An end-to-end home energy upgrade service

A new resource from An Post offers homeowners low-cost loans and access to expertise and high-quality service providers to assist them with home energy upgrades and retrofitting projects.

The An Post Green Hub also offers information on grants and access to tools, including loan calculators to assist homeowners to create a greener, warmer, cosier home while making savings on their energy bills.

“We asked our customers and homeowners what their pain points were when considering how to make their homes more comfortable and more energy efficient,” says Green Hub director Amanda Campbell.

“The resounding response was how overwhelming the process can seem, with a lack of clear and concise information, and advice on financing being the major barriers to getting started.”

The An Post solution addresses those concerns.

"Green Hub provides peace of mind through a managed home energy upgrade process and a market leading green loan with an APR starting at 4.9 per cent ," she says. "We are offering the lowest rate on the market for amounts above €20,000. It's essentially a one-stop shop, and we have partnered with SSE Airtricity to provide it."

The process begins with the customer going online and giving a rough description of their home. “That will give an indication of the measures they are looking at,” says Campbell. “They will get a cost estimate for bringing it from its current BER rating to a target rating. That can be anywhere between €20,000 and €60,000 depending on the age of the home and what the customer wants to do.”

Assessment

She says it’s a complete end-to-end solution. “We send out an assessor to carry out a complete assessment of the home and identify the measures required. They will arrange the contractors and look after the grant applications, which can be quite cumbersome, do the BER certification and take the back work out of it all.

“People don’t have time anymore to go around looking for contractors and so on. Using the Green Hub service they don’t have to worry about waiting around for contractors to show up or anything like that, the project manager will co-ordinate all of that while they get on with their lives. It will partner with other providers over time in order to give customers a choice.”

The Green Hub is just in time for the anticipated announcement of a new Government-backed home retrofit scheme.

“We expect that around budget time,” says Campbell. “Our exceptionally low interest rate will help consumers to carry out a full retrofit on their homes. Deep retrofits cost anything between €50,000 and €60,000, but they do pay back over time in improved comfort levels, which makes the home a nicer place to live. The cost of running the home is greatly reduced, and it adds to its value through the improved BER rating.”