Renovating old social homes, Iveagh Trust says it can’t afford to put in double glazing

There’s scaffolding around two blocks of the old Iveagh Trust buildings off Patrick Street.

The housing charity is renovating its social homes in the Bull Alley Estate, a complex more than a century old, and also a protected structure.

Works are underway to restore the red-brick facades. And the Iveagh Trust plans to restore the sash windows in these blocks too, said a spokesperson recently.

The social tenants won’t get double glazing though.

“While it is possible to install double-glazing windows in these buildings, we simply do not have the resources to cover the costs involved,” says the spokesperson.

“The Trust also has several thousand wooden sash windows in these buildings and has spent over €1.5 million restoring them in recent years,” she says.

Independent Councillor Mannix Flynn says he is surprised there isn’t enough funding for housing charities to install double-glazed windows in social homes, given the risks of fuel poverty.

The decision will save Iveagh Trust money in windows, but cost tenants money in continued higher heating bills. It also misses an opportunity to reduce energy use and carbon emissions.

“Not installing double glazing is a travesty,” Flynn says.

Last year, the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland provided loans or grants for energy upgrades to 730 homes managed by housing charities, said a spokesperson for the Department of Housing.

But housing charities cannot access the Energy Efficient Retrofit Programme, which gives grants to local councils to bring social homes up to a B2 energy rating, or as close as practical.

To speed up retrofitting, there needs to be a specific budget for that for older social homes owned by housing charities, says Ken Reid, the communications coordinator with the Irish Council for Social Housing (ICSH).

That would “help to meet Government climate action targets whilst also reducing fuel poverty for low-income and vulnerable households”, he said.

Is double glazing a priority?

The Iveagh Trust did already upgrade its sash windows on neighbouring blocks a few years back, said a spokesperson. In that case, it kept single-glazing too.

“So far, we have had no complaints from our tenants residing there regarding the quality of the single glazing windows,” said the spokesperson.

Flynn, the independent councillor, says that given cost of living and the climate crisis,  social housing tenants really need double glazing. “I can’t understand how they can’t access funding to bring dwellings up to standard.”

He wants the council to investigate the issue, he says. The tenants pay rent and management fees, he says, and they should be entitled to cosy homes.

A spokesperson for the Department of Housing said that double glazing isn’t always the  priority.

Most homes in Ireland with inefficient windows also have poor insulation in the walls or roofs, they said. And dealing with those would bring greater energy savings than window upgrades, they said.

“So the grants for individual measures are directed towards higher priority measures that are of greater benefit,” said the spokesperson.

The National Home Energy Upgrade Scheme and the Community Energy Grant Scheme provide grants for upgrades of the whole home including windows, he says.

Old homes

Housing charities manage thousands of older social homes, says Reid, of the ICSH.

Countrywide, they manage 61,500 social homes and have cleared the mortgages on around 7,000 of those – indicating that they are at least 20 years old.

But they do not have enough funding for renovations and retrofitting, says Reid.

As with councils, the rents that they bring in don’t cover the full costs of maintenance, he said, especially with rising construction costs.

Their 2022 report, “Building on Success, A Financial Roadmap for the AHB Sector”, highlighted that gap, he says.

The “economic rent” charged by housing charities can be slightly more than councils but it isn’t enough to cover the renovation of older homes, says Reid.

So, “some AHBs are now having to cross-subsidise these activities from other sources”, he says. “This is not sustainable in the longer term.”

Grants available cover around half the costs of retrofitting, says Reid. That needs to be increased to 90 percent to “make retrofits viable on a large scale, with price inflation factored in”, he says.

Reid says some housing charities are applying for project-based EU funding. But the applications are complex, so it is mostly possible for larger organisations with plenty of staff, he said.

Under Housing for All, the government’s housing strategy, it has set a target to retrofit around 500,000 homes nationwide under the Energy Efficient Retrofit Programme (EERP), including around 36,500 social homes owned by councils.

But housing charities cannot apply for that programme. “The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage does not run an EERP for Approved Housing,” says the spokesperson.