How We Check Our Information

Where our information comes from

We only use official, primary sources for facts about grants and schemes:

• GOV.UK, including guidance from government departments and HMRC;
• Ofgem, which runs the Boiler Upgrade Scheme and ECO;
• legislation.gov.uk, for the regulations that set scheme rules and dates;
• the Scottish Government, the Welsh Government and the Northern Ireland departments, and the official services they fund, such as Home Energy Scotland and Nest.

We do not take figures from comparison sites, installers’ blogs or news articles. They are often out of date, and some still describe rules that changed years ago.

How we check a fact

1. We read the source’s own text. For long documents, such as scheme guidance published as a PDF, we read the full text rather than a summary. We know why this matters: when we tested an automated summary of one official document, it produced grant amounts and rules that did not exist, so we never rely on one.
2. We record where it came from. Each fact is linked to its source, with the section or table it came from, in our research notes.
3. We record when. Every source has a “checked on” date in our records, so we know exactly when each figure was last confirmed.
4. We keep each figure in one place. Grant amounts and dates live in a single data file that every page reads from, so a figure cannot say one thing on one page and something else on another.

What we do when we are not sure

If we cannot confirm a fact from the official source, for example because the page cannot be loaded or the guidance is unclear, we do not publish it. Draft pages with unconfirmed facts are marked for checking and kept off the live site until each one is confirmed.

Where the official position is genuinely uncertain, such as a scheme that has been announced but not opened, we say that plainly rather than guessing.

Keeping it current

Schemes change, and some have fixed end dates. We re-check the sources:

• when a scheme publishes new guidance or announces a change;
• ahead of known deadlines, such as the end of ECO4 or a time-limited grant value;
• when someone tells us something looks wrong.

Where a page shows whether a scheme is open, closing or closed, that status is worked out from the scheme’s official dates, so it changes on the right day as the site is rebuilt.

Keeping the rules separate from our service

Our pages show the official scheme rules separately from how we handle an enquiry. For example, a scheme may be open to you even if our own service is not the right fit, and a quotation from an installation partner may include a contribution from you even where a grant applies. We never present our own criteria as if they were a scheme’s rules.

Wording we will not use

Some claims are common in this market and are either untrue or cannot be promised. We do not say that everyone qualifies, that a grant is guaranteed, that a heat pump is free, or that we are government-approved. We say what the rules are, who they are for, and what still has to be confirmed.

Reporting a mistake

If you are making a decision about a grant, always read the scheme’s own guidance as well. Every scheme page on this site links to it.