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OVO and access to 'Home Heating Cost Reduction Obligation' for Boiler repair/replacement

  • 16 March 2018
  • 8 replies
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Pierssy
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Hi, I have been reading about The Energy Companies Obligation (ECO) and HHCR within that, I live on Income-based ESA Support Group and my 12 year old boiler is failing it stops working and shows fault code that apparently makes it an 85% sure thing that the PCB is failing. So far if I turn it off and back on and do a reset it comes back to life but will fail again within the day I have no money for such a big repair and really want to find out if I can get help with a repair or even a new boiler I spoke to The Energy Saving trust earlier but they didn't mention help with a repair but did say the boiler was too efficient for a replacement, which when it finally brakes will be of little consequence.
Ofgem has this on their website "It is possible to get your boiler repaired or replaced under the Home Heating Cost Reduction Obligation (HHCRO). This obligation focuses on measures that reduce home heating costs for low income, fuel poor and vulnerable people"

If anyone knows about this or if this forum is monitored please help me out I can't find any definitive information on Ovo's website. Oh, I am an OVO customer and in receipt of a warm homes discount.
Thanks
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Best answer by Bumblebee 18 March 2018, 20:01

@Pierssy

Hello and good evening! :)

OVO don’t do boiler cover but they have Partnered with Corgi HomePlan who do. Their details can be found here: https://www.corgihomeplan.co.uk/. Please check the following two links and please let me know how you get on, I will be happy to help further ;)

https://www.gov.uk/energy-grants-calculator

https://www.lets-talk.online/AllSchemes.html

And if its been extra chilly where you are check this one please to see if you are due a one off £25 payment towards you electric or gas

https://www.gov.uk/cold-weather-payment

Good luck!

I hope to get a reply from you soon!

Bumblebee 🙂

Updated 11/03/2020 

 More details here.

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Bumblebee
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@Pierssy

Hello and good evening! :)

OVO don’t do boiler cover but they have Partnered with Corgi HomePlan who do. Their details can be found here: https://www.corgihomeplan.co.uk/. Please check the following two links and please let me know how you get on, I will be happy to help further ;)

https://www.gov.uk/energy-grants-calculator

https://www.lets-talk.online/AllSchemes.html

And if its been extra chilly where you are check this one please to see if you are due a one off £25 payment towards you electric or gas

https://www.gov.uk/cold-weather-payment

Good luck!

I hope to get a reply from you soon!

Bumblebee 🙂

Updated 11/03/2020 

 More details here.

100% renewable energy and 5 trees planted a year! £5 extra a month :-)
Pierssy
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@Pierssy

Hello and good evening! :)

Please check the following two links and please let me know how you get on, I will be happy to help further ;)

https://www.gov.uk/energy-grants-calculator

https://www.lets-talk.online/AllSchemes.html

And if its been extra chilly where you are check this one please to see if you are due a one off £25 payment towards you electric or gas

https://www.gov.uk/cold-weather-payment

Good luck!

Hi Bumblebee

Thanks for taking the time I tried the first one already and the second one have closed their main grant due to high level of applications. My research came up with the Home Heating Cost Reduction Obligation (HHCRO) which is part of the Energy Companies Obligation OVO is signed up to. The information was from Ofgem so it should be solid.Ovo has an online leaflet which directs you to Energy Trust, which I did but they had no information about the boiler repair help as I said, so I was looking specifically for help from OVO about the scheme which is current until Sept 2018. Energy Trust said that my 12 year old dying boiler is too efficient to consider replacing as the rules were changed last April and the bar was set higher from 86% to 89% or something like that.
Bumblebee
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@Pierssy Hello again and good morning :)

Sorry if this seems like a silly question but have you tried The Centre for Sustainable Energy who will give you free, impartial advice on saving energy, renewable energy and applying for subsidies and financial support at 0800 408 6601 and ovo@cse.org.uk ?

Alternative to that I really would strongly advise a call to customer services on free phone 0330 303 5063 where you'll get thru to a friendly helpful human in Bristol very quickly :)

If I come up with any other ideas I will of course be in touch - I am in the same situation as you with ESA and know how tough times are when something like a repair comes about unexpectedly! PLEASE keep me posted, I'd really like to hear you get this sorted :)

Best wishes,

Bumblebee 🙂
100% renewable energy and 5 trees planted a year! £5 extra a month :-)
Pierssy
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OK it has been a while but I thought I would round this topic off.
After loads of emails and research I was directed to OVOs Rob Smith
ECO Compliance Lead, he passed me on to their subcontractor.
There was lots of back and forth and I started to believe that the subcontractor did not know/understand what element of the then ECO scheme Rob at OVO's was great and tried to get a solution.
Eventually I received a new boiler at no cost to me under the emergency boiler replacement scheme, which was not the scheme I applied for but hey-ho we had reliable heat and hot water. So a huge thanks to Rob Smith
ECO Compliance Lead for bearing with my bombardment and helping sort it all out. It was difficult though and my guess is anyone less tenacious or less willing to read up on the scheme at Ofgem etc would have got squat, even finding the most basic information was difficult, which is a pity because my guess is many people need this sort of help.
Pierssy
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OK it has been a while but I thought I would round this topic off.
After loads of emails and research I was directed to OVOs Rob Smith
ECO Compliance Lead, he passed me on to their subcontractor.
There was lots of back and forth and I started to believe that the subcontractor did not know/understand what element of the then ECO scheme I was talking about. Rob at OVO's was great and tried to get a solution.
Eventually I received a new boiler at no cost to me under the emergency boiler replacement scheme, which was not the scheme I applied for but hey-ho we had reliable heat and hot water. So a huge thanks to Rob Smith
ECO Compliance Lead for bearing with my bombardment and helping sort it all out. It was difficult though and my guess is anyone less tenacious or less willing to read up on the scheme at Ofgem etc would have got squat, even finding the most basic information was difficult, which is a pity because my guess is many people need this sort of help.
T
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We have the same issue.  Our 15 year old boiler has given up and as  a low income household where one of us receives Employment Support Allowance, it looks like we should be entitled to a grant for a new boiler.  There are various websites which deal with this, but many of them advise contacting our energy supplier - which is of course OVO!  So, my question is who specifically do I need to contact (if it’s still Rob Smith, what’s the best way to contact him)?  We’d be greatfull if someone could point us in the right direction.  Thanks.

Nancy_OVO
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Hey @theminz - have you tried CSE (the Centre for Sustainable Energy), as per Bumblebee’s comment above? They’ll be able to point you in the right direction for help with this.

Cheers

Your guiding light(bulb)
T
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Yes, I e-mailed them and received this reply:

 

Some energy suppliers do not offer grants directly, but instead offer funds through local installers or schemes. I advise contacting your local council, or checking on https://www.simpleenergyadvice.org.uk/grants if there are local schemes listed. 

 

Then when I went to the website they recommended and put in my postcode, I was told there are no grants available.  However, there are several other websites where you can apply for grants for a replacement boiler and most of these indicate that we are entitled.  Further research reveals that some of the big energy companies providing this service under the ECO scheme can keep customers waiting for months before anything is done and it may be better to go with a local gas fitter registered with the scheme if we can find one.  I guess we’ll try the local council next. Does anyone have any experience of finding a local installer via the council?

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