Lower bills, more comfortable homes, cleaner energyA guide for Swanage residents

None of these commits you to anything, and between them they will tell you almost everything you need to know before you spend a penny.

The first two steps cut how much energy you use. They cost little or nothing and they show up on your next bill. The second two change where that energy comes from, using less fossil fuel and paying back over a longer stretch.

Plenty of Swanage homes have already had the loft done and the draughts sorted. If that's yours, you're not starting at the beginning. You're starting at step three.

The order matters because each step makes the next one smaller. Insulate before you size a heat pump and you'll need a smaller, cheaper unit that runs better. You don't have to do all four, and you don't have to do them in one go.

Which step are you on?

The pale numbers are the two steps that cut what you use. The solid ones change where your energy comes from.

1. 1 Waste less

   Already done if there are no obvious draughts, your thermostat and radiator valves work as they should, and a combi boiler is set to around 55°C.

   What to check, and how  ·  Questions to ask

2. 2 Insulate

   Already done if your loft has roughly 270mm of insulation and any cavity walls are filled. Not sure? A LEAP home visit or the Dorset Homewise tool will tell you, both free.

   Free local help  ·  Questions to ask

3. 3 Upgrade your heating

   Worth pricing up once one and two are done, and particularly if your boiler is near the end of its life or you're on oil or LPG.

   The heat pump grant  ·  Questions to ask

4. 4 Generate your own

   Worth looking at whenever your roof suits it. It pays back faster once the first three are in hand, because you need less electricity to start with.

   Solar, batteries and group buying  ·  Questions to ask

Free and low cost

• Draught-proof the obvious gaps first: letterbox, loft hatch, floorboards, unused chimneys. It's the cheapest thing you can do and you feel it immediately.
• Turn the boiler flow temperature down to about 55°C if you have radiators and a combi boiler. Most are set far too high. Your rooms stay just as warm and you use less gas.
• Get your heating controls right. A room thermostat, a timer and thermostatic radiator valves working together will save more than any gadget.
• Join your supplier's Priority Services Register if you're over State Pension age, have a disability or a long-term health condition. It's free and brings extra support from your supplier and network operator.
• Ask your supplier about the Warm Home Discount if you're on a low income.

Free local help

Five routes to impartial advice, none of which will try to sell you anything.

Before an assessor or installer visits, see the questions to ask about insulation.

Grants and loans for insulation and heating

These schemes pay for insulation as well as heating, so they belong to steps one and two as much as step three.

Every scheme below checked July 2026.

Dorset Warm Homes: Local Grant

Fully subscribed · waiting list only

Funded by government, managed by Dorset Council and BCP Council, delivered by Ridgewater Energy. It pays for insulation, heating upgrades and renewables in qualifying homes. You may be eligible if you own your home or rent privately, your EPC rating is D to G, and one of these applies: household income under £36,000, someone in the household receives a means-tested benefit, or you live in a qualifying postcode. Only a small number of Purbeck postcodes qualify on area alone, so check.

The scheme is currently fully subscribed. New applicants go on a waiting list with no guarantee of funding. It's still worth registering. Details and a postcode checker at dorsetwarmhomes.co.uk, or call 0300 003 7023.

The current scheme runs to March 2028. From 2027/28 it merges with the Warm Homes: Social Housing Fund into a single scheme for low-income households, delivered by area. The detail of that successor scheme has not yet been published.

Healthy Homes Dorset insulation grants

Open now

Free cavity wall and loft insulation for households where someone is over 65, has a health condition, is pregnant or has a child under five. Call 0300 003 7023.

Lendology low-interest loans

Open now

If you don't qualify for a grant, Dorset Council partners with Lendology, a not-for-profit lender, on low-interest home improvement loans. See Lendology loans for Dorset residents.

What's coming

Not open yet

The government published its Warm Homes Plan in January 2026: £15 billion of investment, upgrades to up to five million homes by 2030, and a new Warm Homes Agency that will become the single front door for advice from 2027. It also includes a low-interest loan scheme for solar, batteries and heat pumps, and minimum energy standards for rented homes by 2030. Most of the detail is still being worked through. We'll update this page as schemes open.

Swapping a gas, oil or LPG boiler for a heat pump is the biggest single cut most homes can make to their fossil fuel use. It is also the step with the most public money behind it.

Boiler Upgrade Scheme

Open now£9,000 uplift: 21 July 2026 to 31 March 2027

A government grant taken off your quote by the installer, so you never handle the money. It covers £7,500 towards an air source or ground source heat pump, £5,000 towards a biomass boiler and £2,500 towards an air-to-air heat pump.

From 21 July 2026 the heat pump grant rises to £9,000 for eligible off-gas-grid homes currently heated by oil or LPG, running until 31 March 2027. A lot of homes around Corfe, Studland, Langton, Worth and Kingston fall into exactly that category. Check the Boiler Upgrade Scheme rules on GOV.UK.

Whoever fits it must be MCS certified for heat pumps, or the grant cannot be claimed. See finding an installer you can trust.

Before you sign, read the questions to ask about heating and hot water. They cover pipes and radiators, where the unit goes, and whether you need a hot water cylinder.

