Green policies: energy

ENERGY
Trina Cunningham
Warmer home
We spent a very cold winter here last year and we decided we weren't going to go through it again this year. When we heard about the insulation grant we decided to apply. In one day we had the walls and the attic insulated and there was absolutely no hassle. The bills that were big last year will hopefully come down. We should save a lot of money because we don't have our heat on much, compared to last year. The house is much warmer - it's retaining heat. The grant was very easy to process and went a long way to helping us pay for it. It went straight into our bank account after the work was done and the forms were filled in. There are lots of people, nearly any house that's not been built in the last five years that have had it done -- a lot of neighbours and friends. It gets round by word of mouth as well. We heard from a neighbour and we've passed it along to other neighbours and they've had it done.

Conor O'Brien
Energy installation specialist

We started up five years ago when we saw an opportunity to allow people to avail of the greener home scheme and the warmer home scheme grants by doing the paperwork for them. It was an opportunity to get away from desk jobs and do something a little bit more worth-while. It gave us a great change in our lifestyle and allowed us to benefit other people's lifestyles by getting them free hot water most of the year round.
People want specialists installers -- so it' about 100 percent of our business now at this stage. We like to think that were specializing in this as opposed to a 'jack of all trades'.
Generally customers won't need to use an immersion or central heating to heat their hot water between the months of late February and September, October. For the winter months that they have their central heating on they will make considerable savings in gas and oil.

100,000 homes have been retrofitted in the past two years, helping to sustain employment in the construction sector and lower energy bills for homeowners. The Green Party protected funding for the Greener Homes Scheme and introduced a national insulation scheme called the Home Energy Savings Scheme.

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News & Politics

[glontore]

It won't be until after FG destroy these policies (See FG manifesto) that people will see their bills goign up, their houses staying cold, and lament not voting Greens No. 1