One Stop Shops explained

One firm, one bill, one job

A One Stop Shop is a firm registered with SEAI to run a whole home upgrade for you. They survey the house, tell you what it needs, hire the tradespeople, do the grant paperwork, and get the new rating done at the end. You deal with one company instead of five.

The point of them is the money. The grant never passes through your bank account. SEAI pays the One Stop Shop directly, and the One Stop Shop takes the grant off the bill before they invoice you. So on a job with €25,000 of grants you are asked for the rest, not for the whole amount up front.

What they do

• A home energy assessment, on your house, before anything is decided
• The design: which upgrades, in what order
• All the grant applications, in their name
• The trades, managed and scheduled
• The new energy rating afterwards, done by a registered assessor
• Finance options, if you want them

The catch: they only do big jobs

This route is for a substantial upgrade, not for one measure. SEAI's condition is that the house comes out at a B rating or better, and that you either put in a heat pump or cut the home's energy use by a set amount.

SEAI, read 2026-09-08: "Your home must achieve a minimum post works BER of B, plus either have installed a heat pump or achieved a primary energy uplift of 100 kWh/m²/yr." Where a heat pump is installed the uplift requirement is removed. Some older SEAI pages still say B2 — the eligibility page and the May 2026 homeowner guide both say B.

There is no published minimum number of upgrades. It is judged on the finished rating, not on a count of jobs — though in practice reaching a B takes several.

The home must have been built and occupied before 2011, and measures already grant-aided at that address cannot be claimed again.

The assessment grant

The home energy assessment is the survey the whole plan is built on. SEAI pays €350 toward it, once per property, and only through a registered One Stop Shop — you cannot claim it on your own.

You pay the difference. If the assessment costs €600 you pay €250 and the One Stop Shop claims the rest. You are not obliged to go ahead with the work afterwards, and you do not have to use the firm that did the assessment.

There is also a project management grant of €1,600 on a semi-detached house, which is part of what pays for all this being handled for you.

Assessment grant €350, one per property, OSS-only. Project management grant €800 to €2,000 depending on house type. Grant amounts checked 2026-09-07; source grants_2026.csv.

How to pick one

Only firms on SEAI's registered list can claim these grants, so start there — it is searchable by county and downloads as a spreadsheet. Being on the list is not an endorsement: SEAI say plainly that registered firms are not their employees and registration implies no warranty.

Talk to at least three. SEAI's own homeowner guide says the same. Compare what each one says your house needs, not just the price — if one of them proposes half the work of the others, ask why.

Questions worth asking before you sign

• What rating will the house reach, and what happens if it falls short?
• What is the price before grants, and what am I asked to pay?
• Which parts are subcontracted, and to whom?
• What is the programme, week by week, and do we move out?
• What is not included — decoration, floor coverings, moving radiators?
• What happens if the walls turn out to be worse than the survey assumed?
• Who does the rating at the end, and are they independent of you?

Timing. A grant offer under this route lasts twelve months from the date of the offer, and work must not start before it is issued. Costs run up before the offer date can put the whole grant at risk.

Getting the offer is not the same as getting the price. The grant is fixed by SEAI; the price is not. Shopping around is the only lever you have.