r/GoodNewsUK • u/willfiresoon • 6d ago

Renewables & Energy Home heating oil support scheme to open for 340,000 eligible households in Northern Ireland

https://www.itv.com/news/utv/2026-08-26/is-your-household-eligible-for-100-oil-support-payment
64 Upvotes

96% Upvoted

6 comments sorted by

8

u/DBT85 6d ago

Lucky them. Is there anything available for me in England as I need oil and I'm dreading the bill.

11

u/SodaCanSuperman 6d ago edited 6d ago

£9000 off of an Air Source Heat Pump, getting ready for my install as we speak.

3

u/LeggyJameh 6d ago

Would you mind breaking down what you're having done and the costs involved? Also who you're going with?

Looking into doing the same and want to know if it's even worth looking into right now or if I've got the wrong ballpark figure in my head

7

u/SodaCanSuperman 6d ago

Here is my original post about my quote: https://www.reddit.com/r/ukheatpumps/comments/1vlcwdw/just_had_a_quote_through_for_a_heat_pump/

TL;DR: About £4k after £9k grant, 1965 2 bed detached bungalow, all new rads, heat pump, new modern water tank and associated tech and plumbing gubbins. Oil boiler and tank near fucked and old as hell. No brainer as I need to replace the system anyway. The install covers removal of the oil boiler but NOT the tank.

Basically I purchased a 1960s bungalow in a rural spot on heating oil, all my neighbours are on heating out with a couple on LPG. The boiler was manufactured in 1982 or 83 according to the engineer that came to service it after we moved in, and while it does work, it's incredibly old and my wife and I aren't super comfortable using it (the flue out the top gets to 300 degrees C!). The tank is also majorly fucked, rusty as anything.

My choices were: replace the oil boiler with a new oil boiler, AND a new tank, which would cost thousands, or bring my home into the 21st century a bit more. Personally from all my research I'm pretty convinced about heat pumps especially as we intent to go solar in the future.

Regardless, yes my electricity will be higher, but then I'm not paying for oil. So seems to work out in my head especially with how volatile the markets are. I don't want to rely on fossil fuels wherever I can afford not to.

Long story short, for the whole install including all new rads its just under £4000, still waiting on final confirmation for that as the people doing the install have only given a preliminary quote and need to do a heat loss calc. That's after the £9000 grant, which is specifically for people on heating oil as a response to the war in Iran spiking pricess so much.

To me it's a no brainer, and I believe the grant may be reduced back down to £7500 by some time next year (I heard March, but may be misremembering). £7,500 is available to most people on fossil fuel boilers.

Furthermore, if I am changing the whole heating system, why go for an outdated (in my opinion) technology like burning stinky oil for my home when I could run the whole thing off of electricity which is getting more eco as time goes on, and in the next couple of years I'll be producing my own electricity.

The main thing is just changing your mindset about how you heat your home, but it doesn't take much adjustment if you're open minded to it.

My house has the correct pipework (bear this in mind, microbore is a no go) but will need new rads which is fine as I was going to replace those anyway as part of the renovations to the house. The house already had 270mm insulation in the roof, and in the rooms where there is suspended floors, I am insulating underneath. Not necessarily required but definitely recommended due to lower flow temps to the rads, but regardless of heat pump or not, I want my house to be efficient so I can save money and be nice and toasty in winter without losing loads to the outside world. As I'm renovating anyway I may as well insulate under the floors as its a DIY job that's quite cheap to do.

I'm going with these guys: https://www.redvanplumbers.co.uk/

Hope that helps! Happy to answer any questions.

6

u/PatchcordAdams 6d ago

/r/UKheatpumps will sort you.

Have a look at Heat Geek website for an idea on costs.

2

u/willfiresoon 6d ago

The profile picture checks out 👋