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Households in England and Wales that are off the gas grid and heat with oil or LPG can qualify for the £9,000 heat pump grant through the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. That is £1,500 more than the standard £7,500 grant, and the higher rate is open now on applications made up to 31 March 2027.
Key Takeaways
- The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £9,000 towards a heat pump for eligible off-gas-grid oil and LPG homes, up from the standard £7,500.
- The £9,000 rate is open now on applications made up to 31 March 2027.
- Applications that went in at the standard rate stay at £7,500, so it is worth checking which figure yours was submitted on.
- Much of rural East Devon sits off the gas grid and heats with oil, which is exactly who this uplift is aimed at.
- Your MCS installer applies for the grant and deducts it from your quote upfront. You never handle the money.
- If your oil or LPG boiler is due for replacement, book the free home assessment now so the application goes in well inside the March 2027 window.
Two things decide which figure lands on your quote: the fuel you heat with now, and the date the application goes in. Below is who qualifies, how the timing works, what the grant pays for, and what an oil or LPG household in East Devon can do this week.
What the £9,000 grant is and what changed
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) is the government grant that helps homeowners in England and Wales replace a fossil-fuel or direct-electric heating system with a heat pump. The standard grant is £7,500. What changed in 2026 is a higher rate for the homes that arguably need it most.
How the higher rate is made up
£7,500
For eligible homes replacing fossil-fuel or direct-electric heating
£1,500
For homes off the gas grid that heat with oil or LPG
£9,000
Open now on applications made up to 31 March 2027
The logic is straightforward. Off-grid homes can’t switch to mains gas, rely on tanker deliveries, and tend to be older rural properties where a heating upgrade costs more. That describes a large slice of East Devon: villages like Woodbury, West Hill and Newton Poppleford are full of detached houses and bungalows with an oil tank in the garden. Around Christow in the Teign Valley, about a third of homes use oil and roughly one in seven LPG, so our Christow and Teign Valley page covers the grant for both fuels.
Who qualifies for the £9,000 grant
The conditions are specific. These are the main ones, and the £9,000 rate needs every one of them to hold.
What the £9,000 rate asks for
The property is in England or Wales.
You own the property.
It is off the gas grid.
It is currently heated by oil or LPG.
You are replacing that system with an air-to-water or ground source heat pump.
The work is designed and fitted by an MCS-certified installer.
All six hold
The £9,000 rate can apply to your application.
On mains gas, or replacing electric storage heaters
The standard £7,500 can still apply.
Eligibility also turns on the property and your circumstances, which James checks at the free home assessment before anything is promised.
The grant only exists at all through MCS-certified air source heat pump installation, because MCS certification is what lets the installer apply on your behalf.
Worth stating plainly: not everyone gets £9,000, and any company implying otherwise is misleading you. The fuel you use now and the date your application goes in decide the figure.
Timing your application: the £9,000 window closes 31 March 2027
This is the detail that catches people out. The £9,000 rate is open now and closes to new applications on 31 March 2027. An application that went in at the standard rate before the uplift opened stays at £7,500, and there is no top-up afterwards.
Which rate an application gets, by the date it goes in
£7,500
Applications made at the standard rate stay at £7,500, with no top-up afterwards.
£9,000
For qualifying oil and LPG homes, on any application made in this window.
Closes
The £9,000 rate ends. The scheme is funded to 2030/31, so grant support continues.
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme itself is not closing. The time-limited part is the £9,000 rate.
The groundwork takes time, so get it done with room to spare. At Eco Pro Renewables it starts with a free home assessment and estimate. If you want to proceed, James carries out a room-by-room heat loss survey (£250 + VAT, waived in full if you go ahead with the install) and you get a fixed quote within 24 hours. The application itself is quick once the design work is done.
There is a seasonal reason to move early too. Enquiries surge every autumn when the first cold snap arrives and ageing boilers start failing, and installers’ diaries fill from September. The earlier the assessment, the calmer the design work and the wider your choice of installation slot.
How the installer-led application works
A common worry with grant schemes is the money: who applies, who holds the funds, and what happens if something goes wrong. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is installer-led. Your MCS-certified installer makes the application and the full amount comes off your quote before you pay anything.
An installed price of £15,000, at the £9,000 rate
£15,000
£9,000
Deducted by the installer before you pay
£6,000
The only part you pay
An example only. Your own figures come from the heat loss survey and the fixed quote.
