Home energy comparisons
39 head-to-head guides on cost, efficiency, grants and payback, each opening on the answer.
An air source heat pump (ASHP) costs £8,000-£14,000 installed and suits the vast majority of UK homes. A ground source heat pump (GSHP) costs £15,000-£35,000 but delivers higher…
A 3-bedroom house in the UK needs a 28-35kW combi boiler if it has one bathroom, or a system boiler with a hot water cylinder if it has…
Hard water affects over 60% of UK homes, concentrated in London, the South East, East Anglia and parts of the Midlands. Just 1.6mm of limescale on a heat…
Victorian sash windows lose up to 30% more heat than modern casement windows due to single glazing, poor seals and draughty sliding mechanisms (Energy Saving Trust). The best…
UK landlords must meet a minimum EPC rating of E today, rising to band C from 1 October 2030. The average cost to bring a band D rental…
Loft insulation and cavity wall insulation deliver some of the highest EPC point gains per pound spent, each capable of adding 10-15 points to your EPC score for…
A typical 3-bedroom UK house needs an 8-12kW air source heat pump, costing £8,000-£13,000 before the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant. After the grant, you pay £500-£5,500. Annual…
Quick answer: Heat pumps do work in older homes. The best for a period house are R290 units that reach 70 to 75°C, such as the Grant Aerona…
You can cut around £450-£740 a year from your energy bills for a total spend of about £3,200 (semi-detached) to £5,500 (detached) at Energy Saving Trust prices for…
A 1930s semi-detached house with unfilled cavity walls and thin loft insulation wastes over £200 a year on heating. Cavity wall insulation costs about £2,200 and saves around…
The best insulation strategy for a Victorian house starts with the loft. Loft insulation costs about £750 in an empty loft or £600 for a top-up (Energy Saving…
Bungalows are one of the best UK property types for solar panels. The single-storey design means a larger roof area relative to floor space, typically 40-60m2 of usable…
Semi-detached houses are the most common property type in the UK, and they are among the most solar-friendly. A typical semi has 30-40m2 of usable roof space, comfortably…
A terraced house in the UK can realistically fit a 3-4kW solar panel system, costing between £4,500 and £6,500 fully installed with 0% VAT (GOV.UK, effective until March…
Cavity wall insulation costs about £2,200 and saves about £200 per year on energy bills for a typical semi-detached house. Solid wall insulation costs about £12,000 (internal) to…
Combi boilers are the right choice for most UK homes. They account for over 80% of new installations, heat water on demand, and cost £1,800-£3,000 installed. System boilers…
A solid tiled conservatory roof costs £3,500-£7,000 and delivers the best insulation, turning a seasonal conservatory into a year-round living space. Glass roofs cost £3,000-£6,000 and offer superior…
Quick answer: Triple glazing costs about £100–£150 more per standard uPVC window, or roughly £1,000–£1,300 across a ten-window house. At the October–December 2026 gas price it saves only…
ECO4 is the only one of these two schemes still accepting applications in June 2026. The Great British Insulation Scheme (GBIS) closed on 31 March 2026 (GOV.UK). ECO4…
At Ofgem's price cap rates for October to December 2026, gas costs 7.97p/kWh and electricity costs 26.32p/kWh. That makes electricity 3.3 times more expensive per unit. But heat…
For whole-house heating in a 3+ bedroom UK home, a heat pump is the better choice. An air source heat pump costs £8,000-£14,000 (£500-£6,500 after the £7,500 BUS…
Do not wait for hydrogen. The UK government shelved its hydrogen home heating trial programme in 2024 after village-scale pilots in Whitby and Redcar collapsed due to public…
Internal wall insulation (IWI) costs about £12,000 and external wall insulation (EWI) about £15,000 for a typical three-bedroom semi, and both save about £280 per year on a…
Do loft insulation first. It costs about £750 versus about £2,200 for cavity wall insulation, installs in 2-3 hours versus half a day, and delivers the best return…
Monocrystalline solar panels are the clear winner for UK homes in 2026. They achieve 21-23% efficiency compared to 15-17% for polycrystalline, produce more power per square metre, perform…
A new gas boiler costs £2,000-£3,500 installed. An air source heat pump costs £8,000-£14,000, but the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme (BUS) grant brings the net cost down to…
The question is now moot: since 30 June 2022, all new home EV chargers installed in Great Britain must be smart by law under the Electric Vehicles (Smart…
A 4kW solar panel system saves £600-£900 per year on electricity bills and costs £5,000-£7,500 installed; for a 4.5 kWp system the Energy Saving Trust estimates £740-£930 a…
Adding battery storage to a solar panel system in 2026 costs £2,500-£5,000 for a 5-10kWh unit, increasing self-consumption from approximately 50% to 75-80% (Energy Saving Trust). A 4kW…
uPVC windows cost £400-£600 per window installed and hold around 85% of the UK residential market (British Fenestration Rating Council). Aluminium runs £700-£1,000 per window with the slimmest…