The meeting took place approximately two months after our AGM, with Richard Godley and Joe Kearney attending the meeting. The association prepared a written presentation for the meeting under the following headings:
- A profile of our membership
- Our Code of Conduct
- How SEAI are damaging the independence of the BER and the scheme
- The penal approach to auditing and suspension
- The bizarre practice of non-domestic points being combined with domestic points.
At the meeting were the Minister, his private secretary, several Department of the Environment civil servants, and Tom Halpin, the SEAI official in charge of the BER scheme at the time.
Pat Rabbitte
Independence means that contractors, auctioneers or others who stand to gain, like Bord Gais or the ESB, cannot be independent if they do their own BERs on the properties they are working on. Our key demands were that SEAI ban this practice rather than facilitating it in some schemes, and that the register of BERs should be opened to the public so that it would become apparent who had completed each BER.
We were very well received by the Minister. The Minister was in agreement that independence was paramount, and that it is important in avoiding catastrophes like Priory Hall, a topical issue at the time.
The Minister suggested to SEAI that they should meet us at least quarterly.
The Minister was taken aback to learn that assessors had been cut off from their livelihood on account of the penalty points scheme, and asked how many had been affected.
Time did not allow us to address the issue of non-domestic points being added to the domestic points.
Last year’s AGM took place in the Thomas Prior Hall at Bewley’s Hotel in Ballsbridge.
There was an excellent attendance with members from all over the country. Approximately 90 members attended the conference in the morning, with about 60 members voting at the AGM.
Bewleys Hotel Ballsbridge
We had interesting contributions from different contributors and from Xtratherm in our morning CPD slot. The Minister for Communications, Energy and Natural Resources, Pat Rabbitte TD, arrived to a great welcome from the delegates. During his speech, the Minister offered to have a delegation from the Association visit him in Leinster House. The problems Assessors were having with the BER system and its management were to be the subject of the meeting.
The adoption of a constitution for the Association was completed. The election of the members of the committee was as follows:
Those elected and who later took up office were Kevin McCourt (Cork), Donal Gilroy (Sligo, Secretary), John Neylon (Ennis), Michael Burke (Waterford, Chairman), Colm Holmes (Dundalk), Ray Dunne (Dublin, Treasurer), Richard Godley (Dublin, Vice Chairman), and Joe Kearney (Co-opted later, Meath).
A series of new building regulations have been introduced in recent years, and have helped to continually raise the standard of energy efficiency of Irish housing stock.
As of January 9th, 2013, any property that is being put up for sale, whether domestic or commercial, must have a Building Energy Rating certificate. The rating must be displayed on any literature and brochures and on any on-line literature prior to that building being allowed up for sale. There is a little leniency being allowed at the moment, so there are a lot of estate agents who are racing to get assessments done to sell their houses.
The regulations are binding laws, and they are enforced.
It is now on every solicitor’s tick list, so every solicitor will ask for that to be done when doing the paper work for buying or selling a house. It’s the Building Control Officer at the local County Council who is responsible for ensuring the regulations are upheld, and the SEAI are responsible for registering any and all BER assessments.
The building regulations change every so often. There was one set in 2002, which was upgraded in 2005—there were increased amounts of insulation specified for buildings from that year, and then it was improved again in 2008.
2008 Regulations
For 2008, the building regulations got much tighter. The regulations were now based on a figure of CPC and EPC, which is Carbon Performance Co-efficient and Energy Performance Co-efficient, and they set targets and the house had to be within certain energy-use limits. In addition to that, they specified that renewable energy sources had to be incorporated into new constructions. The regulations stipulated that you must have 10 kilowatt hours per square metre per year from renewable sources for supplying energy to the house—for a new build.
Furthermore, air pressure tests were a feature of the 2008 building regulations.
2011 Regulations
The next set of regulations came out in 2011, so any planning permission granted after December 1st, 2011 must also conform to those building regulations. The air-tightness testing on that was also reduced to a more efficient figure but, more importantly, the figures for CPC and EPC were dramatically reduced, making it very difficult for a house to pass. So today, at the design stage, you must go through the plans with a competent engineer and BER assessor to examine how the building complies with the regulations, and to assist the builder in ensuring that it does comply.
Tightened Regulations Impact on Industry
The regulations have affected the construction industry in the sense that anybody who is building a house now must get a BER assessor on board; someone who is familiar with the regulations, who is competent in going through the BER assessment, and who can ensure that the house complies. An engineer, builder or architect cannot sign off on the house to say that it is compliant to building regulations without a BER assessment, because that is the procedure now used to find out whether it complies or not.
There are very few new houses being built right now, and there are few BER assessors who have fully caught up with all the regulations.
The main impact of all these regulations is that, when building a house today, it should be built right. If the building regulations are followed, you will be happy to find yourself in a home that is reasonably airtight, well insulated, and that has some form of renewable energy generation attached to it. The owner / occupier of the house, therefore, will enjoy reduced heating and energy costs.
