COMHAIRLE CONTAE ÁTHA CLIATH THEAS
SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
MEETING OF SOUTH DUBLIN COUNTY COUNCIL
Monday, June 13, 2022
QUESTION NO.14
QUESTION: Councillor M. Johansson
To ask the Chief Executive for an update on the retrofitting programme, including how many units have been completed in 2021/2022 and how many will be completed in 2022?
REPLY:
The Department of Housing, Local Government and Heritage (DHLGH) national Energy Efficiency Retrofit Programme (EERP), funds retrofit works including external window/door replacement, wall/attic insulation and ventilation upgrades, and replacement heating systems to include air-to-water systems, with a maximum average spend per property of €33k. The programme aims to improve the Building Energy Rating (BER) of Council housing stock to a minimum of B2 (or cost-optimal equivalent, i.e., the maximum upgrade achievable for the projected average expenditure per home under the programme), to reduce both carbon emissions and heating costs for Council tenants. Due to the project management required as well as the level of design works involved, the programme is being delivered on an estate-by-estate basis with areas selected based on age, condition, location and diversity of property types as it is not practical or feasible to deliver this scale of the programme based on individual tenant requests.
In 2021, the Council received funding approval of €3.2million from DHLGH for completion of works on 117 properties with a further approval for €5.1million for works to another 156 properties received in recent weeks to continue to deliver the project on a rolling basis with additional funding opportunities likely to be available under EERP.
To date, works to 76 properties have been completed from the inital funding tranche with surveys and works ongoing on the remaining 41 properties. In advance of the recent additional funding approval, our Planned Maintenance section identified an additional 249 properties to be added to the programme of which:
- 157 properties that have been fully surveyed and are progressing towards tenders for works during June and July this month in three separate batches of 50-60 properties each with works to commence from August
- 97 remaining properties surveyed to date will follow same process with tenders (in two separate batches) being issued during July/August with a view to works commencing by September
While delivery of the programme to date has been slower than intended, the delays are similar to those experienced by the construction industry in general, including lack of suitably qualified craft workers for specific trades (window installers, heat pump installers and insulation contractors), supply chain issues particularly heat pumps and otehr materials, but the planned maintenance team continue to examine opportunities to accelerate delivery and minimise any further delays.
Separate to the EERP, our windows and doors programme continues with approximately 600 current priority properties with poor performing single glazed & timber/aluminium frames identified for replacement at an average replacement cost of €10k per property with additional individual property surveys to be undertaken based on stock profile and maintenance requests. Contractors are in place and works are ongoing for installation of windows/doors at 133 properties with all works to be completed by June/July 2022. in addition, tenders are progressing under local government sector frameworks for windows/doors installation at 96 properties with works projected to be complete by September 2022 and further surveys/measurements are ongoing to finalise the next batch of 100 properties for window/door replacement with subsequent tenders, subject to availability of materials and suitable contractors.