Solar hot water grant: €1,200
The same €1,200 for every home — but most people are now better off putting the roof to work making electricity instead.
What would it cost on your home?
Your cert may say B2 — that's a B on the new scale.
A heat pump runs on electricity. Pick "Heat pump" if you have one.
A 1990s detached house on oil, rated CEnergy rating C
- Grants you’d get
- €12,500
- It costs about
- €16,500
- You pay
- €4,000 – €4,500
- Saves you each year
- about €820
- Pays for itself in
- about 7 years
The commonest home on file — 47,829 like it. Change an answer above for yours.
Modelled, not observed payments. Middle case €4,519; a quarter of these homes are over €8,930. Repaid in 7–13.4 years. Confidence 0.9.
Show what’s included
This is the job list that suits most homes like yours (4 in 10). The money above is the middle of every route we priced, so it will not add up to this list exactly.
Is the house warm enough to hold the heat? — SEAI's test before they'll fund a heat pump. The insulation steps are usually what gets you through.
Heat Loss Indicator ≤ 2.3 W/K·m² after fabric works. 29% of homes like yours already pass. Assessment about €276, grant €350 through a One-Stop-Shop.
Costs about €280 · grant €350 · the grant covers it
Heat pump — replaces the boiler, runs on electricity, pulls heat from the outside air. An outdoor unit the size of a large suitcase, bigger radiators in some rooms, three to five days. Runs cooler for longer — the house feels even, not blasted.
Air-to-water, SPF 3.5 heating / 2.5 hot water. Cost €16,832 · grant €6,500 + €4,000 (replacing oil/gas/coal) + €2,000 pipework + €700 controls = up to €13,200 · you pay from €3,632. 9.8c per kWh of heat vs gas 14.4c / oil 18.0c.
Costs about €16,500 · grant €6,500 · you pay €10,000
The paperwork — assessment first, grant approval, then the work, then a new energy cert, then the grant is paid. A One-Stop-Shop does all of it and takes the grant off the bill.
Order is mandatory — work started before approval is not eligible. Energy cert €276, assessment grant €350 through a One-Stop-Shop. Typically 3–6 months end to end (estimate).
Costs about €280 · grant €350 · the grant covers it
Do you qualify?
- Your home was built and lived in before 2011.
- There is roof space facing somewhere between east and west.
- The hot water cylinder can take a second coil, or is being replaced.
Roughly 3 in 10 1990s–2000s detached homes already pass the first check.
What it costs for homes like yours
Worked out from the energy ratings of 47,829 homes like these in SEAI’s records. “You pay’ is what is left after the grants, for the middle half of them.
| Home | Grant | You pay | Saves a year | Pays back in |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A 1990s detached house on oil, rated CEnergy rating C | €12,500 | €4,000 – €4,500 | €820 | 7 years |
| A 1990s semi-detached on gas, rated CEnergy rating C | €12,500 | €4,300 | €540 | 11 years |
| A 1990s semi-detached on oil, rated CEnergy rating C | €12,500 | €4,300 | €470 | 11 years |
| A 1970s–80s detached house on oil, rated CEnergy rating C | €10,300 | €5,000 – €8,900 | €760 | 15 years |
detached|1990-2005|C|oil: net p50 €4,519, p75 €8,930, repaid 7–13.4 yrs, confidence 0.9 · semi|1990-2005|C|gas: net p50 €4,332, p75 €7,420, repaid 10.5–14.1 yrs, confidence 0.9 · semi|1990-2005|C|oil: net p50 €4,332, p75 €4,832, repaid 10.5–14.1 yrs, confidence 0.9 · detached|1970-1989|C|oil: net p50 €8,930, p75 €13,884, repaid 15.1–16.7 yrs, confidence 0.9.
More home types
| A 1990s apartment on electric heating, rated C | €5,500 | €4,600 | €1,140 | 4 years |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| A 1970s–80s detached house on oil, rated D | €19,000 | €9,000 – €16,300 | €1,790 | 9 years |
| A pre-1970 detached house on oil, rated F/G | €23,000 | €13,300 – €18,100 | €4,150 | 5 years |
| A 1990s apartment on electric heating, rated D | €5,500 | €4,600 | €1,490 | 4 years |
Why oil homes pay back fastest
The dearer your heat is now, the more you save by changing it. A unit of heat from a heat pump costs about a third of what the same heat costs on electric heating, and well under what it costs on oil or bottled gas.
What’s entailed
Solar hot water — panels on the roof that heat your water rather than make electricity. One to two days, and a new cylinder in most homes.
Flat-plate or evacuated tube, roughly 60% of a year's hot water. Grant €1,200. SEAI publishes no median cost, so we show none.
Heat pump — replaces the boiler, runs on electricity, pulls heat from the outside air. An outdoor unit the size of a large suitcase, bigger radiators in some rooms, three to five days. Runs cooler for longer — the house feels even, not blasted.
Air-to-water, SPF 3.5 heating / 2.5 hot water. Cost €16,832 · grant €6,500 + €4,000 (replacing oil/gas/coal) + €2,000 pipework + €700 controls = up to €13,200 · you pay from €3,632. 9.8c per kWh of heat vs gas 14.4c / oil 18.0c.
Costs about €16,800 · grant €6,500 · you pay €10,300
The grant in detail, by house type
| Apartment | €1,200 |
|---|---|
| Terrace | €1,200 |
| Semi-detached or end of terrace | €1,200 |
| Detached | €1,200 |
- You cannot claim this and the solar electricity grant for the same roof area.
- A heat pump already makes hot water cheaply, so the two rarely go together.
- SEAI does not publish a middle price for this one, so we do not print a cost.
Amounts verified 2026-09-08.
How we worked this out
We group every home in SEAI’s energy rating records by kind, age, rating and heating, then work out the cheapest set of jobs that would bring each one up to a B. Prices for those jobs are the middle price SEAI recorded for that work last year; grants come from SEAI’s published amounts; fuel prices come from SEAI’s comparison table.
So these are worked-out figures for homes like yours, not a record of what anyone was charged. Your own quote will land somewhere in the range, and the wider the range, the less certain we are.
2025 medians (n=47,067 upgrades; OSS n=1,406). 2026-07-01. BER file 2026-09-08, 1,077,114 rows. DEAP standard occupancy.
Common questions
- How much is the solar hot water grant?
- €1,200, the same for every home type.
- Is solar hot water or solar electricity better?
- For most homes, electricity. It is cheaper for each unit you get back, it feeds everything in the house, and the leftovers can be sold.
- How much hot water will it cover?
- About six months' worth over a year — nearly all of it in summer, very little in winter.
Related
Applying, and who gets what
- One-Stop-Shop
- One job at a time
- Free upgrades scheme
- How to apply
- How long the wait is
- What you need first
- Checking your application
- If you are retired
Who does this work
Registered installers by county