By Joe Kearney for the BER Assessors Association of Ireland
Solar energy can be very effective for heating up hot water, and it is useful in a domestic environment where there is a large hot water demand or on a commercial level, for example, if there are a lot of showers, or heated swimming pools. For example, a hotel normally has a lot of roof space, and therefore could install an array of solar panels to generate the heat required. It could then use that energy, and that would be cost effective for them because of their high bills in producing such energy from oil or gas.
It’s not very popular on the commercial front as of yet, because so many hotels and businesses have other competing investments that they need their cash for. But we think there are very large gains to be made for a host of commercial industries that use large quantities of hot water.
Two Main Approaches to Solar Energy
To clarify, there are two way of harvesting solar energy. There is one that provides hot water, and the other, called photovoltaic energy, turns solar radiation into electricity. We in Ireland have become very accustomed to both kinds of roof panels, and there are more people proficient in fitting them. The cost of them has actually come down a lot as well in the last 18 months.
If a house has an area of 1600 or 1700 square feet then 2 or 3 panels, depending on the type of panels used, would be sufficient to provide enough for satisfying the hot water needs and complying with the building regulations as well.
In saying that, these panels can normally cover all of a family’s hot water needs in summer, though it would only serve as a pre-warmer in winter. Cloud cover does affect solar panels, but because a lot of the sunshine is still coming through the clouds, they work with a slightly reduced panel efficiency, but it is still warming the water for you.
Not every house is suited—it depends on the existing piping, on the orientation of the house, on the roof type. A south-facing roof is best.
On larger houses, because you need more solar panels, the panels can also be used for supplying the central heating water, and they help in achieving compliance with the building regulations for larger builds.
Solar energy will improve your BER certificate rating, depending on the situation. It may, however, improve it only slightly on an existing house, so just bear that in mind if that’s the reason that you’re putting it in.
Low Maintenance
There is very little maintenance with these systems either, if any. If you have tubes, a tube might break, but that doesn’t stop all the other tubes from operating.
It is something I would recommend to someone who is building a new house, because they are cost-effective to put in at that stage. You are obliged to put in some sort of renewable sources in a new house, and they are readily available. In terms of an existing house, there are other priorities I would put ahead of solar panels. For example, insulating the attic, changing the light bulbs, replacing your boiler… There’s a long list! You could spend an amount on your house to the same value of solar panels, and get much more from reducing your energy bills by, e.g. keeping yourself warmer, rather than just supplying some hot water.
By Joe Kearney for the BER Assessors Association of Ireland
Upgrading your home is a very good option for people at the moment: it’s cheaper to get the work done right now because there is so much competition in the construction industry.
Furthermore, it’s very difficult to sell your house these days. Grants are also available from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI), and homeowners can use those to upgrade their house in highly-effective ways.
Under the grants, homeowners receive support for insulating their attics or their walls, for boiler controls, and even to replace an old boiler. In addition to that, they can get a fixed grant for the Building Energy Rating (BER) Certificate, which they will have to get done if they want to sell their house.
Grants Available
There are various grants for the different work you can do, and the SEAI website has a button called “Grants Available”—it explains each grant available.
The type of house you have will decide the insulation type you can use for the walls, and therefore the grant you can get for the insulation. There is also a set cash payment for heating system upgrades and for upgrading boiler controls.
The best thing a homeowner can do is to ring up a qualified assessor prior to getting any of the grant-aided work done, and the assessor should be someone who can do an energy audit. Get them to come out and to go through the house with a fine-tooth comb, finding out exactly what the house needs. The assessor should then match those needs with the grants available.
Generally, to keep in the heat that you are currently generating, insulating the attic is the cheapest thing to do—it is very cost effective. Any DIY handyman would be able to roll out the attic insulation if he’s careful, but it must be done properly.
Then if you have any kind of double-glazing at all, you should insulate the walls—they’re the next thing.
You can use external insulation or internal insulation, or you can pump the walls full of polystyrene bead insulation. You can pump the walls if it’s a so-called ‘cavity wall’—a block, then a cavity, and then a block. If it’s a hollow block wall it shouldn’t be pumped—it doesn’t work. The most cost-effective option for walls would be to pump in insulation, if that’s possible.
If you have single-glazed windows in your home then switch to double glazing, and if you have double glazing over 15 years old, especially if it’s with steel or aluminium frames, you should also consider replacing that.
The seals on windows degrade over time—15 years is their normal life span, though they can last longer. The seals around the window, the seals around the actual frame itself, and the seal between the two panes of glass in double glazing—they all break down. If you have condensation within the double glazing element itself, that’s an indication that the window has had its day and it needs to be replaced.
By Joe Kearney for the BER Assessors Association of Ireland