*Steven Swinford, Political Editor, November 25 2022, The Times*
Middle-income households will receive grants worth up to £15,000 to make their homes more energy efficient.
Grant Shapps, the business secretary, will announce plans next week to fund loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and smart heating controls.
The new fund, called “eco plus”, will be aimed at those who are able to pay, unlike other energy efficiency schemes.
The government has allocated £1 billion in funding from existing budgets for the next three years. Ministers will consult on plans to make the money available to people in council tax bands A to D. The government will meet 75 per cent of the cost of any upgrades.
The scheme, which will run from April, will cover efficiency measures for more than 70,000 homes and save hundreds of pounds a year. Unlike the green homes grant, which was axed last year after a disastrous start, it will be administered by energy suppliers.
Ministers believe that people will make significant savings. Installing loft insulation can cost up to £1,100 but save £640 a year, and cavity wall insulation costs as much as £2,500 but can save £525 per year. Smart heating controls such as advanced thermostats and thermostatic valves cost up to £800 and can save £525 a year.
The scheme is part of measures that will be announced by the government in an attempt to cut people’s energy use by 15 per cent by 2030.
The Times reported yesterday that ministers were preparing to announce a public information campaign at a cost of £25 million encouraging people to use less energy. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, said that people would be joining a “national mission” to reduce “energy dependency on what Putin chooses to do”.
I look forward to finding out how I’m not eligible for this.
Did the British government just recently buy a load of oil from Russia while trying to keep it quiet?
Nowhere near enough professionals….
Just look at the disaster with cavity walls…
So nothing to resolve the biggest issue which is external insulation for solid brick walls. Well done for another half baked policy
Yes, give money to property owners to improve their properties. The energy efficiency is nice but having property owners benefit to the tune of £15,000 pounds to improve their property while tenants pay for this through taxes and then again through higher rent makes this less than ideal.
In the meantime, my friend can’t get energy rebate because he is on the community sub-meter.
4 flats in one building, all separetely registered and paying separate council tax.
Landlord pocketed £400 all though he does not pay single penny for electricity.
Nobody knows when, how or even if ever those cases will be sorted by goverment.
I just put 300mm of loft insulation down myself for under £250. I was quoted over £800 on that last government scheme.
Why do I even open these articles? The only thing I’ve ever been eligible for from the UK govt is tax free childcare.
Anyone drawn here thinking about smart heating controls, I can highly recomment Drayton Wiser system. No subscription upgrade to unlock features like Tado do and from my calculations much cheaper than Hive/Nest. Great tech support if you have any issues and it has halved our gas usage.
So insulate Britain were right then…but do we trust the Tory’s to deliver? *”Meanwhile, the person that Liz Truss is expected to name Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, was the Minister of State and then Secretary of State responsible for the disastrous Green Homes Grant scheme, which was described as “botched” and a National udit Office report found wasted over £1bn of taxpayer money. The scheme was allocated £1.5bn to insulate 600,000 home projects, but less than 50,000 were eventually completed before the scheme closed with vast administration costs. “* Maybe they will learn something from their previous mistakes? Hahahahaha. Yeah right.
Never going to happen all lies im afraid. So many hoops to jump
I hope this includes replacing windows, seems to be a huge energy efficiency saving that is missing from the article.
The numbers in that article are ridiculous. The only scenario where loft insualtion is saving you £640 a year is when you have literally none which accounts for less than 1% of British homes. Adding onto existing insulation is a far smaller benefit. The cavity wall and smart thermostat savings are also a joke unless you a heating up an empty home for long periods for some bizarre reason.
How do you check the banding of my bungalow for this?
Since my father died I’ve been struggling with heating my home. Need to Have a new boiler installed and it’s costing so much that I’m trying to scrimp together what I can. Because I work full time I don’t qualify for a boiler replacement scheme. Or anything. I think it’s only for those on Benifits. But trying to get a new boiler that’s more energy efficient.
From an entirely selfish perspective I wonder if there will be any retroactive element to this. We’re replacing half of our shit old windows with triple glazing, with a scheme like this we could probably do them all. We ordered them on Monday.
Obviously that assumes windows would be included, which they should be. We currently have double glazing throughout but they weren’t installed right so they’re very draughty, most of the hinges are broken and panels blown.
Edit: Selfish because all the government usually want to do is take take take, so if I can get something back that would be nice.
