Are you ready for deeper upgrades to your home that will result in more meaningful energy savings? You’re not sure if you’ll be able to afford these upgrades? Have a read through this article to get an idea of what could be available for you.
Our list of some of the available financing and grant options in the UK to help make your home more energy efficient.
Note: This is a general look at different forms of funding and financing, it’s not intended to be used as financial advice. It’s not always an appropriate avenue for everyone. Some of the schemes and values may adjust values and availability over time.
Whether you’re looking to retrofit underfloor heating and a ground source heat pump or just want more insulation, it’s going to cost some money, and given the current climate that’s not always ideal (if ever). But there is support out there. Here we’ve brought together some readily available financing options that can help make your home more energy efficient.
Read: 5 ways I can reduce my energy bills for good
Grants
Grants aren’t available to everyone but if you’re eligible then they can help with specific sustainable upgrades for your home. Here are a few that might be interesting:
- Boiler upgrade scheme (BUS):
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is aimed at reducing the upfront cost of installing a low carbon heating system such as heat pumps. You can get:
- £5,000 off the cost of installing an air source heat pump
- £5,000 off the cost of installing a biomass boiler
- £6,000 off the cost of installing a ground source heat pump
You’re eligible for the grant if you live in England or Wales and you own your property.
- Energy Company Obligation (ECO):
ECO is a government energy efficiency scheme that’s focused on tackling fuel poverty. The grants are given out to medium and large energy suppliers who then have a target to hit in how they distribute the money.
The benefits can range from having insulation installed in your loft to getting a smart thermostat. To be considered eligible you need to either:
- Receive certain benefits and live in private housing
- Live in social housing
You can read more about the criteria here.
- Home Upgrade Grant (HUG)
Certainly a cosy sounding abbreviation. The HUG, currently in its second phase, is a round of funding for local authorities to improve the energy performance and heating systems of off-gas grid homes in England. So houses that have electric or oil heating.
The grant covers:
- Most insulation - loft, cavity wall and room-in-roof insulation
- Installation of low carbon heating solutions
- Installation of ventilation systems
The grant is based on a max of £25,000 of upgrades per property.
To be eligible you’ll need to have a household income of less than £20,000 per year after tax, national insurance, mortgage or rent costs and council tax. You can be either a homeowner or private renter to receive the grant.
Read: Everything you need to know about insulation
- Local Authority Delivery Scheme (LAD)
This slightly less cosy sounding abbreviation aims to increase the energy efficiency of low income, low energy performance homes. £500 million is being dispersed to 5 Net Zero Hubs which then work with local councils to distribute and invest the money in households.
Investments include:
- Cavity wall insulation
- Loft insulation
- New boiler
- Ventilation systems
- Double glazing
The focus is on households with energy performance ratings of E, F or G. If you think you’re eligible you can get in touch with your Local Net Zero Hub, which you can find here.
Financing
Again, financing isn’t the right path for everyone, and we’re not here to advise you on what to do, we’re just bringing together some of the options we found ourselves. In most cases people use personal savings to fund their home upgrades, but then that isn’t always possible for most people. So let’s take a look at what types of financing are out there:
- Product Specific Financing
The most common form of financing you’ll find is around specific products for your home. At the moment, a number of energy suppliers offer interest free loans towards installing a new, more energy efficient boiler with a payback period of about 3 years. To give you an example:
E.on became the first major energy supplier to offer a 0% finance option on their boilers. You can pay either nothing upfront or 50% upfront and then pay the rest in instalments for up to 35 months.
This means that for a Worcester Bosch boiler at around £2,500, if you didn’t pay anything upfront you’d pay about £70 per month for 3 years. Pay half upfront and you’d pay half as much each month (£35 per month for 3 years).
- Green Home mortgages
One common ‘green finance product’ is the ‘green mortgage’. The idea is that if you have a more energy efficient home you’ll have more money to put towards your mortgage as you’re spending less on bills.
Barclays green mortgage offers discounts on their standard mortgage rates if you buy a property with an EPC rating of B or above. Likewise Natwest also offers a 2 and 5 year fixed rate mortgage for customers who remortgage to Natwest with an EPC rating of A or B.
Building society Ecology also offers what they call C-Change Discounts. This means they’ll reduce your interest rates based on the energy efficiency of your property. So if you upgrade your EPC from D to C, you’d see discounts of 0.25% to 1.5% in your interest rate.
To be eligible you need to be:
- constructing an energy-efficient self-build
- converting a redundant building
- renovating a dilapidated property
- purchasing an energy-efficient new build
Read: What could a whole house retrofit do for your home?
- Equity release
Equity release is the process of freeing up the money attached to your home. You need to be over 55 to take out an equity release and this usually means that instead of paying back your mortgage each month, you pay it all off after you die or sell the property.
It does mean that you can take either a lump payment or payments in instalments according to the value of your property, so it can be a useful means towards paying for big jobs. (Which in turn, can increase the property’s value).
1. Interest Free Credit Card
Now again this option isn’t for everyone, and we’re not here to advise you on whether you should take up a new credit card, but they can allow for a large upfront cost to be paid back over time.
The 0% APR period usually lasts between 18 and 31 months, allowing time to pay it off, and the card’s allowance can be in the thousands. So for large purchases like installing a heat pump or replacing your windows these can help spread the cost over the months.
If you want to find out more, then MoneySavingExpert has some great advice and shows comparisons between cards.
Chat to us about how you could make your home more energy efficient by filling out our home energy assessment form. Our home energy assessors figure out where to start and how to break down the work to suit your budget and lifestyle.
Book a home energy assessment today and take the first step to reduce your energy bills for good.
