 The government says a new boiler can save more than £200 a year |
A government scheme that gives households in England
£400 off the cost of a new boiler will be launched later. The boiler scrappage
scheme was announced in the pre-Budget report last month. According to the government
it will help households cut their energy bills, reduce CO2 emissions and support thousands of jobs. Up
to 125,000 households in England could benefit from the scheme, which is costing the government £50m. How do I do it? To qualify households
need to have a working G-rated boiler. It is likely to be G-rated if it is more than 15 years old. Once
you have found out if your boiler qualifies for replacement, the next step is to arrange a quote for a new one from a qualified
installer. This could cost anything between £2,000 and £3,000. Then, you need
to provide the Energy Saving Trust (EST) with details of your old boiler and the installer you have chosen fit the new one.
The EST will also want confirmation the installer has actually visited your home and provided you with a proper quote for
the work. Assuming all that is in order, a voucher worth £400 will be issued from
18 January. This will be refunded once the work has been done and the EST has received both the invoice for the work and the
voucher. The £400 rebate should take no more than 25 working days of the paperwork
reaching the Trust. Bigger deals Energy
companies are expected to use the scheme to drum up business. Gas Care UK, the biggest installers of boilers in London and
the UK, are planning to match the government's £400 discount.  |  I hope the new boiler will save me money in the long run, so it is worth the investment now 
|
Other firms are offering similar savings too. The government says the scheme will help
to safeguard jobs across the industry which, it says, employs about 130,000 installers. The
government says upgrading a boiler can save a household more than £200 a year. It has also estimated that replacing
125,000 G-rated boilers will save about 140,000 tonnes of CO2 emissions a year. Catherine
Allinson, from Balham, south London, has had her boiler for more than 10 years and hopes to upgrade to a new one with the
help of the scheme. She said: "My current boiler is pretty inefficient, and has not
been terribly reliable this winter." "I hope the new boiler will save me money
in the long run, so it is worth the investment now, and with the boiler scrappage scheme, I should be able to get a little
bit of money off the full cost of the boiler, so that will help," she added. | 
