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Help Needed : SEAI Heating Controls Upgrade Grant - stuck between rock & hard place

  • 04-02-2017 11:36am
    #1
    Kaskade
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 366 ✭✭


    Looking for advise from plumbers and any in Galway who are registered with SEAI and want to help please let me know.

    Here is my story and I don't know what options I have:
    • Moved into a house a year ago.
    • Has fairly good heating controls, underfloor - each room zoned, upstairs zoned, attic zoned.
    • All Rads had TRVs so we bought a honeywell evohome system to give us control of each room and remote control when away. There was no plumbing work to be done and an electrician replaced a timer switch with the control switch. We configured the schedules ourselves.
    • Applied for grant for insulation and This work was completed in October
    • BER guy waiting to do BER but we want to get heating controls "done" before BER to get all 3 grants in together without the need to spend money on 2 BERs
    • We had a plumber lined up before Christmas who was supposed to come out and tell us what needed to be done to get heating controls grant, applied for the grant in his name but then he disappeared off the fact of the earth.
    • Found another plumber who came out, assessed our system and determined that very little needs to be done to quality for the grant.
    • We thought we were in good shape and awaited a price from him.
    • One of the underfloor stats was not working an we asked if he could install a NEST instead but he didn't know anything about it. We got this installed through Electric Ireland and we pay for the unit on our bill. Now all rooms have working stats.

    The plumber came back to me to say that all the work required is electrical so I would be better off with an electrician. The problem is that the SEAI website only lists plumbers as the registered contractors for the heating controls upgrade but everything related to the heating controls is electrical. I completely see where is he coming from. I asked if there way any way he could do the work as I need somebody on the list to sign off to qualify for the grant. The work to be completed is as follows:
    1. Replace 2 rooms stats with blanking plates as each rad has a TRV that communicates with the boiler so the room stats could override these.
    2. Fit a timer switch to the immersion.
    3. Test that each room calls for heat and receives heat as expected.

    I was completely shocked that the price was €150+ vat for materials and €300+vat for labour, totalling over €500 in total. Having been born a bit longer ago than yesterday I know that the parts (2 banking plates, maybe some connector blocks and a manual timer) should cost about a tenner, maybe less in the trade and this work could be done in a couple of hours. I was expecting a price of about €200.

    A couple of questions I have that maybe some of you with more experience could answer.
    Can you apply for the heating controls upgrade grant if you already have good heating controls, or do you need to be at a certain level of poor control before you upgrade?
    Are there any electrician who can do the work or is it all plumbers?

    The grant is for €600 which we have spent and then some on honeywell and nest but none of the installers of these can sign off for the grant, just not sure how we can progress
    Tagged:


Comments

  • #2
    Dtp1979
    Registered Users, Registered Users 2 Posts: 12,870 ✭✭✭✭Dtp1979


    Kaskade wrote: »
    Looking for advise from plumbers and any in Galway who are registered with SEAI and want to help please let me know.

    Here is my story and I don't know what options I have:
    • Moved into a house a year ago.
    • Has fairly good heating controls, underfloor - each room zoned, upstairs zoned, attic zoned.
    • All Rads had TRVs so we bought a honeywell evohome system to give us control of each room and remote control when away. There was no plumbing work to be done and an electrician replaced a timer switch with the control switch. We configured the schedules ourselves.
    • Applied for grant for insulation and This work was completed in October
    • BER guy waiting to do BER but we want to get heating controls "done" before BER to get all 3 grants in together without the need to spend money on 2 BERs
    • We had a plumber lined up before Christmas who was supposed to come out and tell us what needed to be done to get heating controls grant, applied for the grant in his name but then he disappeared off the fact of the earth.
    • Found another plumber who came out, assessed our system and determined that very little needs to be done to quality for the grant.
    • We thought we were in good shape and awaited a price from him.
    • One of the underfloor stats was not working an we asked if he could install a NEST instead but he didn't know anything about it. We got this installed through Electric Ireland and we pay for the unit on our bill. Now all rooms have working stats.

    The plumber came back to me to say that all the work required is electrical so I would be better off with an electrician. The problem is that the SEAI website only lists plumbers as the registered contractors for the heating controls upgrade but everything related to the heating controls is electrical. I completely see where is he coming from. I asked if there way any way he could do the work as I need somebody on the list to sign off to qualify for the grant. The work to be completed is as follows:
    1. Replace 2 rooms stats with blanking plates as each rad has a TRV that communicates with the boiler so the room stats could override these.
    2. Fit a timer switch to the immersion.
    3. Test that each room calls for heat and receives heat as expected.

    I was completely shocked that the price was €150+ vat for materials and €300+vat for labour, totalling over €500 in total. Having been born a bit longer ago than yesterday I know that the parts (2 banking plates, maybe some connector blocks and a manual timer) should cost about a tenner, maybe less in the trade and this work could be done in a couple of hours. I was expecting a price of about €200.

    A couple of questions I have that maybe some of you with more experience could answer.
    Can you apply for the heating controls upgrade grant if you already have good heating controls, or do you need to be at a certain level of poor control before you upgrade?
    Are there any electrician who can do the work or is it all plumbers?

    The grant is for €600 which we have spent and then some on honeywell and nest but none of the installers of these can sign off for the grant, just not sure how we can progress

    Are you sure that's all that's all that was quoted for?
    If you can get block connectors and a standard for a tenner then do and sell them on to tradesmen. You'll make a fortune seeing at they're closer to 50.
    The price does seem high though


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