The government has a duty to lower the carbon footprint and help with the reduction of global warming. Older and less efficient boilers contribute to the amount of energy being lost because they take longer to heat your home. This results in you paying more for your energy than if you had a new “greener” boiler. To help this situation, the government put in place a scheme that provides grants to qualifying homeowners for installations of more environmentally friendly boilers, no matter your ability to get credit if you have applied for a boiler in the past.
Through the Free Boiler Grant Scheme, it is down to the ‘Big Six’ energy companies to provide the grants for new boiler installation to homeowners. These companies are Scottish Power, British Gas, E.ON, EDF, SSE, and nPower. On top of fitting your new boiler, the process also involves your old boiler being taken away and correctly disposed of.
Who can qualify for a free boiler?
There are certain criteria you need to meet in order to be eligible for a free boiler through the ECO scheme. Firstly, you must be a homeowner or privately renting tenant. As well as this, it is important that your boiler is more than seven years old as boilers that are younger than this are excluded from the scheme due to it being more worthwhile to repair them than replace them. Lastly, you need to be receiving one or more of the benefit types listed below to fully qualify for the free boiler scheme.
- Child Tax Credit
- Income related Employment Support Allowance
- Income Support
- Pension Guaranteed Credit (excludes Savings Credit)
- Working Tax Credit
- Universal Credit
- Disability Living Allowance
- Personal Independence Payment
- Attendance Allowance
- Carer’s Allowance
- Severe Disablement Allowance
- Industrial Injuries Disablement Benefits
- Ministry of Justice Benefits
- War Pensions Mobility Supplement
- Constant Attendance Allowance
- Armed Forces Independence Payment
- Child Benefit
If you or anyone in your household meets the above criteria, then it is highly likely that you will be able to benefit from a free boiler grant through the scheme. Even if you aren’t claiming one of the benefits listed, there could be alternative options that are suitable for you, for example “buy now pay later” with discounted costs. So, it is always worth checking if you are eligible as you could save a lot of money on a new boiler.
Is your boiler costing you more than it should?
The boiler grant scheme was introduced to provide qualifying individuals across the UK with efficient and affordable heating. Research has shown that boiler models that are more than seven years old only function at around 65% of their full efficiency. This means that as much as 35p of every pound you spend on your energy bills is being wasted due to an inefficient boiler. By comparison, your new A-rated boiler would be predicted to run at no less than 90% efficiency, which would equal a loss of 10p or less.
Also, having a new and energy efficient boiler can be a lot more beneficial to the environment. Having a new and greener boiler means less energy is needed to heat a home and so less carbon emissions are produced.
