As well as a heat pump and new heating system, Mick from Finglas had to pay for a full redecoration of his downstairs area. Photograph: iStock

It is hard to find fault with the aims of the Sustainable Energy Authority of Ireland (SEAI). Its aim – as its name suggests – is to steer us to a cleaner, fossil fuel-free future – and it has a huge amount of money to dole out in the form of grants for energy-efficient home improvements.

It might be hard to find fault with it, but is not impossible, and the process as it was experienced by one reader might well leave you cold. It certainly made him question whether the whole palaver he had in dealing with the authority was worth the funds he eventually got back.

When he first made contact with Pricewatch, Mick, from Finglas in Dublin, was waiting for close to seven grand from the SEAI “under their much-lauded” Better Energy Homes scheme.

His story is long, but the bottom line is he had to wait for a lot longer than he felt was necessary, and had to jump through too many hoops to get the money he was due.

The story starts with “a catastrophic issue with our pre-existing ‘boom time building’ installed heating system”, Mick says.

[ Retrofit grants for older homes: a guide to the new pilot schemeOpens in new window ]

The sloppy work emerged when he looked at doing “a simple floor tile replacement” last October and realised the heating system had been poorly installed. Dry rot meant a full ground-floor replacement was needed.

This was not covered by his house insurance, so he had to stump up the cost himself. To make things worse, his “ageing gas boiler” was on the way out too, so he sought advice from the SEAI and decided to replace the boiler with an Air-to-Water heat pump.

The good news was he qualified for a grant of up to €6,750.

“Getting information on how to apply and what would be granted financially from SEAI was relatively straightforward, and we enlisted someone from the SEAI list of registered contractors, along with our own contractor,” he says.

At the time, the SEAI had a qualification criteria for the heat pump grant “which meant that our home had to have a heat