If you’ve been told you don’t qualify for ECO4 because you’re not on a listed benefit, don’t assume you’re out of options — the Warm Homes: Local Grant, run through your local council, has a wider set of eligibility routes and is worth checking before you give up on a funded upgrade.
What the Warm Homes: Local Grant actually is
It’s a government-funded scheme delivering the government’s Warm Homes Plan, providing insulation and low-carbon heating upgrades to low-income households living in England’s poorest-performing homes. It’s delivered by local authorities (councils), with the Department for Energy Security and Net Zero (DESNZ) overseeing it nationally and a support service called RISE (Retrofit Information, Support and Expertise) helping participating councils run it. The current delivery window runs from 1 April 2025 to 31 March 2028, and it consolidated two older council-run schemes — the Home Upgrade Grant and Local Authority Delivery programmes — into one.
Because it’s allocated to councils rather than delivered nationally in one go, not every council has funding live at the same time, and how quickly things move depends on your local authority’s rollout.
How it runs by local authority — and why that matters
Unlike ECO4, which works through energy suppliers who have an obligation to deliver measures, the Warm Homes: Local Grant is administered by councils. In practice, your council identifies eligible households, assesses the property, and submits a package of work to draw down central government funding — homeowners don’t apply into a single national portal the way you check eligibility for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme. Contacting your local council directly (or through the government’s Warm Homes advice line) is the way in.
How eligibility differs from ECO4
This is the key practical difference for readers who’ve already been turned away from ECO4. ECO4 is largely built around specific qualifying benefits (or a referral from your council under its ECO4 Flex route). The Warm Homes: Local Grant offers three separate ways to qualify, and none of them strictly require you to already be on a listed benefit:
- Living in a low-income area — if your postcode falls in Income Deciles 1 or 2 of the Indices of Multiple Deprivation, you can qualify without any income or benefits check at all.
- Receiving a qualifying benefit — the same kind of means-tested benefits (Universal Credit, Housing Benefit, JSA and similar) or ECO4’s Flex Route 2 criteria used elsewhere.
- A straight income threshold — broadly, gross household income below £36,000 a year, or a lower “after housing costs” equivalised threshold depending on how many people live in the household.
So if your income is modest but you don’t personally receive a qualifying benefit, the income-threshold route is the one to check — it’s the route ECO4 doesn’t offer in the same form.
On the property side, you need an EPC rating of D, E, F or G (A–C homes aren’t eligible), the home must be an existing dwelling (not a new build), and both owner-occupiers and private tenants can qualify — as can eligible park homes. Both on-gas and off-gas-grid properties are covered, which is broader than some ECO4 routes.
What it covers
Funded measures include cavity, loft and underfloor insulation, air source and ground source heat pumps, solar PV and solar thermal, smart heating controls, home batteries, and double or triple glazing and draught-proofing. Fossil fuel heating generally isn’t funded, except in limited hybrid-system circumstances. There’s a funding cap of £16,600 per home for energy performance upgrades and a separate £16,600 cap for low-carbon heating.
Cost to the household depends on your situation: owner-occupiers get upgrades fully funded with no contribution required. Private landlords get the first home in their portfolio fully funded, with a 50% contribution required for further properties. Social housing requires a 50% contribution.
Which one should you check first?
A simple way to think about it:
- On a qualifying means-tested benefit? Check ECO4 first — it’s the more established, faster-moving route, delivered through energy suppliers rather than a council queue. (Note: ECO4 is currently due to run until 31 December 2026, having already been extended once.)
- Not on a listed benefit, but on a low income or in a deprived area? Check the Warm Homes: Local Grant through your council — this is exactly the gap it’s designed to fill.
- Comfortable on income but simply want to swap from a gas/oil boiler to a heat pump? Neither of these is the right fit — look at the Boiler Upgrade Scheme instead, which has no income test at all.
- Not sure which benefit or route applies to you? It costs nothing to check both — ECO4 eligibility runs through participating energy suppliers or GOV.UK’s eligibility checker, and Warm Homes: Local Grant eligibility runs through your local council.
The bottom line
The Warm Homes: Local Grant exists specifically to catch low-income households that ECO4’s benefit-based rules miss — you don’t need to be on a specific benefit if your income or postcode qualifies you another way. The trade-off is that it’s delivered locally rather than nationally, so availability and speed depend on your council. If you’ve been refused ECO4 on eligibility grounds alone, this is the next scheme worth ringing your council about before assuming there’s no funded option left.
Rules and rates can change — always verify current details on the GOV.UK Warm Homes: Local Grant guidance page before applying.
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