New Green Homes Grant to give up to £5,000 in vouchers for insulation and double-glazing

Jinglish

My ASHP has now been installed commissions and up and running. The GHG was very easy to claim and my installer says he will be paid in 5 working days. Since this is a money saving forum, I’ll share my financials below...

As you can see my total capital upfront cost is £5,250 which I have financed on a 0% CC for 18 months, I’ll use the quarterly RHI payments to pay the minimal CC payments and just keep balance transferring at 0% until cleared.

I’ve clawed back £350 for selling my old heating system but then I did have to get some extra loft insulation and a new EPC at a cost of £259.

Over 7 years and with the RHI based on the values in the spreadsheet above the whole system would have cost me £876.82 however...when you factor in the cost of switching from Oil to ASHP then this comes out at a profit of £2,491,72. So in summary for an outlay of £5,250 I’m getting a free ASHP and a return of £2,491.72 over 7 years (0.68%), plus no burning oil not bad ay? It’s really the RHI that has made this viable, all the GHG has done is take the sting out of the upfront cost so without the GHG it’s very likely I would not have bothered.

For those of you who are going to install an ASHP and claim the RHI (not metered for payment) get your EPC done before installing the ASHP. This is because payments are based on your EPC’s annual heat loss and the ASHP will make the payments lower. Scheme rules states that an EPC can’t be older than 24months so it’s within your right to do this.

Reed_Richards

Jinglish said:

My ASHP has now been installed commissions and up and running.... As you can see my total capital upfront cost is £5,250 which I have financed on a 0% CC for 18 months, I’ll use the quarterly RHI payments to pay the minimal CC payments and just keep balance transferring at 0% until cleared....

Are you sure about this @Jinglish ?  You won't get any RHI payments until you have paid-off the GHG, which is effectively a loan rather than a grant when it comes to getting an ASHP.

That a really good SCoP by the way, so you should win big-time for RHI payments.  Please let us know if you achieve the fuel cost savings you hope for.  I replaced an oil boiler last December and it looks as as if I will about break even on fuel costs.  

tek-monkey

After asking for the money up front with no installation date, my installer is now very quiet.  I said I'd happily pay before work commences but need to know when that is, silence ever since despite a few emails from me.

Jinglish

Reed_Richards said:

Jinglish said:

My ASHP has now been installed commissions and up and running.... As you can see my total capital upfront cost is £5,250 which I have financed on a 0% CC for 18 months, I’ll use the quarterly RHI payments to pay the minimal CC payments and just keep balance transferring at 0% until cleared....

Are you sure about this @Jinglish ?  You won't get any RHI payments until you have paid-off the GHG, which is effectively a loan rather than a grant when it comes to getting an ASHP.

Not sure what you mean by paid off the GHG? It's free (public money) £5k towards the total cost of my ASHP that doesn't get paid back. The GHG £5K is claimed and paid to the installer directly using my voucher at my approval. I have been invoiced £5k less for the complete system and paid the remaining balance on 0% CC. The GHG is then subtracted from the RHI payments otherwise you will be paid twice from the public purse. So the RHI is only based on what I have actually spent out of my own pocket.

Just realised that my image of my spreadsheet didn't attach because I have a low post count I'm not able to share it  

QrizB

Jinglish said:

Just realised that my image of my spreadsheet didn't attach because I have a low post count I'm not able to share it  

I can see at least one image you posted, is there another one missing?

Reed_Richards

Jinglish said:
The GHG is then subtracted from the RHI payments otherwise you will be paid twice from the public purse. 

That's what I meant  So if you would otherwise have got £1249 per year in RHI payments you will not get anything at all until after year 4.  Perhaps I misunderstood; it's always a bit difficult to interpret pictures of spreadsheets because you cannot examine the cells to see how the maths is being done.

Edit:  The point I was trying to make is that for an ASHP the GHG is just an advance payment on money you would otherwise have got through the RHI.  So it does not cost the public purse anything, whereas other uses of the GHG do.  

Jinglish

@QrizB It's very odd the screen shot appears on my phone but not on my PC, but it's obviously working for others.

@Reed_Richards I see what you mean about it being a "loan" and we are in agreement that the GHG is subtracted from the RHI so I would have got the same end result regardless of GHG or not. Yes £1,249 is based without GHG however the way I understand it is that I will get RHI payments for 0-7years but reduced as a function of the GHG being subtracted rather than 0 payments until after its "paid back". Let me know if you have documents/links that say the latter as I want to use the RHI to pay the minimal payments on my 0% CC?

With regards to switching from oil; the price of 54p is my average spend on oil over 3 years of living at the property likewise the 11.2p of electricity (including standing charge) so the current prices I used are realistic. My oil boiler is old and non-condensing so very inefficient so I suspect the saving will be very noticeable however the factor that I think will significantly skew this is that with my new system the control methodology is different. My oil boiler is a simple on/off thermostat that pumps out high temperature when it’s cold then switches off when it reaches that set point so heating "on demand" using a "bang-bang control". The ASHP has an outside weather station, inside thermostat but more importantly monitors and learns the heating flow rate and temperature delta of the in/out pipes to use "closed loop control" to constantly adjust the output in order to keep the home at the set point. This old debate of continuous vs on demand is still unsettled however with an ASHP because the output temp is so much lower that an oil boiler it is the only method that can work. I’ll keep an eye on the running costs an maybe update in a year. My personal view is that as we decarbonise the world slowly oil prices will creep up and electricity will reduce as the balance of supply vs demand changes, so jumping ship now in our forever home was a factor.

To summarise the GHG I would not have installed an ASHP without it as I would not have been able to stretch to the extra £5k needed in the short term despite getting it back in the long run via RHI so my experience were as such.

>Found an MCS installer who quoted visited and formally quoted within a week
>Applied for GHG and got my voucher in ~4weeks
>Paid remaining balance in full on 0% CC and work was started and completed within ~6weeks
>Claimed the voucher within a few mins
>Applied for RHI within a few mins

My other reasons were
>No longer have to buy/store oil and eye saw of a tank now gone
>New hot water tank is now in loft making the airing cupboard free for space
>Boiler removed from my office
>Decarbon my home (without extra cost to my pocket)

Sounds like I was the target of the GHG but seems like I’m the minority rather than the majority. It has worked for me so nothing but praise to the GHG it's delivered on everything it promised.

Afourteen

So, this week received an eMail from GHG people saying the vouchers will not be extended beyond August 31st or If asked before end of June October or 90 days.
Rang to speak with them this morning (30 June) to follow up on the other application - told last week it's passed the and should be issued 'shortly'; this morning's story is the application has passed the paperwork audit (i.e. they have all the info to prove I own the house) but hasn't, as yet passed the financial audit...? And they may quibble about the cost of the work - which is less than the other, mirror image, property I have the voucher for.
And as for extending the other voucher then that will take 7 days for approval.

So stressful (and I don't usually get stressed out) and infuriating.

Reed_Richards

We're straying off topic, @Jinglish, but I would be interested to know the make of your ASHP.  Mine can do "weather compensation" based on how cold it is outside but it cannot do "load compensation" based on how different the room temperature is from the set temperature.  When I was looking I could not find a make of ASHP with load compensation.   

Jinglish

Its not the ASHP alone but the combination of the tank and controller.
ASHP = Vaillant AroTherm Plus 7 kW
Tank = Vaillant UniTower Plus
Controller = Vaillant VRC700
Radiator Stats = Honeywell TRV

Private message me if you want to chat about it.