it removes.

It works by passing outgoing warm
air through a heat exchanger,

which transfers its heat to the
incoming cool air

without mixing the two.

This means you get fresh,

filtered air at a comfortable
temperature,

reducing energy loss and improving
indoor air quality,

all while keeping your heating bills
lower.

One of the reasons I wanted the heat
recovery unit

is because the house has been very
damp in corners.

Even with the windows open
in the summer,

it doesn't move the air within the
house.

So be very interesting to see that
that's able to extract all

that moisture and that condensation
as well from the house

to keep it not go mouldy.

And I see you've also fitted your
solar invertor.

Yeah, so the solar invertor and
battery

were placed in a few weeks ago.

They were connected up to the solar
panels here on the rafters,

so that's the connection.

And you have a battery fitted as
well?

Yeah, the system is a three and a
half kilowatt solar system outside,

the five kilowatt battery, and that
battery,

I do actually have a direct
connection to it.

So if there's ever an instance that
the power is cut

in the house and I need to just run
something off of a plug,

I should be able to pull directly
from the battery as well.

And then anything extra is actually
fed back into the grid.

The one-stop shop helps set it up
to get it fed back

into electric Ireland.

The other It benefit the battery is
there's a setting on the system

so you can have your night saver
electricity

fill the battery at night as well.

So you can actually put your reduced
price electricity

into the battery at night,

particularly in the winter,

when you wouldn't be generating as
much power.

< Adam's ultimate goal is to someday
get off the grid

and become self-sufficient with his
energy needs.

His dedication has me wondering
about the steps

your average household would need to
take

in order to get fully off the grid.

This curiosity leads me to County
Kilkenny

to meet with Mike Wilkinson,

who is somewhere down the road
towards his own energy independence.

I hear you've been living off the
grid.

Can you tell me a little bit about
that? That's right.

My wife and I have been living off
grade here for the last two years.

It's been a dream of ours for the
last five years,

but realistically, we've only been
doing it for the last two.

But I think the best thing to do is
to come and show you the setup.

Okay, lead the way.

# (Buoyant music) #

So the first thing you're seeing
then and hearing, obviously,

is the wind turbine. These are known
as micro-turbines.

They generate AC electricity,

which is then sent into a control
unit inside the shed there,

where it's converted into DC
and stored into batteries.

And of course, with the wind
turbine,

you can generate electricity at
night as well,

when you wouldn't be generating any
electricity from your solar.

Absolutely. And not just at night.

Even on days like today,

where it's quite grey and dull or
in the depths of winter,

we can still have a source of power
coming in

that we can store and then use
inside in the house.

And when it comes to solar panels,
what an array have we got?

How many panels? We're running 36
panels at the moment,

but they're all small ones because
we bought at the wrong time,

unfortunately, but we're due to
upgrade that in the near future.

Currently, we're running 1.4
kilowatts

from the ground mount array and 3.6
kilowatts from the rooftop array.

Combined, we get roughly five
kilowatts.

I have never seen such an array
of battery power in one room.

How did you go about designing a
system like this?

There was a bit of trial and error
involved.

Technology is moving so fast
in the industry

that it's hard to keep up with
what's the latest thing.

So we started off with camper
van stuff in mind.

We found out very quickly that that
wasn't quite powerful

enough to run a whole house.

So we were scaling that up and
scaling that up until the point

where we realised that, no, you have
to go

with domestic-level stuff in order
to live a modern lifestyle off-grid.

If someone was inspired by your
story and was starting today,

what tips would you give?

Okay.

Make friends with an electrician,
be first one.

A lot of this equipment can be
bought individually,

and realistically, you have to spend
a good 6-9 months

learning about how to set it up.

So everything that's done here is
always done from a safety point

of view first. Because at the end
of the day,

you're investing somewhere in the
parish of 10,000 into this.

And if you do it right, it'll last
you 10 to 15 years minimum.

However, a small mistake could cost
everything in that.

Living off the grid certainly has
its challenges,

but with the right amount out of
solar, wind, and battery storage,

it's definitely achievable.

It takes planning, patience,
and a willingness to adapt,

but the independence it offers
makes it all worthwhile.

For anyone looking to make
the switch,

start small and learn as you go.

Back in Blackpool, County Cork,

and the retrofit on Adam O'Brien's
grandparents' house,

which he purchased a couple
of years ago,

is moving into its final stages.

All the work in the attic is done,

and today it's time for the
installation of the heat pump

and underfloor heating.

It's one of the biggest changes
to the house

to get the heat back into it.

I've been working for a couple of
months to try

and get the floor installation to an
acceptable level.

So there's been a lot of
communication

with the retrofit company.

I was obviously concerned that they
may come in and say, Oh,

no, that's not right. This is not
right.

You should have done this.

So essentially critique and then
pushing back the project

another few weeks. But that doesn't
seem to happen.

The floors are level, the water
pipes are in place,

and project manager, John,
is doing a last review

to ensure all is up to scratch.

Let's check in here to make sure
that there's nice,

even centres on the pipe work that
the lads have laid.

Everything looks good inside here.

As you can see, they've reached all
areas of the room.

There'll be no cold patches here
once the job is up and running.

Now, your under floor will be
tested today,

and it will maintain pressure.