• Find out whether your roof would suit solar panels. The Homewise tool gives a first answer, and any MCS certified installer will do a proper assessment.
• If you already have solar, look at whether adding a battery would pay. Cheap overnight tariffs mean a battery can save money even without panels. Dorset CAN's battery storage webinar explains when it stacks up and when it doesn't.
• Register your interest in group buying. Switch Together, formerly Solar Together, pools households across Dorset so vetted installers bid for the work as a batch. Rounds open periodically, so register through Dorset Council even if one has just closed.
• Know what to ask before you buy. Our questions on solar, batteries and tariffs include what a battery can and can't do in a power cut.

For community buildings and local businesses

There is more support available for schools, village halls, churches, sports clubs and businesses than there is for households.

See how this has worked in Swanage buildings in Local examples.

These are estimates from the Energy Saving Trust and Which? magazine. They are rough costs. What you actually pay will depend on your home and on the market at the time. We hope there is enough here to help you decide whether it's worth talking to installers, which is covered in the next section.

Payback is what you pay divided by what you save on bills each year. The heat pump figures assume you move to a heat pump tariff and have the gas disconnected. On a standard tariff a heat pump can cost more to run than a modern gas boiler, so the tariff matters as much as the kit. Topping up a loft that already has some insulation takes far longer to pay back than filling an empty one.

A battery earns most when it also fills up on a cheap night rate and runs the house by day. The cheapest night rates, such as Octopus Go, are designed for electric car owners, so check the terms before you count on one. Paired with a heat pump a battery saves more, because there is more daytime use to cover.

You may find this payback period calculator useful.

Costs and savings from Energy Saving Trust, for a gas-heated three-bedroom semi at July 2026 prices, cross-checked with Which? Lifespans from Energy Saving Trust and Ofgem. The battery price fitted with panels is a typical installer figure, and its payback is our own estimate at current night rates. Checked October 2026.

This is the question we get asked most, and the honest answer is that no single list solves it. Use two or three of these together.

Before you sign anything

• Get three quotes, and get them in writing.
• For a heat pump, insist on a room-by-room heat loss survey. A quote produced without one is a warning sign.
• Ask what happens if something goes wrong in year three, and who you ring.
• Check the company's insurance and how long it has traded. Trading Standards publishes advice on spotting rogue traders (PDF).
• Never pay a large deposit up front.

Before you sign, take our list of questions to ask. It starts with quotes, grants and references, then goes job by job.

Living in a listed or older building?

Much of Swanage town centre and the Purbeck villages sit in a conservation area, and stone-built, solid-wall properties need a different approach from modern housing. The Sustainable Traditional Buildings Alliance has free guidance written specifically for older buildings.

For anything that changes the external appearance, check with Dorset Council planning first. Most solar installations count as permitted development, but conservation areas and listed buildings are exceptions.

Accreditation registers and installer surveys checked July 2026.

Council buildings · Swanage

Swanage Town Council

In September 2019 Swanage Town Council voted unanimously to declare a Climate and Ecological Crisis and to do its best to become carbon neutral by 2030. Since then, it has taken sustained action to cut the carbon emissions from its own buildings, public toilets, car parks and vehicles. It has been measuring its emissions since 2022, reports on progress every year, and now has a route map to reaching its carbon neutral target.

Progress so far

The council has taken the following steps:

• Green electricity. A fully renewable electricity contract has been in place since September 2023.
• Solar panels on the depot and the Beach Gardens Pavilion, with a battery at Beach Gardens. Together they generated 29,310 kWh in 2025.
• LED lighting in every council building, and insulation at the Information Centre and Town Hall.
• Electric vehicles: four of the council's seven, plus a gradual move from petrol to electric tools.

Between 2022 and 2025 the council's carbon footprint fell from about 100 tonnes of CO₂ to 39 tonnes, a reduction of about 60%.

Next steps

The council's October 2026 route map sets out the rest of the journey to 2030.

• 2026–27: an air source heat pump at the Information Centre (about 3.9 tonnes saved), a more efficient boiler with better controls at the Town Hall annex, more electric tools and more solar stored in batteries.
• 2028–29: replace gas at the depot with electric and add battery storage (about 2.8 tonnes).
• 2029–30: an electric vehicle in place of a diesel vehicle, and bio-diesel for the remaining diesel vehicles, tractor and mower (about 10 tonnes together).
• From 2030: heat pumps and energy monitoring at the Town Hall (about 15.9 tonnes).

That leaves about 3 tonnes a year, which the council expects to offset, for example with tree planting.

The route map is a market-based count, so on a location-based count the council's electricity would still show, and zero would also depend on the national grid continuing to clean up.

Read the route map: October 2026 committee papers, item 7

Community-owned solar · Swanage

The Swanage School

The solar panels on Swanage School were installed in 2016 by Dorset Community Energy, funded by a community share offer with most investors living in Dorset. The school pays less for its electricity, the shareholders get a return, and all maintenance and insurance is covered by the society.

It's the clearest local proof that community-owned energy works, and it's the model we'd like to see repeated on more Purbeck buildings.

Installed

2016

Funded by

Community share offer

Owned by

Dorset Community Energy

Upkeep

Covered by the society

How Dorset Community Energy funds rooftop solar

Know a Swanage home, business or community building worth writing up? Tell us about it and we'll add it here.