Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant rises to £9,000 for oil-heated homes in Great Britain, while Northern Ireland waits

Bigger grant for oil-heated homes switching to heat pumps in Great Britain

From 21 July, the Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) grant for households in England and Wales who heat with oil or LPG will increase to £9,000, according to reporting from Installer Online and the Cooling Post. The scheme helps cover the upfront cost of replacing a fossil fuel heating system with a heat pump, and this uplift is specifically designed to make the switch more attractive for homes that are harder and more expensive to retrofit.

For an oil-heated household in Great Britain, this is a meaningful change. Heat pumps carry higher installation costs than a straight boiler replacement, and oil-heated homes are often older, rural properties that may need additional insulation or upgrades to work well with lower-temperature heating. The higher grant acknowledges that reality.

If you are considering a switch, speak to an OFTEC-registered or MCS-certified installer who can assess your home properly and confirm what is involved.

Northern Ireland households left without equivalent support

Money Saving Expert has drawn attention to a long-standing gap: households in Northern Ireland who heat with oil or LPG have no direct equivalent to the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. While the rest of the UK has access to BUS funding, Northern Ireland operates under different devolved arrangements and has not yet introduced a comparable grant for oil-to-heat-pump transitions.

This matters because Northern Ireland has one of the highest rates of oil heating of any region in these islands. A large share of households depend on home heating oil as their primary fuel, yet the main retrofit incentive available elsewhere in the UK does not reach them.

Oil prices are falling, but pump relief takes time

Separately from the retrofit picture, global oil prices have been falling. The Belfast Telegraph reports that petrol and diesel prices in Northern Ireland are already reflecting cheaper crude, and the Belfast News Letter suggested earlier this week that home heating oil prices could approach pre-Iran-war levels within days. However, the Irish News cautions that Northern Ireland drivers and, by extension, heating oil customers may face a weeks-long lag before lower wholesale prices fully feed through to what they pay at the point of delivery.

This kind of delay between falling crude prices and cheaper fills at home is common. Suppliers adjust pricing at different rates, and local distribution costs play a role too.

What this means for your home

If you heat with oil in Great Britain, the July increase to £9,000 makes now a reasonable moment to get quotes and understand whether a heat pump is viable for your property. If you are in Northern Ireland, the retrofit support picture remains frustrating, though falling oil prices offer some near-term relief on running costs.

In the meantime, keeping an eye on your tank and knowing when you are likely to need a top-up can help you time orders well. You can check when you might run out or set a price-drop alert to catch a better rate when prices ease further.