Insulating Measures Included within the Green Homes Grant
The Green Homes Grant is a Government run scheme, offered to eligible properties in England. Release of vouchers began in November 2020, and the scheme lasts till March 2022.
The energy saving scheme offers up to £10,000 off the total installation costs and allows Primary and Secondary measures.
Primary Insulation Measures Included in the Green Homes Grant
Insulation is aimed at reducing the amount of heat entering or leaving a building. The more insulation you have, the better the building will be at retaining heat in the winter and therefore the lower the carbon emissions and bills.
This type of insulation can either sit in the rafters or the joists of your property. It creates a thermal barrier, preventing valuable heat escaping from the property during the winter or entering the property during the summer. Also qualifying are insulation for flat roofs and roof rooms.
Typical Cost: £300 Typical Savings: £200 Typical Payback: 1.5 Years
Properties built after 1930 will tend to have cavity walls, where the main external walls of the property will consist of two thin parallel layers of bricks with a cavity in the middle. They are built like this to help prevent moisture passing through the wall. Insulating material can be injected into this cavity to help slow down the passage of heat out of the home during the winter.
Typical Cost: £1,000 Typical Savings: £200 Typical Payback: 5 Years
Properties built before 1930 tend to have solid walls, where the main external walls consist of a solid brick about 250mm in thickness. In these properties internal or external insulation needs fixing to the solid walls to help slow down the movement of heat through them.
Typical Cost: £9,000 Typical Savings: £200 Typical Payback: 22 Years
Floors tend to be of two types; suspended timber or solid floors. Both types of floor are insulated in different ways, but perform a similar function in that they slow down the movement of heat through the lowest level of the property.
Typical Cost: £1,000 Typical Savings: £50 Typical Payback: 20 Years
Secondary Insulation Measures Included in the Green Homes Grant
Draughts in the home happen where there are unwanted gaps in the construction of your home, so potentially through floorboards, around doors or windows, or down the chimney. A draught is an inflow of air into the home, which during the summer may actually be a nice relief, but in winter can quickly decrease the temperature of the home so you need to use additional heating to keep warm. Draught proofing stops this cold air entering the home, helping to save you money on your heating bills.
Typical Cost: £75 Typical Savings: £50 Typical Payback: 1.5 Years
In new properties double glazing is often installed as standard since it vastly increases the energy efficiency of the windows and prevents heat escaping. It uses two panes of glass separated by a space which is normally filled with an inert gas such as Argon. Older properties can be retrofitted relatively easy with double glazing, and it comes in numerous different designs (wood, uPVC, metal) to fit in with the current characteristics of the property. The Green Deal also includes secondary glazing, which is much cheaper than double glazing and lets you add a pane of glass to the existing single glazed window. Triple glazing is also offered, which is slightly more efficient than double glazing, but costs more.
Typical Cost: £8,000 Typical Savings: £100 Typical Payback: 80 Years
Have you ever noticed how warm the airing cupboard is where your hot water tank sits? This is because heat is escaping from the hot water tank, meaning you need to spend more to keep the water within the tank at the required temperature. Insulating your water tank slows this heat loss, helping to save you money on your heating costs.
Typical Cost: £30 Typical Savings: £20 Typical Payback: 1.5 Years
What is the Green Homes Grant?
The Green Homes Grant is a Government scheme aimed at helping homeowners install new energy saving measures in their homes, such as new boilers, insulation, low carbon heat or double glazing.
For the latest information on the Green Homes Grant, please visit the official Green Homes Grant website here.
Unlike the previous Green Deal scheme which was loan operated, the Green Homes Grant offers grants of up to £5000 and £10,000 to wholly or partially cover the full cost of the energy saving measure.
The Green Homes Grant was set up to help improve the energy efficiency of properties across the UK, since many of the properties we live in are very inefficient, with solid walls, old heating systems and very little insulation. This scheme allows people to improve their homes without having to stump up the entire upfront costs of the works.
