Park Home Storage Heater Grants
Age UK estimates that there are over 100,000 older people living in residential park homes across England and Wales. Many of these residents may receive Guaranteed Pension Credit or Working Tax Credit and if they have a faulty central heating boiler they may qualify for Park Home Storage Heater Grants.
Park holiday homes are excluded from the ECO Scheme.
Living in a residential park home is a popular lifestyle choice for many older people and although park homes have advantages, they are generally less energy efficient, less well insulated and more expensive to keep warm than traditional homes.
In addition, many park home residents are on relatively fixed pension incomes and their only hope of support with heating their home is accessing the Government’s energy efficiency schemes.
New ECO Grants Assessment System: Deemed Scores
Until now, Park Home Storage Heater Grants were not high enough to cover the cost of replacing central heating boilers in residential park homes. This changed on 1st April 2017 with the introduction of the new ‘deemed scores’ system of assessing ECO Storage Heater grants.
The old system of preparing an EPC (Energy Performance Certificate) to assess the amount of Park Home Storage Heater Grants discriminated against park homes, flats and other smaller properties. However, the new system takes into account the size of a property, how many bedrooms it has and crucially for park homes, how well it is insulated.
Free Electric Storage Heaters?
This does not not mean that park home residents will be entitled to free storage heaters under the new ECO Scheme but it may mean that any contribution required against the cost of new storage heaters could be a lot less than it was before 1st April 2017.
PLEASE NOTE: The ECO Scheme provides grants to remove faulty electric storage heaters and install new ones in their place. It funds replacement storage heaters NOT new heaters where they weren’t previously installed.
More information about Age UK’s campaign for warm park homes can be found HERE.