ECO central heating scheme - like swimming through treacle...

tniMXunil

So, my mother is 80 (next Friday), diabetic, in heart failure and she gets Disability Living Allowance.

Her downstairs flat is Economy 7 wall heaters and an electric immersion heater for hot water. Her boiler recently gave up the ghost but she is managing with an eclectic shower and kettle water for the dishes, for now.

A couple of weeks ago I put an application in for the ECO grant scheme to see if we could get her gas central heating. My first attempt went well until the company involved decided that they decided the "100% costs covered" would now require an £1800 contribution. I asked for details and they became evasive, so I walked away with alarm bells ringing.

My second attempt was with as with energysolutions.co.uk and it went swimmingly, up to a point. As before they agreed that my mother qualified for "100% costs covered", but then went on to say that they could not provide the service due to lifespan of the property. That made no sense, so I asked for further details and they became evasive, so I walked away with alarm bells ringing. Can you see a pattern developing ?

Today I tried again, thinking third time's a charm. Warma UK responded very quickly to the online application, I provided everything they needed and their representative went through the figures with me, as follows, after a previous representative suggested we would likely receive 100% of costs covered by the grant:

Total installation cost: £3985.62
Total grant: £1636.50
Total contribution required from my mother: £2349.12
Additionally, we would be required to approach Northern Gas ourselves and pay them independently to have mains gas and a meter installed.

Hmmm.....

Just who is benefitting from the grant, because it's not my mother.

By comparison, a local heating engineer recently quoted me just over 4k for a full gas boiler/radiator central heating installation on a bungalow. This was for a more powerful boiler and 6 radiators, compared to a less powerful boiler (but still appropriate to a small flat) and 4 radiators under the grant scheme.

As a final death throw I ran once more through the energylink.org.uk website and an email came in a few minutes ago saying they had referred the application to, wait for it, Warma UK.

Confused.com

Lethagized

Hi, did you get anywhere with this?

SocWok

Grant free of charge from Warma UK covering indoor insulation throughout, solar panels, heat pump, new rads throughout. Started 2 weeks ago. Work done OK but trashing of carpets and furniture costing a lot of money - not just accidental! Builders just ignore normal standard of care. Warma will not give details beforehand or arrange builder visit pre work. Office unprofessional but pleasantly say you must be  overanxious.There is no oversight to the work at all at any time so builders do as they like. I intend making complaint. Spoke to Warma manager (who cannot help). Says lots of people saying same things but Trustpilot website gives glowing reports. This unlikely to be correct. Apparently lots of £ from government going into this scheme. I smell a rat. Will try to update on complaint etc. Someone should investigate.