Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant applications in Sunderland
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme pays £7,500 toward an air source heat pump installed in Sunderland. It carries no means test, your MCS certified installer submits the application, and the money is deducted from your invoice so the quoted price is the after-grant price.
The scheme in one paragraph
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme is the Government's headline heat pump incentive: £7,500 off an air source installation in England, claimed by the installer on the homeowner's behalf and taken directly off the bill. On a £10,000 Sunderland job the customer pays £2,500. There is no income test, nothing to repay and no loan, with funding confirmed through the late 2020s.
Who qualifies in Sunderland
- Homeowners and small landlords moving off gas, oil, LPG or electric heating. Storage heaters count, which matters across the post-war estates. New builds are excluded.
- A valid EPC clear of unactioned insulation recommendations. Locally this rarely hurts: Fulwell's cavity semis need at most a loft top-up, and Ashbrooke's solid-wall terraces have no cavity to fill, so the loft alone usually clears the condition.
- MCS certified installer and equipment. Without MCS the grant cannot exist, which is why certification is a hard requirement on every quote here.
- The system must heat the whole home, which is the other reason the measured survey comes before any quote.
How the claim actually runs
No forms land on you. After commissioning the installer submits the claim to Ofgem with the MCS certificate, Ofgem emails you to confirm the work happened, you click confirm, and the £7,500 pays out to the installer, which is precisely why the figure on your quote is already the net one. The whole cycle usually closes within weeks of installation. The full walkthrough is in the BUS grant guide.
The catches to budget around
Hybrids fall outside the scheme, so hybrid quotes here always arrive beside the grant-funded full conversion. Swapping an old heat pump for a new one is outside it too. And the EPC rule means fabric work occasionally has to happen first, identified at the survey instead of discovered mid-job. Storage-heated homes across Town End Farm, Hylton Red House, Ford and the other estates are squarely eligible, and lower-income households may qualify for separate ECO4 fabric funding alongside, flagged at the survey where relevant.