Blackburn: £2,500 air-to-air heat pump grant

Mains gas dominates the heating stock in Blackburn: around 91.5% of EPC-certified homes run on it, near the top end of what we see anywhere in England. That means the grant conversation for most readers here is a simple one - is swapping the gas boiler for an air-to-air heat pump worth it - rather than a question about a less common fuel.

91.5% of Blackburn's EPC-certified homes heat on mains gas, 7% on electric and 1% on oil, LPG or solid fuel, typical annual heating costs across the property types we track here run around £660, the most common EPC band locally is D (46% of rated homes) and the fuel-mix split above is drawn from 99.7% of Blackburn's EPC certificates, which makes it a genuine local measurement rather than a national average pinned to your postcode.

Whether the grant pays for your Blackburn home comes down to a single decision: do you replace your heating, or keep it? We show both outcomes with equal weight, never as a blanket promise.

Eligible - you replace your heating. If an air-to-air heat pump replaces a fossil-fuel or electric system (mains gas, oil, LPG, electric storage heaters or direct electric) and is fitted by an MCS-certified installer, the £2,500 applies, and the old system is decommissioned rather than run alongside the new one.

Not eligible - you keep your boiler. If you keep your existing heating and add cooling as a standalone unit, that cooling-only add-on does not qualify for the Boiler Upgrade Scheme grant, however it is marketed. Adding air conditioning while keeping your gas boiler is a private-pay job, carried out by an F-Gas / REFCOM-registered engineer rather than an MCS-certified one.

The grant itself is law and your eligibility is real, but no air-to-air product has reached the MCS Product Directory yet, so no installer can issue a Boiler Upgrade Scheme voucher today. Air-to-air enters MCS scheme scope on 5 December 2026, and vouchers follow once certified products list. Get quotes now, but treat the grant as pending rather than banked.

Grant rules as of August 2026 and subject to change, so always confirm the current terms on gov.uk before applying. The grant itself is a national government scheme - Blackburn with Darwen Council has no say over your eligibility for it. If your Blackburn home also needs planning permission for the outdoor unit, that is a separate, local question our planning pages cover.

MCS - the certification scheme for registered installers - is the quality standard your installer must hold for the grant to pay. It certifies the installer and the installation work, never the homeowner and never GetComfort.

We route a grant-eligible air-to-air enquiry from Blackburn to an MCS-certified installer, and a cooling-only job to an F-Gas / REFCOM-registered engineer instead, because refrigerant-only work is what those engineers are licensed for. Confusing the two is the single most common mistake homeowners make when researching this grant.