A new Irish experiment found that telling homeowners about required building-fabric upgrades reduced their stated willingness to adopt a heat pump, even after information about heat-pump benefits had increased it. The result is evidence against making extensive fabric work a blanket precondition for low-carbon heating—not proof that insulation is unnecessary, or that requirements have reduced actual installations.
What did the Irish heat-pump study find?
The Economic and Social Research Institute (ESRI) published its study on 3 July 2026, based on a preregistered survey experiment with 574 homeowners in Ireland. Researchers presented information in stages: heat-pump benefits, installation costs and personalised building-fabric upgrades for participants’ homes. They measured stated willingness or intention to adopt, not whether participants later installed a heat pump.
Benefits information initially raised willingness. When participants learned about required upgrades, that increase was reversed. Requirements involving wall insulation were more discouraging than ventilation-only requirements: reported adoption intention was 11.6% with wall-insulation requirements, compared with 19.7% with ventilation-only upgrades. The paper describes the difference as an approximately 40% marginal reduction. These are experimental intentions under the study’s conditions, not a 40% fall in installations across Ireland.
Grants did not remove the effect of upgrade requirements
An enhanced installation grant substantially increased stated willingness at the stage when participants received cost information. Much of that increase was eroded once they were told about their personalised upgrade requirements. Cost comparisons and information about low-cost finance had no meaningful impact in the experiment. The findings point to the combined burden of costs and required work; they do not establish that a particular grant or financing scheme will fail in practice.
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Does a home need insulation before a heat pump?
The study does not establish a universal rule for individual homes. It tested how upgrade requirements affected stated choices; it did not assess which measures a particular dwelling needs for a suitable, efficient installation. For a homeowner, the practical question is what work is necessary in that building, what it costs, and what benefits it brings—not whether every home should complete extensive insulation work before changing its heating system.
A heat-pump-only price can leave out a major part of the decision if a project also requires fabric upgrades. Wall insulation, ventilation work and other measures differ in cost, disruption and purpose. A home-specific assessment is needed to determine the appropriate scope; the national studies discussed here do not prescribe the same package for every dwelling.
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What does “fabric first” mean in Irish policy?
SEAI’s National Heat Study argues for evolving the fabric-first principle when the policy objective is to accelerate low-carbon heating. In this framing, efficiency measures should be treated primarily as enablers of low-carbon heat deployment, rather than as a reason to delay it with extensive prerequisites in every case. That is not a rejection of insulation: SEAI also recognises its value for reducing demand, improving suitability for low-temperature heating, and supporting health, comfort, wellbeing and fuel-poverty goals.
SEAI’s national modelling suggests householders may favour lower-cost, lower-hassle options such as draught-proofing, roof insulation and cavity-wall insulation. It notes that deeper measures can cost more, take longer to pay back and cause greater disruption. Those findings and assumptions describe national scenarios, not an assessment of what is right for a specific property.
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In SEAI’s Balanced scenario, 83% of residential building stock installs some form of heat-demand-reduction measure. That is a modelled scenario result, not an observed share of Irish homes. SEAI’s key-insights page quotes its CEO, William Walsh, saying: “This study shows that the current Climate Action measures are unlikely to deliver enough cuts from heat related CO2 emissions and that an unprecedented ramp up of effort and additional measures are needed if the heat sector is to deliver its share of the emissions cuts.”
How does the ESRI experiment compare with earlier Irish modelling?
A 2024 paper by Jason Mc Guire and co-authors in Energy and Buildings used the TIMES-Ireland Model to examine cost-optimal residential decarbonisation pathways. It asks a different question from the ESRI experiment: how alternative system pathways perform in a model, rather than how homeowners respond to information about costs and requirements.
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According to the University College Cork Energy Policy and Modelling Group summary, the modelled fabric-first pathway required 22 times more thermal retrofits to meet climate targets than alternative pathways. The summary also reports that higher heat-loss-indicator (HLI) thresholds could lower average sectoral marginal CO₂ emission prices by as much as 60% relative to the current fabric-first approach; an HLI threshold of 2.3 W/K/m² was close to optimal in the study’s analysis. These are scenario outputs, not predictions about a particular home or direct evidence of homeowner behaviour.
| Evidence | Method and question | Reported result | What it does not show |
|---|---|---|---|
| ESRI, 2026 | Preregistered survey experiment with 574 Irish homeowners; measured stated willingness after information about benefits, costs and personalised upgrade requirements. | Intentions were 19.7% with ventilation-only upgrades and 11.6% with wall-insulation requirements; the paper characterises the difference as an approximately 40% marginal reduction. | Actual installations, long-term effects or how every homeowner group would respond. |
| SEAI National Heat Study | National modelling and scenario analysis of heating and energy-efficiency measures. | In the Balanced scenario, 83% of residential building stock installs some form of heat-demand-reduction measure. | An observed installation rate or a home-specific recommendation. |
| TIMES-Ireland paper, 2024 | Modelled residential decarbonisation pathways and their costs and emissions implications. | The institutional summary reports 22 times more thermal retrofits for the fabric-first pathway than alternatives, and up to 60% lower average sectoral marginal CO₂ emission prices under higher HLI thresholds. | Household intentions or proof that a particular retrofit is unnecessary. |
What should homeowners and policymakers take from the evidence?
- For homeowners: ask for the proposed work, its cost and disruption, and the reason it is needed in your home to be set out alongside the heat-pump installation cost. The national evidence does not replace a property-specific suitability assessment.
- For policymakers: account for preparatory work as part of the total cost and hassle of adopting low-carbon heat. The ESRI experiment suggests that requirements can blunt the appeal of a heat pump, even where benefits or grants have improved stated willingness.
- For retrofit decisions: distinguish measures needed to make a heating system suitable from measures pursued for their separate benefits, including lower energy demand, comfort, health and reduced fuel poverty. Those benefits can justify fabric improvements even where a strict sequence is not the fastest route to heating decarbonisation.
Read together, the studies raise a policy choice: require substantial fabric work before a heating-system change, or prioritise suitable low-carbon heat while supporting fabric measures where they are cost-effective and beneficial. The ESRI experiment, SEAI scenarios and 2024 pathway modelling inform that debate in different ways; none alone settles the right sequence for every Irish home.
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