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

Manchester runs noticeably more on electric heating than most of the areas we track: around 26% of its EPC-certified homes are on electric storage or direct-electric systems. That matters here because the grant pays just as much for replacing direct-electric heating as it does a gas boiler, so a meaningfully bigger share of homes in Manchester than elsewhere may already sit on a grant-eligible heating type without realising it.

The split across Manchester's EPC-certified stock is 73.5% mains gas, 26% electric and 0.2% oil, LPG or solid fuel, typical annual heating costs across the property types we track here run around £566, the most common EPC band locally is D (40% of rated homes) and this fuel-mix figure covers 98.7% of Manchester's EPC certificates, so it is a real, high-confidence local read, not a national estimate applied to your postcode.

Everything about whether the grant pays a Manchester homeowner turns on one choice: replacing the existing heating, or leaving it in place. We set out both routes with the same weight, not as a blanket promise either way.

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. Eligibility here is decided nationally, not by Manchester Council - the council has no role in the grant itself. Where the outdoor unit needs planning permission in Manchester, that question is separate, and our planning pages walk through it.

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 Manchester 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.