Home improvement can be an expensive undertaking, especially if you are planning to make your home more energy efficient or making your home more accessible. 

Here are some of the grants that can help you do that:


Home energy efficiency schemes

The home energy efficiency scheme is a government scheme to help you to invest in greener solutions for your home such as insulation, heating and double glazing. 

To be eligible for the scheme you will need to be assessed by a local green deal assessor. They will check whether your home could benefit from energy-saving measures such as cavity walls, draught-proofing and renewable energy generation. 

To apply for a home energy efficiency scheme visit the government website here and follow the instructions.


Disabled facilities grant

If you are adapting your home for a disabled person to come and live with you or would like to adapt your home to make your own home easier to access, this grant can help with the costs. 

Some of the common items that the grant has helped pay for are handrails, stair lifts and ramps. 

It is not designed for maintaining your property but it can be used to pay towards a wooden staircase that is rotting and is becoming unsafe. The grant can help pay for a new staircase and handrails to make your home accessible to you.

To be eligible for the grant you or someone living in your property must be disabled and intend to live in the property for the next 5 years. Furthermore, the council must be happy the work to be carried out is necessary for the person in question and that the work being carried out is reasonable and feasible. 

A few points to beware of is that the grant will not pay out if the work is already being carried out. An application must be submitted before any work commences. Complying with the building regulations will be your responsibility so applications for planning permission must be made separately. 

To apply for the grant, visit the disabled facilities grants page on the Government website.


Search for grants using Grant Search

Whilst there have been 2 well-known grants shown so far there are plenty more that can be claimed by searching for them. However, finding and searching for all of the grants can be a time-consuming process. 

Websites such as Grants-search.turn2us.org.uk are useful for searching and applying. The website quickly lists grants that are available in your local area by postcode. There are filtering options that will allow you to filter by need. 

Applying for these grants should be done well in advance of any building work to be carried out. As well as making sure that you reread the eligibility criteria since it may change.