The £7,500 heat pump grant, in plain English

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays a fixed sum towards a heat pump, and it is not means-tested. The current figures are £7,500 towards an air source heat pump, £7,500 towards a ground source, £2,500 towards an air-to-air system, and £5,000 towards a biomass boiler. One grant per property.

If your home is heated by oil or LPG and has no mains gas connection, there is an extra £1,500 available for an air source or ground source heat pump until March 2027. That takes the air source figure to £9,000 for those homes.

Sizing is the part people underestimate. A heat pump is specified from a room-by-room heat loss calculation, not from the number of radiators. Some houses need a few bigger radiators or a hot water cylinder they do not currently have. That work is real cost, and anyone quoting you before doing the calculation is guessing.

The one rule that catches people out: the money is only paid through an installer certified under the Microgeneration Certification Scheme. That is why we do grant work through an MCS-accredited partner, who carry out the design and register the installation, while Andy does the fitting and commissioning locally. And since March 2022 the VAT on heat pump installation is zero-rated, until 31 March 2027, so the quoted price is the price.

One more thing worth asking about: air conditioning costs less than people expect to run, and an air-to-air unit that heats is eligible for the £2,500 grant when it is installed as a heating system. If you were considering cooling for a loft conversion anyway, that is worth a conversation.