Ofgem administers the scheme and may contact you to confirm you consented to the application. That is normal.
Two protections follow. Be cautious of anyone telling you to apply for the grant yourself; that is not how BUS works. And only an MCS-certified business can apply at all, so checking your installer’s MCS certificate and number is the most useful due diligence you can do. Eco Pro is an MCS-certified installation company, and James also works as a freelance NAPIT assessor, auditing other installers’ heat pump work. He knows what the paperwork should look like because checking it is part of his job.
What the grant covers, and the 0% VAT
The grant is a contribution towards the full installed cost of the system. It is not a voucher for the unit alone.
The grant counts towards
- The heat pump itself
- The hot water cylinder
- System design
- Any radiator changes the heat loss survey shows are needed
- The labour
On heat pump installations. On a five-figure job that is a meaningful sum, and it applies on top of the grant.
Not reached by the £9,000 rate
It will not always cover the whole job. A properly designed system for a typical East Devon property costs more than the grant, and the balance is what you pay. Your quote should show the deduction in black and white.
The VAT relief gets far less attention than the grant. The £9,000 rate itself is for air-to-water and ground source systems, the kind that run radiators and hot water.
The EPC change that helps older properties
Until spring 2026, applying meant having a valid Energy Performance Certificate. For older rural properties that was a genuine obstacle: many had no EPC at all, or an ancient one that no longer reflected the house.
Since April 2026, an EPC is no longer strictly required to apply, and alternative evidence about the property is accepted instead. For stone and cob houses around Ottery St Mary, Sidmouth and the East Devon villages, that removes one of the last paperwork barriers between an older home and the grant.
An older property must be brought up to modern insulation standards before a heat pump is even worth discussing.
What actually decides it
A room-by-room heat loss survey measures what the house actually loses.
The heat pump and radiators are sized to that number, room by room.
Some older homes need a few radiators upsized to match the design.
Very few are genuinely unsuitable.
When an older home is told a heat pump can’t be done, in our experience that is usually a design problem, not a property problem.
Once suitability is settled, the next question is usually value. Our guide to whether heat pumps are worth it in the UK covers that side.
What an oil or LPG household should do this week
If you heat with oil or LPG and the boiler is getting on, here is the sensible sequence.
Five steps, in order
-
1
Check the basics
Off the gas grid, heating with oil or LPG, you own the property, and it is in England or Wales. That is the £9,000 shortlist.
You -
2
Book a free home assessment
You get a realistic estimate for your specific property, not a template figure.
Free -
3
Have the heat loss survey done
This is the document the whole system design, and the grant application, rests on.
£250 + VAT, waived if you proceed -
4
Get your fixed quote
Within 24 hours of the survey, with the grant shown as a deduction.
Within 24 hours -
5
Get the application in
Your installer handles this. Your part is simply not leaving it until the deadline is close.
Before 31 March 2027
The window runs to 31 March 2027, so there is time to do this properly. Surveys, designs and installation slots all queue up from autumn, and the households that book early get first pick.
Frequently asked questions
No. The Boiler Upgrade Scheme covers England and Wales only. Scotland runs separate schemes with different rules.
Book my free home assessmentNo. Your MCS installer applies for the grant and deducts the full amount from your quote upfront. You only ever pay the balance.
Book my free home assessmentApplications already in progress at the standard rate stay at £7,500, and there is no top-up. If you have not yet applied and you qualify, your application can go in at £9,000 at any point up to 31 March 2027.
Book my free home assessmentNo, since April 2026. Alternative evidence about the property is accepted instead, which helps many older rural homes.
Book my free home assessmentNo. The uplift applies to air-to-water and ground source systems only. Biomass and air-to-air sit on their own lower Boiler Upgrade Scheme rates of £5,000 and £2,500, so they cannot reach £9,000.
Book my free home assessmentThe £9,000 rate ends on that date. The scheme itself is funded through to 2030/31, so grant support continues beyond it.
Book my free home assessmentFind out whether your property qualifies
The rules above are the general picture. Whether your property qualifies, what size system it needs and what the final figure looks like after the grant are questions about your house, and they get answered at your house. James visits, looks at the property and the existing system, answers questions on the spot and gives you an honest estimate. If a heat pump is not right for your home, he will tell you that too. From there, the survey and fixed quote put an exact number on it, and the application gets timed for the £9,000 window.
Book my free home assessmentPrefer to talk it through first? Ring 01395 202030. James answers, and he is the person who will price the job.
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