Cork City Council to pilot retrofit scheme on two northside social housing estates

Cork City Council is to publish in the coming weeks the tender for a €1.5m retrofitting pilot programme in two northside social housing estates.

Last October, council tenants in Glenamoy Lawn and Árdbhaile, which consist of 262 homes, voted to accept a plan to upgrade their homes. The first phase would see 36 homes upgraded to a B2 or higher level of energy efficiency, with an average budget of €34,000 per apartment, and a maximum of €42,350. 

That would amount to a maximum cost of over €1.5m.

The council said an airtightness test will be carried out on each apartment prior to and on completion of the works.

“Should this pilot project be successful the aim is to roll out the project to all the apartments."

To bring the remaining 226 homes up to B2 could cost a maximum of €9.6m, meaning the entire project could cost over €11m.

Almost a decade ago, Cork City Council replaced the old air-to-water heating system which had serviced the two estates, and which the council said cost more than €200,000 a year to maintain.

The new air-to-air system cost a total of €4m, of which Cork City Council paid €800,000, was introduced between 2016 and 2017.

Extremely unpopular

That system has proven extremely unpopular with tenants, who have variously described it as extremely expensive to use and “completely useless”.

Tenants have claimed challenges with the system meant they were left with heating costs beyond their budget, with heating in most properties done solely by standalone heaters bought by tenants. 

There were also significant issues, the council acknowledged in a report published last year, with mould growth in several properties, and ventilation was a major issue.

In a related issue, there have been persistent problems with rodent infestation in the two estates, and tenants claim rats are using the disused air-to-water heating system’s boiler room tunnels and pipes to move between the flats.

Superhighway for rats

One resident described the disused system as “a superhighway for rats”.

Workers’ Party councillor Ted Tynan, who retired last month, had campaigned for decades for the tenants of the two estates.

Last year, when the council announced the pilot retrofitting scheme, Mr Tynan said that even though the council had never admitted it had made a mistake with the air-to-air heating system, it was noteworthy that it had never introduced similar systems in any of its other properties.