So we know that there's been no
damage done to the pipework

before the screed is poured.

It's a big moment for this project.

Everything has has been installed
and tested,

and it's time to pour the concrete.

So this seals everything on the
floor

and becomes essentially a mass.

For the pipes to heat up,

it needs to be of a certain
consistency

or density to be effective across
the house.

And then the screed is a
self-leveling screed,

so it should come out to a nice
level across the entire house.

And once the screed is dry inside,

it may take a few days to up
to a week to cure,

and then I should be ready to start
designing and developing inside.

So this is very much the watershed,

the end of the major stage of a lot
of

the DIY construction development
work,

and it's on to design next.

It's been almost a year since work
began on this big retrofit project

for Adam O'Brien, near Cork City.

Insulation, windows, floors, and
heating have been fitted

to bring this 1950s bungalow bang up
to date.

I'm really looking forward to seeing
the results.

I'm hoping Adam's hit his target,

and today I'm making one final
visit to see how the place looks

now all the work has been completed.

Well. How's it going?
Good.

How's are things?
Good now.

How are you?
Very good.

Do you want to come inside?
Yeah, let's go.

Wow, it's roasting in here.

Yeah, it's a definite change to what
it was before.

I won't need the jacket.
No, definitely not.

So how's everything been going?
It's been going very well.

Things have really come together in
the last few months.

It's been a massive DIY project.

So just going room by room just
to finish it off,

get it to my comfort level.

It'll be nice and warm and
everything else in here.

Adam, this room is completely
transformed as I was last here.

And the one thing I'm really
noticing is

there's busy traffic outside and I
can hear very little of it.

Yeah, massive change from when
the double glaze was in.

Being able to sit down and chill
out in the sitting room,

nice and quiet.

Just ignore any weather or traffic
outside has been amazing.

And I see you've refitted your
precious stove.

Yeah, I had that installed
previously just to try

and get a bit more heat into the
house prior to the energy upgrades,

but haven't necessarily needed it
yet.

So I haven't fired it up this season
at all.

It does slightly impact your BER,

but a lot of people nowadays like
to have the stove

just so that they have that backup
plan

in case there was a power cut.

In this room, I had a problem with a
cold bridging here

where the external installation
couldn't be put on.

It was just approximately about
a metre, metre and a half,

where the gable end of my bungalow

and the neighbour essentially have a
gate there.

So they were very kind to allow

the external installation to come
up all the way on the lane way

that they have access to, which is
on their property line.

So for this room, I put in insulated
boards here,

insulated plaster board, just to
cover that last little bit.

I did the entire wall to keep it
uniform

because I didn't want any little
notches

or little bits the wall coming out.

It doesn't take too much away from
the room itself.

It still feels quite spacious.

So it was a very easy decision to
make.

The new insulation and underfloor
heating

ensure Adam's home is cosy and warm
today.

But I want to see just how warm it is
compared to a year ago.

So let's have a look at your attic

now that you've all the insulation
work done.

God, there's a huge difference.

This is keeping your heat downstairs,
and of course,

the attic is cold because you're
keeping the heat downstairs,

none the heat is coming
up into the attic.

Yeah, it's great to see all
the extra fluffy insulation up here

really encapsulating that envelope.

Throughout this renovation project,

Adam has been aiming for a BER rating
of B2.

Has he achieved this goal?

So all this work has been done
to dramatically improve

the energy efficiency of your home.

So the real question is, where did
your BER land?

Yeah, the BER.

So when this whole project started,
the BER was an F.

So it was pretty, pretty, at the
bottom, G,

obviously being the lowest.

And so it was reassessed recently.

So I'm happy to report that I have
an A1 rating.

Really? That is an amazing
achievement.

Well done. Well, that's amazing.

That is superb.

So it's really good to have that to
show off the level of work

and the investment in time that I've
put into the house.

# #

My work here is done and dusted.

All that remains is for Adam to throw
his new hall door open

and welcome family family and friends
to have their own

tour of his transformed home.

(Chatter)

He's had frustrated times and
everything,

but he stayed motivated in fairness
through it all.

He's put a lot of love and blood,
sweat, and tears into this,

so it's fantastic to finally see
that it's all paid off.

Hopefully, he'll have many happy
years in his cosy new home.

Adam, to celebrate the lovely warm
house you've welcomed us

into today, I brought around a little
bit of champagne.

Thought we might have a glass and
raise a toast.

If you marked my ceiling.
(Laughter)

I think I'll just add it to the snag
list.

< Kind of excited to see how the
winter fares inside here.

Two years ago, when I was asked in
here,

when it was all intact, it was very
cold,

wearing a hoodie the whole time,

trying to get the fire going.

Not great, but I'm hoping to sit
on one of the couches,

look out onto dark, sleety, snowy
weather,

and just be warm and comfortable
inside,

and just that cosy feeling.

Thanks, everyone, for coming.
Cheers.

(All) Cheers.
Well done.

< This has been a long road for Adam.

Getting hands-on and taking on any
renovation project yourself

takes a lot of courage, especially
when you have all

the technology of the deep retrofit
to think of.

But now, their cherished family
home is safe and warm

for generations to come.

Subtitling
RTÉ 2025.