McAreavey Construction: Services

At McAreavey Construction we believe every new home should be built with high energy efficiency in mind. Increasing insulation and improving air tightness along with installing Heat Recovery Ventilation systems should all be considered when building your dream home. Heating systems like Air to Water, Air to Air, Geothermal and Solar are becoming increasingly popular as we reduce our reliance on fossil fuels such as oil and gas. At McAreavey Construction we build all our new homes to a minimum Building Energy Rating (BER) A2. Main benefits of Energy Efficient Homes are:-

Increased comfort
Lower running costs
Greener Home - reduced environmental footprint
Higher property value
No need to worry about rising energy costs
Improved air quality

If all this seems far-fetched and expensive don't worry! We will guide you through the best options available to achieve minimum BER A2 that won't cost the earth!

McAreavey Construction are registered with HomeBond. HomeBond provides HomeBond Insurance through HomeBond Insurance Services Ltd underwritten by Allianz plc. HomeBond Insurance is structural defect insurance with deposit and stage payment cover for new homes. Once the Certificate of Insurance (Final Certification) is issued, HomeBond Insurance provides financial cover for relevant structural and relevant defects, should they arise. The Policy covers:

Two site visits by a HomeBond Engineer. The first inspection will be during the excavation of the foundations. The second will be an overall structural inspection just before the house is covered in plasterboard internally when all the elements are visible.

Structural Defects Cover for 10 years' in respect of the repair of major structural defects.

Smoke Penetration / Water Ingress Cover for 5 years' in respect of remedial work in the event of water ingress / smoke penetration caused by major structural defects.

Deposits & Stage Payments Cover for the loss of money deposited for the construction or purchase of a new home.

What is a Building Energy Rating (BER)? A building energy rating is a rating on the overall energy efficiency of a building (residential or commercial). The rating is similar to the energy label on your fridge and is denoted on scale of A to G, with A1 being the most energy efficient and G being the least energy efficient. The certificate contains the following information:

The building name and address, a BER number, the date of issue, the date until when the BER is valid, the BER assessor number and the BER assessor company number.

Before we construct your new home we can provide a provisional BER certificate (a.k.a. Part L Compliance Report) to assess its current rating with the specification provided. At this stage we can look at areas we can improve to increase the rating if so required. On completion McAreavey Construction can complete a final BER Certificate for your new home. This will be published on the SEAI public register.

Just look at the table and see how much you can save by increasing the energy efficiency of your new home. This table gives estimated annual fuel cost and Co2 emissions on the basis of typical occupancy and heating the entire dwelling to a comfortable level. The table is based on fuel and electricity factors from February 2014. Below is a guide to BER from the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI) website.