How does the Green Homes Grant work?
The Green Homes Grant is divided in to two separate grants, which each have different eligibility criteria.
£5000 – available to any home in England that fits the correct criteria for the specific measure. This grant covers 2/3’s of the full cost and caps at £5000. There will be a remainder in all cases using this grant and it will be paid as a customer contribution.
£10,000 – available to any homeowner receiving certain benefits listed here, and whose home fits the correct criteria for the specific measure. This grant covers 100% of the full cost up to £10,000 and the remainder is paid as a customer contribution.
A basic worked example of the Green Homes Grant
The easiest way of showing this is using an example – so lets imagine you are fitting external insulation, using the Green Homes Grant.
e.g. Fitting external insulation on a small terraced house (approx 50sqm), using the £5000 green homes grant
The average supply and fit cost of external wall insulation is £120 per sqm (inclusive of materials, labour, VAT, skip hire, any extra remedial work required, scaffolding). Therefore, a 50sqm house would cost £6000.
In this case, 2/3’s of the full cost is £4000, so this is how much the Green Homes Grant would cover. The homeowner would pay the remainder of £2000.
e.g. Fitting external insulation on the same size house (50sqm), using the £10,000 Green Homes Grant
As above, the total cost of the works would amount to £6000. With the £10,000 grant, the whole £6000 would be covered by the Green Homes Grant and there would be no customer contribution.
If the house were bigger (for instance, 100sqm) the total cost would be £12,000, the Green Homes Grant would cover £10,000 of the amount and the homeowner would have to pay £2000.
Who can get the Green Homes Grant?
In theory, any home in England can access the Green Deal considering you are eligible, but the scheme has been specifically tailored to the private home owner or the private rental sectors. The reason being is that the social housing sector already has several ways in which improvements are funded and undertaken – namely the ECO scheme.
Check if you are eligible using the Government questionnaire.
The Green Homes Grant Process
The following section talks a bit more about how the Green Homes Grant process works end-to-end – starting with a finding a Trustmark approved installer to quote for the works.
- Find a Trustmark approved installer to quote you for the works. The installer will also have to be registered to specific certifications regarding the measure they are installing – MCS/PAS2035. It is recommended to get three quotes for comparison.
- Once you have agreed a quote with an approved installer, you can apply for the grant on the government website. You must not apply without receiving a formal quotation.
- When you have submitted your application, it will take a few weeks until you receive your Green Homes Grant voucher. Work must not start before you receive the voucher.
- Your installer will be notified when you receive the voucher, however it is always a good idea to let them know yourself and arrange a start date for the work to begin.
- An installer will complete the work and you as the customer should be benefiting from the energy improvements.
How does the Green Homes Grant help improve homes?
By installing energy efficient measures in your home, it will help protect the environment, and lower your energy bills.
Types of measures currently covered in the Green Homes Grant scheme:
- Insulation Measures– Solid wall insulation (internal or external), Cavity wall insulation, Under-floor insulation (solid floor, suspended floor), Loft insulation, Flat roof insulation, Pitched roof insulation, Room in roof insulation, Insulating a park home
- Low Carbon Heat Measures – Air source heat pump, Ground source heat pump, Solar thermal (liquid filled flat plate or evacuated tube collector), Biomass boiler, Hybrid heat pump
How does the Green Homes Grant help improve energy awareness?
The Green Homes Grant provides homeowners with knowledge of energy efficient home improvements. In turn, better energy awareness should drive occupiers to use their energy more wisely, which should drive down the cost people pay. For example: reducing the temperature of the hot water cylinder thermostat, installing central heating thermostats in the correct location, reducing water levels in kettles, washing clothes in ‘eco-mode’, and turning off unused high energy usage appliances like chest freezers should all help with lower energy bills.
We list 100 ways to save energy in the home here – even if you adopt a few, you should see some nice energy savings on your utility bills.
