We love traditional buildings!! Fifteen Retrofit Strategy Plan Reports to facilitate SEAI grants for Traditional Homes

Over the past year, Studio Negri has completed fifteen Retrofit Strategy Plan Reports for pre-1940 Irish dwellings, prepared under the SEAI Traditional Homes Pilot Programme. Each report follows the same rigorous methodology: assessing a building's current energy performance, thermal fabric condition, and heritage significance, then proposing a sequenced programme of improvement measures appropriate to how the building was originally constructed.

These plans span a wide range of traditional building types across Ireland, from stone farmhouses and period cottages to Georgian townhouses and rural terraces. Properties covered in this report series include homes in Clontarf East, Bray, Saggart, Bluebell, and Ratoath, alongside farmhouses and cottages in Carrickmacross, Longford, Killiney, Edenderry, and Roundwood, as well as further examples in County Meath, Newcastle Lower, and Dundalk. Each of these buildings presented its own combination of construction type, condition, and heritage constraints, requiring a tailored strategy rather than a one-size-fits-all solution.

Two examples illustrate the range of interventions involved. A c.1900 two-storey stone farmhouse in Roundwood, Co. Wicklow, with solid rubble masonry walls and original single-pane timber sash windows, presented significant heat loss confirmed by thermal imaging at floor and wall junctions. The proposed strategy included internal breathable wall insulation, replacement of the oil-fired system with an air-to-water heat pump and underfloor heating, triple-glazed timber sash replacement windows, attic and floor insulation, and a solar PV system with battery storage, setting out a BER upgrade pathway from F to A.

A second example, a c.1920 two-storey solid masonry farmhouse in Co. Tipperary, showed thermal bridging at floor junctions, inadequate airtightness at window and door reveals, and an uninsulated attic, with oil consumption records confirming high energy expenditure relative to floor area. Here, the strategy proposed a 300mm attic insulation upgrade, breathable mineral wool external wall insulation with a lime-compatible finish, draught-proofing, secondary glazing to retained single-pane windows, and replacement of the oil boiler with an air-to-water heat pump, alongside a solar array, delivering a BER pathway from E1 to A.

What connects all fifteen reports is a shared conservation-led approach. Every proposed measure is reversible, breathable, and compatible with solid masonry construction, avoiding the kind of irreversible interventions that can cause long-term damage to traditional fabric. Each plan also includes a full thermal bridge assessment and a clear BER improvement roadmap, forming the compliance documentation required by SEAI before any grant-funded works can begin on traditional or protected structures.

This body of work reflects Studio Negri's ongoing commitment to Ireland's traditional housing stock: proving, project by project, that historic character and high energy performance are not only compatible, but achievable at scale.