Not everyone has the luxury of being able to afford home improvements on a whim, no matter the amazing benefits you’d receive from investing. As such, it pays to know the various schemes and benefits in place for homeowners around the UK.
For the most part, government schemes are focused on aiding those in fuel poverty and as such there will be a number of criteria to meet in order to become eligible.
Are there grants for home insulation?
There are grants available for those wanting to improve the efficiency of their home and as mentioned above, your personal circumstances are likely to be taken into account.
Until 2012, homeowners could take advantage of the Carbon Emissions Reduction Target (CERT), which ensures most people could benefit from support of some kind. Gas and electricity suppliers were responsible for handing out efficiency upgrades.
After the scheme’s popularity, the Energy Companies Obligation (ECO) replaced it. Unfortunately, there are criteria in place to be eligible for a free boiler or discounted insulation.
Of course, you could still benefit from the ECO scheme and to find out if you’re eligible it’d be worth contacting your energy supplier. The major six energy providers are all included in the scheme:
- British Gas
- EDF Energy
- E.ON
- npower
- ScottishPower
- SSE.
If you aren’t eligible for free insulation or discounted rates, it’s still worthwhile considering your options. By investing in insulation for your home you’d be able to achieve payback in just a couple of years for some improvements.
The Government’s Green Deal
The Government’s Green Deal is a recent addition and helps homeowners, landlords and tenants improve the insulation of their property without the cost of an upfront payment. Instead, payback is managed by the amount saved on annual energy bills.
There is a whole range of energy saving measures included under the Green Deal and these include:
- Insulation
- Double glazing
- Renewable energy
- Replacement boilers.
A Green Deal assessor will assess your home. During the assessment, they’ll highlight the areas of your home that could do with upgrading. The assessor will ask many questions to determine your energy use and behaviours, before providing a detailed report of the recommended energy saving measures to implement.
The complete report will contain:
- Your home’s Energy Performance Certificate (EPC) rating
- An assessment on the level of energy used in the home
- An estimation on potential energy savings achievable
- A statement on the best Green Deal measures that can be paid off within 10 years.
Once you have this report to hand, you’ll be able to contact a Green Deal provider, with a view to having one or more of the recommended measures imposed.
The Green Deal is designed to ensure you’re not out of pocket. Instead, a calculation is made of the money you’ll save with better efficiency in place. This will be added to your bill, so rather than paying more in energy, you’ll simply pay off the efficiency measure chosen for your home.
There isn’t a set interest rate and this will be decided based on the length of your plan. You will have a fixed rate though, so it’ll remain the same throughout your Green Deal loan.
The Green Deal isn’t a personal loan either and is fixed to the property where the measures are implemented. For this reason, if you move home you won’t continue paying off the loan. Instead, this will transfer to the new owner. Whilst critics suggest this could make it difficult to sell your property, new owners would be encouraged by the energy saving measures in place.