If you are in receipt of an income related benefit you can apply for a grant to help with the costs of buying and installing a new boiler. The grant is part of the Warm Front scheme and could even cover the full costs. New boilers are very much more efficient, 90% efficient compared to older boilers which only offer approximately 60% efficiency.
Fuel poverty is relatively new but by improving your heating system with a new energy efficient combination boiler can give you quite substantial savings. Also you will be helping to save the environment as new boilers are very good at reducing CO2 emissions. With the costs of Gas soaring it's important that none of this expensive gas is wasted. Older boilers waste so much energy compared to newer models. With older boilers a lot of heat is lost though the flu which is the same as a chimney. With new combination boilers this loss of heat is recycled though a second heat exchanger and turned back into useable energy, meaning very little is wasted.
There is more good news because from April this year (2011) under the new Energy Company Obligation (ECO) energy companies will be required by law to give discount on energy bills to the most vulnerable customers. This will help around 2 million households over the next 4 years.
So if your boiler is old you could be through money away. Your bills will reduce quite dramatically by replacing it with a modern condensing boiler. If you have a small house with just one bathroom a combi boiler will be most suited to your needs. They are small and fit in a cupboard without the need to store water in a cylinder. You can get wall mounted or floor standing boilers. Larger homes with more than one bathroom can still have one of these efficient boilers but there would be the need to store water in a cylinder.
If you don't full in the category of being on benefits but still want to have a new boiler installed there are still options available to you. Many of the top boiler installation companies offer very good finance packages. You can go online now and check all the major companies and smaller ones if you like and compare finance deals. This really would be worth your while because it looks like the prices of fuel are going to keep going up and up. So don't be out of pocket, get a modern heating system installed ready for next winter.