Nest: the Welsh scheme that didn't end
While England's grant landscape rebuilt itself after ECO4, Wales kept its own programme running. Nest — the Welsh Government's Warm Homes scheme — still funds free home energy improvements for eligible households in 2026, and still gives free advice to every Welsh household. If this site convinces you of one thing, let it be to check Nest before paying for anything.
What Nest is
Nest has been the Welsh Government's flagship fuel-poverty programme since 2011, relaunched under the current Warm Homes Programme with a stronger focus on low-carbon heating. It does two distinct things. First, advice: a free, impartial service any Welsh household can use — energy bills, tariffs, benefit entitlement checks, money-saving help. Second, measures: for households that meet the eligibility criteria, a funded package of home improvements designed from a whole-home assessment.
Funded measures span insulation (loft, cavity, and in some properties solid wall), heating system replacement, and low-carbon technology — air source heat pumps prominently, with solar PV appearing in packages where the assessment supports it. The design philosophy mirrors what ECO4 called "fabric first": stop the heat escaping, then make the heat cheaper to produce.
The three doors into eligibility
Door one: means-tested benefits. A household member receives a qualifying benefit and the home is expensive to heat. This is the route most like old ECO4 eligibility.
Door two: low income. No qualifying benefit, but household income falls below the scheme's thresholds and the home is inefficient. Thresholds are checked at application — do not self-reject on a guess.
Door three: health conditions. Someone in the home lives with a chronic respiratory, circulatory or mental health condition, combined with a lower income. Cold, damp Welsh stone housing is a clinical risk factor, and the scheme treats it as one. GPs and health boards in Wales can refer patients directly — a mechanism with no ECO4 equivalent.
In every case the property itself must justify the work: Nest targets homes that are genuinely expensive to heat, which in practice means the EPC E–G stock that dominates rural counties and the older terraces of the Valleys. If your home is already efficient, the advice service is still yours; funded measures are not.
How an application actually runs
You contact the scheme (the official route is via gov.wales), answer eligibility questions, and if you pass the initial screen a surveyor assesses the property. The assessment produces the package — you do not pick from a menu — and approved work is carried out by the scheme's contracted installers at no cost to you. Timescales vary with demand and season; winter queues are real, which is a practical argument for applying in summer.
Two honest caveats. Because the package follows the assessment, you may be offered different measures than you hoped for — insulation when you wanted a boiler, a heat pump when you wanted gas. And because Nest is demand-led with a fixed budget, persistence sometimes matters: an unsuccessful enquiry one year is worth repeating after circumstances or criteria change.
If Nest isn't for you
Plenty of Welsh households sit above Nest's thresholds in homes that still leak money. For them the 2026 toolkit is the UK-wide one: the £7,500 Boiler Upgrade Scheme for heat pumps (no means test), 0% VAT on solar and energy-saving work until March 2027, and Smart Export Guarantee income on solar generation. Oil-heated rural homes have their own ordering of moves — covered in the off-gas Wales guide.
Nest and Warm Homes Wales — common questions
Is Nest still running in 2026?
Yes. Nest is the delivery scheme of the Welsh Government's Warm Homes Programme and it continues after ECO4's closure — the two were never the same scheme. Nest is devolved, funded from the Welsh budget, and has operated in successive forms since 2011.
Who qualifies for free measures under Nest?
The broad shape: you own or privately rent your home, the home is expensive to heat (poor energy efficiency is assessed during the application), and the household either receives a means-tested benefit, has a low income, or includes someone with certain chronic respiratory, circulatory or mental health conditions on a lower income. The health route is the one most people have never heard of — it was designed precisely for households who miss benefit-based criteria. Exact thresholds are checked during the assessment, so an enquiry costs nothing but a conversation.
Does Nest provide free boilers?
Heating replacement is one of Nest's core measures — if the assessment finds your boiler inefficient or broken and you qualify, a replacement heating system can be fully funded. Note that Welsh Government policy increasingly favours low-carbon heating where the property suits it, so the funded answer may be a heat pump rather than a like-for-like gas boiler. The assessment, not a brochure, decides what the home gets.
Can Nest include solar panels or a heat pump?
Yes, where the whole-home assessment supports it. Nest packages are designed around what will cut the specific home's bills most — usually insulation and heating first, with low-carbon technologies such as air source heat pumps, and in some cases solar PV, included where they are the right technical answer. You cannot order a specific technology from the scheme; you can make a strong case at assessment.
Is there a catch — fees, loans, roof leases?
No. Nest measures for eligible households are funded by the Welsh Government, not loans, and there is no application fee. Anyone charging you to "apply to Nest" or asking you to sign a lease in exchange for "free" Welsh Government measures is not the scheme. Apply through the official Nest service on gov.wales, or start with our check and we will point you at the right door.