Looking forward to my landlord claiming this, hiring the cheapest cowboys she can find to do the shoddiest work possible, and then using the improvements as justification to up my rent.
Wow if only insulation solved badly fitted windows or broken floorboards with gaps between the floor and the wall or general holes and cracks in the wall or single glazing or rooms without radiators or a complete lack of fireplaces or frankly any other dismal reason we’re cold and can’t do shit about it.
JC proposed this for the entire country like 5 years ago… for EVERYONE
I got this in the last round of grants (4/5 years ago?). I think it was an EU green grant of some sort.
Full Attic insulation and graphite polystyrene bead wall blown insulation.
Total cost to me was about £135, and it has made a noticeable difference in the heat retention.
So yeah, one thing this Government is doing right.
I wonder what this means for renters. We’re moving into a house in a council tax band A area that could benefit from insulation based on its current EPC rating. I assume the landlord (who I’m unlikely to ever meet) owns multiple properties though and I doubt it’d be on a per-property basis. Still it’s interesting!
I have a large house and for some reason I am band C. My old two bedroom flat was band D. Baffling.
We’re band E based on our location, not even a big house and neither of us on big money. Great 🙂
Ooh okay we’re a C. We do need new windows and we were about to start getting quotes for full replacement and that of our 1991 conservatory too… do you think we should wait?
The grant amount appears to have been cut by 90%:
> Middle-income households will receive grants worth up to £1,500 to make their homes more energy efficient.
But will it cover doing it yourself I wonder?
Loft insulation is piss easy, but if you have to get someone to do it and eat all the benefit of the grant what’s the point?
It’s a nice place to start but unfortunately this is chronically underfunded. If you divide the total funding (£1bn) by the number of homes (25m) it’s about £40 per house.
So is eligibility criteria based on council tax band or household income? It’s not clear.
FFS – what’s the point in limiting it to band D or less? Bigger house waste more energy…
Welcome to Northern Ireland in a1890s house .worst heat retention .no help .sigh
Hoping this covers new windows or at least some new windows!
Whats to stop my landlord getting this grant and just pocketing it?
Great for home owners but those poorer folk paying landlords won’t benefit. But they don’t vote tory so nothing lost there.
33 comments
Article contents:
*Steven Swinford, Political Editor, November 25 2022, The Times*
Middle-income households will receive grants worth up to £15,000 to make their homes more energy efficient.
Grant Shapps, the business secretary, will announce plans next week to fund loft insulation, cavity wall insulation and smart heating controls.
The new fund, called “eco plus”, will be aimed at those who are able to pay, unlike other energy efficiency schemes.
The government has allocated £1 billion in funding from existing budgets for the next three years. Ministers will consult on plans to make the money available to people in council tax bands A to D. The government will meet 75 per cent of the cost of any upgrades.
The scheme, which will run from April, will cover efficiency measures for more than 70,000 homes and save hundreds of pounds a year. Unlike the green homes grant, which was axed last year after a disastrous start, it will be administered by energy suppliers.
Ministers believe that people will make significant savings. Installing loft insulation can cost up to £1,100 but save £640 a year, and cavity wall insulation costs as much as £2,500 but can save £525 per year. Smart heating controls such as advanced thermostats and thermostatic valves cost up to £800 and can save £525 a year.
The scheme is part of measures that will be announced by the government in an attempt to cut people’s energy use by 15 per cent by 2030.
The Times reported yesterday that ministers were preparing to announce a public information campaign at a cost of £25 million encouraging people to use less energy. Jeremy Hunt, the chancellor, said that people would be joining a “national mission” to reduce “energy dependency on what Putin chooses to do”.
I look forward to finding out how I’m not eligible for this.
Did the British government just recently buy a load of oil from Russia while trying to keep it quiet?
Nowhere near enough professionals….
Just look at the disaster with cavity walls…
So nothing to resolve the biggest issue which is external insulation for solid brick walls. Well done for another half baked policy
Yes, give money to property owners to improve their properties. The energy efficiency is nice but having property owners benefit to the tune of £15,000 pounds to improve their property while tenants pay for this through taxes and then again through higher rent makes this less than ideal.
In the meantime, my friend can’t get energy rebate because he is on the community sub-meter.
4 flats in one building, all separetely registered and paying separate council tax.
Landlord pocketed £400 all though he does not pay single penny for electricity.
Nobody knows when, how or even if ever those cases will be sorted by goverment.
