Pre Budget: Boiler scrappage scheme planned

GMT_2

Boiler scrappage scheme: Northern Ireland Electricity is running a boiler scrappage scheme in which eligible applicants can receive up to £800 to replace boilers that are over five years old. Eligibility criteria includes single applicants with an income of £22k or less and couples with a combined income of £30k or less. Just for comparison

C_Mababejive

Cardew wrote: »

The car scrappage scheme as applied to boilers!!

Is your boiler G rated? mine is! LIst here:

http://www.ofgem.gov.uk/Sustainability/Environment/EnergyEff/InfProjMngrs/Documents1/SEDBUK%20G%20Rated%20Boilers%20List.xls

ROTFL..just spotted Potterton FRS on there..havent thrutched one of those in years...rubbish..I'll stick with my spacesaver CF

No doubt there will be widespread fraud as there is in the Warmfront scheme.

This government needs to go..

Premier_2

Mine on that list too. Says it has a seasonal efficiency of 65% which would quite rightly make it Group G as it is below 70%

However, I don't think I fully understand it.

On this page, it says an average cost for a semi with a 65% efficient boiler is £340 per year (and I thought I was a low user, not an average user)
http://www.sedbuk.com/cgi-local/dynamicv.cgi?page=boiler8

However, on this page it suggests an average cost would be just £323
http://www.sedbuk.com/pages/hw.htm

Oh well, whichever, the highest efficiency boiler available appears to be just under 92%

So how is the £200 p.a. average saving achieved that the government is suggesting?
Surely if the ca. 25% increase in efficiency relates to £200, then only those spending £800 today on gas only using a group G boiler can achieve such savings?
£800 per year on gas alone seems quite high to me, even ignoring the charts given earlier. Remember this is £800 on heating & hot water only, not cooking (part of the reason we thought we were below average gas consumers as we cook by electric, so perhaps those charts are correct)
Not another one of Gordon's magical maths formulas is it?

s_keighley

Morning all!
I cannot beieve the news I've heard this morning regarding the boiler scrappage scheme as I am having a new boiler fit today. The boiler they are replacing is in Group G and is on the list.
Does anyone know whether anyone having a new boiler fit today will be able to claim for the scrappage scheme as it hasn't been introduced yet?
I would have waited if I'd known about this.

A_fiend_for_life

Premier wrote: »

Not another one of Gordon's magical maths formulas is it?

'over £200' a year seems to relate to 25% of average annual gas consumption (20,500 kWh) paid on a prepayment meter and assuming it is used only for hot water and heating.

Based on this the cheapest price for gas on DD seems to be £617 for prepay it is £792 (Area 18 / energy helpline).

Upgrading from a G to an A rated condensing boiler the saving for an 'average' household on prepay would be £234 per annum. For a DD it would be £181. This clearly averages out as 'over £200'.

Pretty misleading I think.

Cardew

A_fiend_for_life wrote: »

'over £200' a year seems to relate to 25% of average annual gas consumption (20,500 kWh) paid on a prepayment meter and assuming it is used only for hot water and heating.

Based on this the cheapest price for gas on DD seems to be £617 for prepay it is £792 (Area 18 / energy helpline).

Upgrading from a G to an A rated condensing boiler the saving for an 'average' household on prepay would be £234 per annum. For a DD it would be £181. This clearly averages out as 'over £200'.

Pretty misleading I think.

I think this sums up the figures better than the spin the Government puts on savings:

The RoyalInstitution of Chartered Surveyors stated recently :

The average cost of installing one of these modern boilers is £1,720, but saves on average just £95 off people's gas bills." See:

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/ukne...erts-warn.html

stphnstevey

£400 off £2000 = 20% discount. Worth it????

James_N

As with the car scrappage scheme, I have struggled with the logic of doing this.

I have NOT replaced a working, reliable and paid-for H reg car, which does daily commute service and costs only a service and its tax each year. I decided to NOT replace it despite the higher road tax, its relative inefficiency and the fact that after all these years non-essential bits are slowly giving up or are less than modern versions (our "newer" car could pass for a mobile disco, for instance: the old one barely crackles Radio 2 into the remaining speaker). I reckon this is "acceptable" as long as the car's essentials are OK, and that this costs me less than the monthly repayments a new model would bring over (say) a three years period.

I apply the same thinking to our reliable, functioning and "black-listed" back boiler.

The argument extends beyond my personal pocket - surely the environmental costs of producing a NEW commodity and disposing of the OLD one should be calculated?

I think that taking all this together, it's often cheaper, environmentally and financially, to run an old model for as long as possible. Until it "gives up" in fact.

roddydogs

And when all these "New" condensing boilers start going wrong after 5 years, because the heat exchanger is much thinner, do you then get another "Grant"?

jcorbygas

As a small 'gas engineer' business in operation for many years, we are of course very sceptical about this new scheme. As other posters have very sensibly pointed out, we advise our customers to keep their existing working boilers going as long as possible. You will hardly ever be saving money by changing your boiler as the cost of your new boiler will take many years of lower gas bills to recoup (and you will most likely need another new boiler by then anyway) So I suppose the Government are not really doing this scheme for the good of 'the people' - they have to do something else to reduce emissions, but as someone else has pointed out the savings of emissions are somewhat negated, by the fact that a new boiler has to be manufactured, someone has to come and quote for the new installation, visits to install the new boiler have to be made, etc etc
It will be interesting also to see whether it will work the same as Warm Front or whether the discount will be given at point of purchase - if the former then once again the small companies miss out on looking after their loyal customers and if the latter then people getting quotes should make sure that they are actually getting the discount and that some unscrupulous engineers would not be taking advantage and not passing on the discount.
We will watch the situation further.