Have you heard of the ECO4 grant scheme? This opportunity for you to receive a free upgrade on your heating systems and home insulation is unmissable! Consider this, your ultimate guide to the ECO4 help to heat grant, where all of your questions will be answered; do you qualify? When does ECO4 start? Is the ECO4 grant scheme completely free? And so on. Take your energy efficiency to the next level, without paying a single penny. And of course, what better time for you to get a free, improved heating system, than in a cost of living crisis? This grant is to help you.
ECO, stands for Energy Company Obligation. The ECO help to heat grant scheme has improved around 2.4 million of your homes across the UK since it began in 2013. There has since been an ECO2, an ECO3, and the new ECO4 grant scheme will be available to help you until the year 2026. Aiming to improve the energy efficiency of your homes by reducing your energy bills, tackling fuel poverty is the key purpose of ECO4. It is also our passion here at First Choice Energy Limited, so we are going to focus on the homes with a lower EPC, and lower income families living in homes vulnerable to fuel poverty. For the ECO4 government grant scheme, there is a certain criteria you must meet to qualify, however if you don’t meet this criteria, your time isn’t wasted, and these schemes are designed to be as fair as possible to you! So, in this light, the Local Authority Flex scheme also provides opportunities to those of you who don’t qualify under the ECO4, to receive a new heating system (for free) too.
You can literally apply today because ECO4 began on the 5th of July 2022! It took a while for us to get in the swing of things and sort out new documents for the whole process. As of now though, here at First Choice Energy Ltd. we are taking new applicants daily, and beginning the submission process straight away. This means less fuss for you, and no waiting around! We have completely streamlined the application process to make it even easier for you, you won’t have to lift a finger.
To qualify for the ECO4 help to heat (HTH) grant, your household must meet a certain criteria.
Note- if you’re not sure you meet the criteria, please contact us! You may qualify without knowing, and the application is completely free of charge anyway, so none of your money will be wasted at all (you’d actually be surprised by the amount of applicants we’ve received that didn’t know they were in receipt of a qualifying benefit, crazy).
So, how can you qualify for the ECO4 grant scheme? To begin with, your home cannot be owned by the council, or a company, i.e. any social housing organisations. Your home must either be owned by yourselves or you must be renting from the Private Rented Sector.
Secondly, you, or someone in your home, must be in receipt of one or more of selected financial support from the government. This is because the ECO4 HTH scheme is to help your families, and homes that are the most at risk of fuel poverty, by upgrading your home heating systems to be the most cost effective and energy efficient system possible.
Please see below a table of all qualifying benefits under the ECO4 grant scheme-
Note- if you do not receive any of these qualifying benefits, the Local Authority Flex scheme is open to anybody and everybody… you may qualify for a brand new, free home heating system through that scheme!
Your current heating system also has to be inefficient. In your home, an inefficient heating system will be; a back boiler, a regular or system boiler, or in some cases, a non-condensing boiler, and lastly, you might not have any heating at all! This could mean you heat your home with electric room heaters, or a gas fire. The reasoning behind this is because these types of heating systems require so much more energy (and therefore your money!) to work half as efficiently as it needs to compared to an efficient heating system, for example, a condensing gas boiler.
Lastly, your home EPC rating must be in the ranges of E, F, or G. These homes are considered the most energy inefficient in the UK, so the ECO4 scheme is focussing on these homes, to begin reaching our country’s goal of becoming net zero. This criteria more or less goes hand in hand with the point before, as your home would struggle to exceed a score of E, F or G with an inefficient heating system such as the listed above.
If you have a back boiler, or even a regular/ system boiler, and your EPC is rated ‘D’, it could be a mistake! Having a new EPC done on your home through us could bring your EPC rating down to the EFG regions and actually help you qualify.
So, the main benefit you will get from the ECO4 scheme is a brand new, free upgraded home heating system! This could come in the form of a Gas Fired Condensing boiler (and radiators if you’re receiving a ‘First Time Central Heating grant’) or an Air Source Heat Pump, if you’re not connected to mains gas. These two are the most common home heating upgrades you can receive, others include Ground Source Heat Pumps and Electric Storage Heaters.
That’s not all…
Helping to tackle our current energy crisis, and to keep your homes warm, when you upgrade your boiler, you can also have your home insulated for free! Whether you have solid walls or cavity walls, pitched or flat roof, a suspended floor, or even a room in a roof, there will be an insulation measure that can be done for you. Of course, you know, the more insulated your house is, the more energy efficient, and the more money you can save. So, why wouldn’t you want to insulate your home for free?
Nope. Anything installed into your home through the ECO4 scheme should not cost you a single penny! Simple as.
There aren’t many things we can’t do, but, as a small business we are always trying to develop new skills up to a safe and accredited standard. So, our company is accredited to install boilers, and first time central heating systems! We are also aiming to have our PAS accreditation for Air Source Heat Pumps, in the future too. So, for now, gas boilers are the only things we install through the ECO4 scheme (at the moment!!).
As for insulation measures, not to blow our own trumpets, but we can install pretty much anything for you. From cavity wall insulation, to solid wall insulation. Pitched roof insulation (preventing up to 50% of heat loss, just saying), to room in roof insulation. You also want suspended underfloor insulation too? No problem, you’re more than covered by us and our many insulation accreditations.
(As for flat roof insulation, the materials accepted by the ECO4 grant scheme have only just been manufactured. So, guess what? We will be obtaining our PAS accreditation to insulate flat roofs through the ECO4 scheme, soon.)
For the ECO4 grant scheme, any area in Wales is completely covered by us. We also travel across the South West of England. Unfortunately, we can’t really stretch ourselves any further as we are a small, family-run company!
To be honest with you, it really does depend on how busy we are, and how many measures you want (or need installed). However, if it’s just a boiler you’re applying for, you really could have it installed within 2 weeks of our survey on your property! Efficient (professional, careful) is our middle name!
If you need insulation measures, on the other hand, it will only take slightly longer. But the good news is that any work to be done in your home will always start within 2 weeks. No unnecessary waiting around for you. The point is, anything extra that needs doing will always add on a couple of days, but, for a cost-effective, energy efficient home, I’m sure you can agree, it’s so worth it.
Our customer care is taken extremely seriously, you will never not know what’s going on or what stage we are at with your application and installation process. Our aim is to provide the highest standard of work to you, and that’s why you should want First Choice Energy Ltd. as your ECO4 installers.
We help families around the UK to live in an energy efficient homes through the use of insulation and installing eco-friendly boilers. We provide boiler grants as well as cavity wall insulation & extraction.
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