I just put 300mm of loft insulation down myself for under £250. I was quoted over £800 on that last government scheme.
Why do I even open these articles? The only thing I’ve ever been eligible for from the UK govt is tax free childcare.
Anyone drawn here thinking about smart heating controls, I can highly recomment Drayton Wiser system. No subscription upgrade to unlock features like Tado do and from my calculations much cheaper than Hive/Nest. Great tech support if you have any issues and it has halved our gas usage.
So insulate Britain were right then…but do we trust the Tory’s to deliver? *”Meanwhile, the person that Liz Truss is expected to name Chancellor, Kwasi Kwarteng, was the Minister of State and then Secretary of State responsible for the disastrous Green Homes Grant scheme, which was described as “botched” and a National udit Office report found wasted over £1bn of taxpayer money. The scheme was allocated £1.5bn to insulate 600,000 home projects, but less than 50,000 were eventually completed before the scheme closed with vast administration costs. “* Maybe they will learn something from their previous mistakes? Hahahahaha. Yeah right.
Never going to happen all lies im afraid. So many hoops to jump
I hope this includes replacing windows, seems to be a huge energy efficiency saving that is missing from the article.
The numbers in that article are ridiculous. The only scenario where loft insualtion is saving you £640 a year is when you have literally none which accounts for less than 1% of British homes. Adding onto existing insulation is a far smaller benefit. The cavity wall and smart thermostat savings are also a joke unless you a heating up an empty home for long periods for some bizarre reason.
How do you check the banding of my bungalow for this?
Since my father died I’ve been struggling with heating my home. Need to Have a new boiler installed and it’s costing so much that I’m trying to scrimp together what I can. Because I work full time I don’t qualify for a boiler replacement scheme. Or anything. I think it’s only for those on Benifits. But trying to get a new boiler that’s more energy efficient.
From an entirely selfish perspective I wonder if there will be any retroactive element to this. We’re replacing half of our shit old windows with triple glazing, with a scheme like this we could probably do them all. We ordered them on Monday.
Obviously that assumes windows would be included, which they should be. We currently have double glazing throughout but they weren’t installed right so they’re very draughty, most of the hinges are broken and panels blown.
Edit: Selfish because all the government usually want to do is take take take, so if I can get something back that would be nice.
Looking forward to my landlord claiming this, hiring the cheapest cowboys she can find to do the shoddiest work possible, and then using the improvements as justification to up my rent.
Wow if only insulation solved badly fitted windows or broken floorboards with gaps between the floor and the wall or general holes and cracks in the wall or single glazing or rooms without radiators or a complete lack of fireplaces or frankly any other dismal reason we’re cold and can’t do shit about it.
JC proposed this for the entire country like 5 years ago… for EVERYONE
I got this in the last round of grants (4/5 years ago?). I think it was an EU green grant of some sort.
Full Attic insulation and graphite polystyrene bead wall blown insulation.
Total cost to me was about £135, and it has made a noticeable difference in the heat retention.
So yeah, one thing this Government is doing right.
I wonder what this means for renters. We’re moving into a house in a council tax band A area that could benefit from insulation based on its current EPC rating. I assume the landlord (who I’m unlikely to ever meet) owns multiple properties though and I doubt it’d be on a per-property basis. Still it’s interesting!
I have a large house and for some reason I am band C. My old two bedroom flat was band D. Baffling.
We’re band E based on our location, not even a big house and neither of us on big money. Great 🙂
Ooh okay we’re a C. We do need new windows and we were about to start getting quotes for full replacement and that of our 1991 conservatory too… do you think we should wait?
The grant amount appears to have been cut by 90%:
> Middle-income households will receive grants worth up to £1,500 to make their homes more energy efficient.
But will it cover doing it yourself I wonder?
Loft insulation is piss easy, but if you have to get someone to do it and eat all the benefit of the grant what’s the point?
It’s a nice place to start but unfortunately this is chronically underfunded. If you divide the total funding (£1bn) by the number of homes (25m) it’s about £40 per house.
So is eligibility criteria based on council tax band or household income? It’s not clear.
FFS – what’s the point in limiting it to band D or less? Bigger house waste more energy…
Welcome to Northern Ireland in a1890s house .worst heat retention .no help .sigh
Hoping this covers new windows or at least some new windows!
Whats to stop my landlord getting this grant and just pocketing it?
Great for home owners but those poorer folk paying landlords won’t benefit. But they don’t vote tory so nothing lost there.