Grant for air heating pump

Jayneemms

Hello all. This is my first post and I'm hoping you can help.
I think I'm going to need a new boiler soon and have seen a lot of adverts offering government grants to change from GCH to air pump heating. Has anyone any experience of these grants or heating systems? 
Thank you 😊

Reed_Richards

At the moment I am not aware of any grants in England for installing an Air Source Heat Pump however once you have one installed you can usually claim the Renewable Heat Incentive which pays you money every quarter for 7 years.

It's likely that an ASHP would be more expensive to run than a gas boiler.  And if you have radiators it is very likely these would need to be replaced by new ones that would achieve enough output at lower water temperatures.

I have about 6 month's experience with an ASHP, you can read about it here: https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/discussion/6240076/i-bought-a-heat-pump/p1     

trance_abbey

I'm also investigating getting an air to water heat pump for a property I'm in the process of purchasing.

I went to a very helpful and instructive talk on it recently and while I'm not sure that the savings benefits are there it's definitely the eco friendly choice.. the RHI scheme offers rebates over 7 years and there are various companies who have set up an assignment of rights so they defray the upfront costs and take the incentive payments over the 7 years.

I'm not sure where you're located but here are a couple of charities that I've been referred to for more information

https://www.futurefithomes.org/

https://mhsgroup.org/2021/05/new-home-retrofit-advice-service/

Reed_Richards

trance_abbey said:

I'm also investigating getting an air to water heat pump for a property I'm in the process of purchasing.

I went to a very helpful and instructive talk on it recently and while I'm not sure that the savings benefits are there it's definitely the eco friendly choice.. the RHI scheme offers rebates over 7 years and there are various companies who have set up an assignment of rights so they defray the upfront costs and take the incentive payments over the 7 years.

Assignment of rights worked out badly for solar panel users because it typically involved not owning the panels and mortgage lenders were suspicious.  This makes properties with these rent-a-roof panels harder to sell.  Maybe asking your mortgage lender to extend the mortgage to cover the upfront cost would be a better option?  

trance_abbey said:

I'm not sure where you're located but here are a couple of charities that I've been referred to for more information

https://www.futurefithomes.org/

https://mhsgroup.org/2021/05/new-home-retrofit-advice-service/

Strictly speaking I don't think either of those enterprises are charities; they appear to have been formed by community groups originally.

Reed_Richards

This if from the OGGEM document on assignment of rights:

If the new owner doesn’t wish to continue the assignment of rights agreement, the accreditation and payments to the nominated registered investor will cease. In these instances, early termination clauses in the contract between yourself and your investor may apply.

The whole assignment of rights process can fail if you sell the house.  So expect to be asked to pay a lot of money in the event of early termination.

trance_abbey

Reed_Richards said:

Assignment of rights worked out badly for solar panel users because it typically involved not owning the panels and mortgage lenders were suspicious.  This makes properties with these rent-a-roof panels harder to sell.  Maybe asking your mortgage lender to extend the mortgage to cover the upfront cost would be a better option?  

I don't/won't have a mortagage, but taking out a separate loan is definitely food for thought. At this stage I'm not planning on selling the flat any time soon, but who knows what the future holds.

matelodave

Unless you can get a very low interest loan then do some very careful sums. If you do decide to sell the place before the loan has run it's course then you'll have to pay up the outstanding amount. Likewise you'll have to stay there for at least seven years to get the full amount of RHI payments.

Get it wrong and it could cost you a lot of money so make sure you do a lot of research and understand what you are getting into before taking the plunge. Dont forget that the Eco brigade will be selling their own eco agenda rather than giving you fully unbiased information. Make sure you balance out the cons with the pro's to see iif it's right for you.

I'm not sure that there are any grants for a heatpump and even if there were the value would get knocked off any RHI payments so you wouldn't be able to benefit from both.

It may give you a nice warm fuzzy feeling to go eco friendly but bear in mind that a new boiler will be around £3k (or less) whereas a heatpump with all the attendant extras (hot water tank, plumbing and upgraded radiator etc) is likely to be the thick end of around £16k or more and the running costs will be around twice that of gas at today's prices. Add in the cost of a loan and it might not everso attractive.

I'm not trying to turn you off if that's what you really want but be aware that they really are a long term investment. I've had a a heatpump for eleven years and I'm very happy with it.

I've had my seven years worth of RHI and I reckon it's now just about paid for itself against the cost of oil, LPG or storage heating but a mains gas system (if it was available where I live) would have been far cheaper to install and run.

Reed_Richards

A heat pump is definitely the eco-friendly choice because on average you get about 3 kW of heat for 1 kW of fuel.  But mains gas is extremely cheap in the UK so at current prices a heat pump (and every other available heat source) will cost significantly more to run than a gas boiler.    

Reed_Richards

@trance_abbey what heating does the property you are purchasing (and considering a heat pump for) have at the moment?

trance_abbey

Reed_Richards said:

@trance_abbey what heating does the property you are purchasing (and considering a heat pump for) have at the moment?

It's got a boiler with a separate hot water tank which is about 7 or 8 years old.  For some unknown reason when the boiler was replaced it was moved from the kitchen into the master bedroom, so I'm already very clear that I want it moved/replaced.

@matelodave £16k?! I've had a couple of quotes and they're around the £9k mark so perhaps technology has come down in pricesince you installed yours? The RHI grant calculators indicate that over the 7 years I can expect to get back about 6-7k of that leaving an overall outlay of less than it'd cost to get a new condensing combi boiler.

When it comes up upgrading the radiators, I've been told that it may not be necessary and to wait on it and see how the system performs... there's also an additive which is supposed to make radiators more efficient that's changing some of the calculations

https://www.hydromx.com/

shinytop

If you don't need new radiators or a HW tank then £9k may be about right.  My ASHP was over £16k but that's for a 4 bed house with 14 radiators and was for everything - we had no central heating. That was March 2021 so recent.

Sorry but that additive looks a bit like snake oil.