Free warmth pumps and insulation upgrades price as much as £30k EACH as Budget pledges £3.4bn to enhance properties

Low-income households and renters will be able to get up to £30,000 each for home improvements from next year with a £3.4billion cash pot earmarked in the Budget.

The money will go towards the Warm Homes Plan, a Government manifesto initiative to improve the properties of low-income homeowners and private tenants in homes with EPC ratings of D to G to at least C.

In today’s Budget, chancellor Rachel Reeves said the £3.4billion would be spent from 2025 until 2028. The Warm Homes Plan aims to upgrade 5million houses.

Pump it up: The Government wants more homes to fit heat pumps like this one to drive down energy bills and help shift away from heating homes using gas to green electricity

Each eligible home can access £15,000 for energy perfomance improvements and an additional £15,000 to install low-carbon heating, such as heat pumps.

Homeowners and tenants will not have to pay any of their own cash to upgrade their homes in this way.

However, landlords will get one home’s upgrades paid for under the scheme, then contribute to paying 50 per cent of the cost of improving each extra home.

The £3.4billion figure also includes £1.8billion for fuel poverty schemes proposed to help more than 225,000 households cut energy bills by over £200 a year.

Budget documents said: ‘The Warm Homes Plan will transform homes across the country by making them cleaner and cheaper to run, from installing new insulation to rolling out solar and heat pumps.’

The cash will be given to local authorities, who will then distribute it in their areas through grants.

These grants can be spent on energy performance upgrades and low carbon heating for English homes.

Not every local authority will take part, and councils are currently deciding whether to sign up or not.

Households using any sort of energy will be able to apply, even including off-grid homes using coal or liquid petroleum gas.

The Government also promised to increase funding for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme in Englandand Wales this year and next, following ‘high demand’.

The Boiler Upgrade Scheme provides grants worth up to £7,500 towards replacing older boilers with more modern, greener heat pumps.

Generation Rent chief executive Ben Twomey cautiously welcomed the news.

Twomey said: ‘Private renters are more likely than people in other tenures to face fuel poverty, so the Warm Homes funding is welcome. 

‘But to benefit from this, private renters need better protections from rent rises and evictions than the government is currently planning – otherwise landlords could hog the benefits of any grants.’