£400 towards the cost of replacing your boiler? Yes please. The boiler scrappage scheme was super popular, and helped thousands of home owners. So, why was it stopped?
Home heating is responsible for over half of the average monthly energy bill and according to the Energy Saving Trust, if you have an old, inefficient boiler this could add as much as £275 to your annual bill - yep, a huge amount.
This was exactly what the Boiler Scrappage Scheme was introduced for, to help encourage households to ditch their old, G-rated boilers in favour of new, modern and highly efficient ones.
The Government worked in conjunction with the Energy Saving Trust to award households with a £400 voucher to help towards the costs of a new boiler.
Unfortunately, the scheme had a finite amount of funding and has now been discontinued.
Many companies still use the words “Boiler Scrappage Scheme” in their marketing materials, but in reality, there is no funding and any such scheme they operate themselves is separate from the now defunct government vouchers.
Need help with a new boiler? There are other options, such as the ECO scheme, or if you would like to spread the cost, then boilers on finance is a very popular choice.
What was the Boiler Scrappage Scheme?
The Boiler Scrappage Scheme was officially announced in 2009 by the then-chancellor Alistair Darling.
The fund received a budget of £50 million with the aim of helping 125,000 households in England with a G-rated boiler upgrade to a modern condensing boiler.
Just like a car scrappage scheme, it provided households with a voucher for their old boilers, in order to help them towards the cost of replacing them with a greener, more efficient model.
Eligible households could receive vouchers of £400 as part of the scheme and several energy companies matched this amount, meaning that many households received £800 towards a new boiler.
The £400 voucher was delivered to households in the form of a rebate by the Energy Saving Trust. While the big six energy companies offering to match the amount also paid the additional £400 via rebate too.
During its course, the scheme helped thousands of homes transition from old, dirty, non-condensing boilers, to greener, cleaner, more efficient models.
The practical implications of this weren’t just a shiny, new boiler, but a reduction in carbon emissions and a reduction in heating and hot water bills.
As above, however, the scheme is no longer available.
...but, it's not all doom and gloom.
Since 2009, boiler installation costs have dramatically reduced. Back then, a typical boiler replacement may have cost upwards of £3,000. Now, with companies like Heatable, you're able to get a new boiler installed for as little as £1,995 (finance is also available).
Who qualified for the Boiler Scrappage Scheme?
The scheme's main aim was to help households in England upgrade their old boilers, so it was only available to homeowners and landlords with G-rated boilers residing in England i.e., the least efficient boilers according to the Energy-related Products (ErP) directive.
A G-rated boiler has the worst efficiency rating under the ErP, this means that much of the energy they use is wasted via the exhaust fumes, instead of being used for heating.
In comparison to modern A-rated boilers that are at least 90% efficient, G-rated boilers could be less than 70% efficient.
The ErP rating can usually be found displayed via a label on your boiler, but if not, it’s quite easy to find by searching your boiler model via a search engine like Google.
Once qualified for the £400 voucher, the old boiler would need to be replaced with an A-rated high efficient boiler that utilised condensing technology.
Do you need a new boiler?
A new combi boiler costs anywhere from £1,800, all the way up to £3,500, a considerable sum of money even with a Boiler Scrappage Scheme voucher.
But in the long term running an old inefficient boiler can cost you hundreds of pounds more than a modern one would, so by replacing your boiler, you could offset the upfront costs of installing a new boiler in just a few years.
10+ year old boilers are G-rated and only have an efficiency rating of around 70%. This means for every £1 spent, 30p is being totally wasted. Modern boilers (like the ones Heatable install), are 90%+ efficient.
In addition, a modern boiler is much greener, releasing considerably less carbon, making it better for the environment.
In fact, according to the Energy Saving Trust if you replace your old boiler with an A-rated boiler and set of heating controls (you can even operate it remotely via an app on your phone) you could save about £340 and 1,500kg of carbon dioxide a year.
The sobering fact is that if every household in the UK made the switch to a high efficiency condensing boiler with smart heating controls, it would save enough energy to heat almost 2 million homes for 12 months and prevent almost 7 million tonnes of CO2 from being released to the environment.
If your boiler is also extremely old and deemed to be Beyond Economical Repair (BER) it’s also probably worth upgrading your boiler.
Often a broken boiler can be incredibly expensive to repair e.g. if components such as a PCB or heat exchanger need to be replaced or repaired, then it may be more cost-effective to get your boiler replaced.
Is there any financial help available for boilers?
Although the Boiler Scrappage Scheme no longer exists, there are other forms of assistance, as well as boiler financing to help you spread the cost. Here is a summary of what’s currently available:
Energy Company Obligation (ECO) Scheme:
The ECO scheme, often just referred to as a boiler grant or boiler grant scheme, is offered by some of the UK’s biggest energy companies and is part of their obligation to help low-income households make the transition to cleaner and greener heating.
Although this scheme does seem ideal, the reality is that very few people are eligible due to rigorous eligibility requirements. You can read more about the scheme here and apply for a free boiler grant.
Boilers on Finance:
Although not a government subsidy or a grant, many people do find financing their boiler to be very helpful, as it allows you to spread the cost of a new boiler installation over time.
Boiler finance is offered by private lenders and if you meet the eligibility criteria you can potentially pay for your new boiler in monthly instalments over 3, 5, 7 or 10 years.
Read all about financing options in our guide to boilers on finance.
Partial funding:
If you receive qualifying benefits and your house isn’t suffering from poor energy efficiency you may be eligible for partial funding towards a new boiler.
This means you will have to contribute just a portion of the total cost, these contributions vary depending on your property type and the fuel you use.
Checking whether you could qualify for a free boiler is the easy part... head over to boilergrants.org.uk and apply online!
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