ECO4

Ruby-Tuesday

I live in an E-rated property in England, off the mains gas grid. Our 30-year-old electric storage heaters, powered by Economy 7, and a thermostat-less immersion heater handle our heating and hot water.

Our household income exceeds £36,000, but my adult daughter lives with us and receives Universal Credit and PIP. Based on online information, I believed we might qualify for HUG2 funding due to her benefits. However, my local council rejected this, citing our income, and suggested ECO4.

Octopus Energy also declined my ECO4 application for an air source heat pump and solar panels. They cited the EPC's lack of heat pump recommendation and insufficient potential to raise the EPC rating from E to C.

An online energy saving tool indicated a heat pump and solar PV could achieve an EPC of C for my home. Despite requesting an on-site assessment, Octopus refused.

As this online assessment isn't an official EPC, it's useless for the ECO4 application. With no boiler, we're ineligible for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. It seems there are no available grants to replace our outdated heating system, despite my daughter's circumstances. If anyone can help or advise, please let me know. 

BarelySentientAI

Get a new EPC and ask the assessor doing it to include a heat pump as an option?

NedS

There are dozens (if not hundreds) of companies offering the ECO4 scheme, you are not limited to your energy supplier. I would contact a few of the many companies directly, whom I'm sure will be more than happy to come survey your property.

Insulation should also be part of the measures, as this will be essential to improving your EPC rating. Normally the ECO4 package would include insulation (cavity wall, solid wall, loft), ASHP heating and DHW system, and solar panels.

We had our property updated recently on ECO4, and had surveys from at least 4 companies before settling on a 'supplier'.

Are you sure you qualify for ECO4 given your income. I appreciate your daughter is in receipt of means-tested benefits, but she is not the home-owner nor a tenant so I'm not sure the property qualifies (happy to be wrong!). Anyway, any one of the many companies should be able to screen for eligibility over the phone before sending out a surveyor.

wrf12345

I thought having a bad EPC was one of the things they were looking for so that the subsequent improvement showed they were doing a good job and ticked all the boxes. Judging by the way winter fuel payments have been removed from most pensioners it is likely that only those on benefits in the next fiscal year will be able to get ECO4 so possibly last chance saloon for those with under 30k household incomes.

NedS

wrf12345 said:

I thought having a bad EPC was one of the things they were looking for so that the subsequent improvement showed they were doing a good job and ticked all the boxes. Judging by the way winter fuel payments have been removed from most pensioners it is likely that only those on benefits in the next fiscal year will be able to get ECO4 so possibly last chance saloon for those with under 30k household incomes.

My understanding, maybe incorrectly, is that ECO4 is tied to meeting targets the government agreed to as part of the Paris Accord. The government need to reduce CO2 emissions or pay fines for failing to do so, and they have calculated that it is cheaper to subsidise people to take steps to reduce CO2 emissions than it is to pay the fines. The update on schemes like ECO4 and Boiler Upgrade Scheme (and installation rates generally for ASHPs) are low so these schemes are unlikely to end whilst the government still needs to encourage uptake. I'm guessing the same is true with electric vehicle uptake.

The government have rightly concluded it best to target that money towards households that can least afford to pay those costs themselves and properties that are the least efficient thus achieving the greatest reduction in emissions.

Yes, it's going to cost us billions to make the green transition, but my understanding is this is something we are committed to doing and failing to meet targets has financial consequences too. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can confirm if I have the right end of the stick?

There are some good documents and guidance on ECO4 on the ofgem website.

FreeBear

NedS said:

wrf12345 said:

I thought having a bad EPC was one of the things they were looking for so that the subsequent improvement showed they were doing a good job and ticked all the boxes. Judging by the way winter fuel payments have been removed from most pensioners it is likely that only those on benefits in the next fiscal year will be able to get ECO4 so possibly last chance saloon for those with under 30k household incomes.

My understanding, maybe incorrectly, is that ECO4 is tied to meeting targets the government agreed to as part of the Paris Accord. The government need to reduce CO2 emissions or pay fines for failing to do so, and they have calculated that it is cheaper to subsidise people to take steps to reduce CO2 emissions than it is to pay the fines. The update on schemes like ECO4 and Boiler Upgrade Scheme (and installation rates generally for ASHPs) are low so these schemes are unlikely to end whilst the government still needs to encourage uptake. I'm guessing the same is true with electric vehicle uptake.

The government have rightly concluded it best to target that money towards households that can least afford to pay those costs themselves and properties that are the least efficient thus achieving the greatest reduction in emissions.

Yes, it's going to cost us billions to make the green transition, but my understanding is this is something we are committed to doing and failing to meet targets has financial consequences too. Maybe someone more knowledgeable can confirm if I have the right end of the stick?

There are some good documents and guidance on ECO4 on the ofgem website.

I think you are a little off on just where the money is coming from. ECO4 is funded by the major energy companies (from the money we pay them), whilst the BUS is government funded (from our taxes). So whilst we all pay for these green transitions, the route the money takes is slightly different.

Regardless of the root source of the funds, we all need to play our part in reducing CO2 emissions and save energy.

wrf12345

"Regardless of the root source of the funds, we all need to play our part in reducing CO2 emissions and save energy."

Happy to play my part by DIY fitting triple glazing and super-insulating my internal walls but not to pay the council money to come sign off the windows, nor be treated as a criminal for fitting my own windows in a country where thousands are allowed to break into the country. Weird place the UK.

MQ2020

I wouldn’t bother unless you want a cold house with expensive bills!
We were on LPG, with an efficient boiler, but fell for the advertising claims of Eco4.  We’ve had solar panels, new radiators, boiler and heat pump, but didn’t need cavity wall insulation. 

Since it’s been fitted we’ve had no end of problems.  Radiators that do or don’t turn on, seemingly with no reason.  Sky high electricity bills, and the solar panels are so few (they gave us 6) that they make barely any impact on our bills, especially in the autumn and winter. 

Absolute con.  Wish we’d kept our LPG system!!

Netexporter

MQ2020 said:

I wouldn’t bother unless you want a cold house with expensive bills!
We were on LPG, with an efficient boiler, but fell for the advertising claims of Eco4.  We’ve had solar panels, new radiators, boiler and heat pump, but didn’t need cavity wall insulation. 

Since it’s been fitted we’ve had no end of problems.  Radiators that do or don’t turn on, seemingly with no reason.  Sky high electricity bills, and the solar panels are so few (they gave us 6) that they make barely any impact on our bills, especially in the autumn and winter. 

Absolute con.  Wish we’d kept our LPG system!!

My situation is pretty much identical to yours. Mine works perfectly. I was getting over 2.4kW from the solar when the sun was shining, a week or so ago.

I did remove the Radbot gadgets and put the traditional TRVs (which the installer had kindly left as he'd found Radbots to be troublesome) back on. I have the TRVs fully open and have balanced the system on the lockshield valves. House is perfectly warm at a flow temperature of about 30 degrees.

QrizB

MQ2020 said:

 We’ve had solar panels, new radiators, boiler and heat pump, but didn’t need cavity wall insulation. 

Since it’s been fitted we’ve had no end of problems.

If you want help with getting the best from your heat pump, there are some extremely knowledgeable people over on the "heat pumps" sub-forum.
https://forums.moneysavingexpert.com/categories/heat-pumps