Home Energy Scotland Reviews 

We’re moving to a new home. A happy time, you’d think?

Not if Home Energy Scotland has anything to do with it.

For a government funded organisation Home Energy Scotland has to be the very worst that it has been my misfortune to be involved with.

As our new property is all-electric, we decided to investigate whether or not Home Energy Scotland could perhaps provide a loan, or grant, allowing us to upgrade storage heaters – among other things - as one of us is legitimately classed as a vulnerable adult and requires a constant temperature throughout the house.

However, our attempt to submit an application merely identified a systemic carbuncle of incompetents.

Some edited highlights…

• Responses took longer than the requisite response times.
• Responses were often obvious cut and paste - without context and gave an overall sense of disinterest.
• Responses contained references and suggestions to completely unrelated matters.
• Staff seemed entirely unclear on one specific aspect of the proposed application.
• Staff wholly unclear on the use of definitive language and when asked for clarity they provided even more ambiguity. The application used the term ’must’ in regard to part of the application. I was unsure how ‘must’ applied to me in our circumstances and was frustrated to be informed “generally speaking”, “possibility” and that there were caveats – but no clarity on what the caveats might be?
• Staff incapable of answering a direct question about one specific issue that was essential to the grant/loan submission.
• Staff repeatedly seemed to suggest that my issue was the responsibility of another department – while continuing to respond to me(?). The other department did not agree and re-referred me back to HES.
• Staff claimed my issue could be resolved by obtaining a letterhead from a company HES themselves referred me to. The company stated that it could not do as HES had supposed and that even if it did, I would still not meet the criteria for application. When I raised this with HES – no response.

Eventually, an alleged ‘Lead’ member of staff contacted me. The response was amateurish: dates were wrong, she made inappropriate assumptions and the cherry on the cake was when she dismissed me as the complainant – all without providing me with any information that relates to a complaint’s procedure. A fool masquerading as a clown.

I get the sense that Home Energy Scotland is a creche run and attended by unruly, disinterested individuals. As a tax payer I’d like to see the organisation completely re-developed with a significant package of staff training. Based on my experience I do think it better if some staff were let go/sacked. If two 'alleged' senior members of staff are unable to answer direct questions in regard to their positions and the application process I'd question their qualifications in addition to their experience and ability. Harsh, perhaps, but as they seemingly provide such a consistently shoddy service at all levels – why should the tax payer be burdened?

We fully appreciate that our application submission, for either grant or loan, may have been declined. What we hadn’t expected was to be actively obstructed from submitting an application at all. As matters stands we will endeavour to do as much of the work as we can from our own finances. While we are unsure if we can afford to do all that needs to be done we know for a fact that we cannot afford – in terms of health and constant delay – to pander to Home Energy Scotland’s incompetence any longer.

Everyone has their own experience. This was ours.

Should HES see this review I would ask it to make no attempt of hollow after care. Trustpilot can, of course, see any reference numbers or communications.

Update: Home Energy Scotland responds "We appreciate that you have contacted us previously to discuss this, however, if you wish to raise this complaint further, please can you email us at ... "

My response: Another fool masquerading as a clown. Home Energy Scotland has dismissed me as the complainant within my own complaint without ever providing me with any information relating to the complaint process. As our experience illustrates, and this reponse compounds, Home Energy Scotland has a consistent inability to read and understand any information presented to it.

The staff were polite and "Listened" to my enquiry and associated dilemmas. Their advice was clear and unbiased.
I would thoroughly recommend their service to anyone trying to separate sales talk and reality.

An absolute waste of time. The application process was difficult. The on line form does not work properly. The response time to reply to emails is awful and without any coherence. Telephone calls are the same, you have to wait for days. Numerous requests for additional documents, including having to scan whole documents rather than just signature pages. Led down the garden path that the grant and loan would be approved, 'We will fund your battery' and then told that this would not be the case as we had an invoice dated before a written quotation of the loan approval was sent, even though we had an email. We had explained the battery would need to be installed when the solar panels were installed: it would seem ridiculous not to do that. This process has been ongoing since early October!

My experience was pretty awful.

I was looking to change my heating system, to install air source heat pump.

I contacted HES in October 2023, with a view to applying for their grant and interest free loan. I had a 20 minute conversation at which point I was told that somebody would call me back but within 15 days to go through more details. Despite chasing four times, by telephone and by email, that call actually came 65 days later. At that point, this is now end of December, I was sent the link to their application portal, but was told that it was quite new and there might be some teething problems, and they were right, the system did not recognise my rural location for the applicable funding for this location. In addition, the application form is far too complicated. I reported the issues and heard nothing for two weeks, at which point, I chased three times. Twice I was told “we know there is a problem with our system, but you just need to keep on trying”. Not ideal.
By this point, we are three months down the line from my initial contact and still no further forward, even though I had paid my deposit of £1000 to the air source supplier. I took the decision that I could no longer wait as my existing boiler was coming to its life end and that was the reason I had decided to go for the greener route.

Unfortunately, HES, whilst advocates of greener energy, don’t make the process simple at all.

I gave up and installed a new oil boiler. Not what I wanted to do.

To date, I’ve still had no response from HES. It was a complete waste of time on my part. Another Scottish Government initiative that does not work because it has not been thought out properly.

This review is being done by Teresa Robb. We received great service from Home Energy Scotland, although they could not help us they did give us other people to contact. Home Energy Scotland try their very best to help people and we are very pleased we contacted them.

I have spoken to them a few times now and they are extremely helpful and friendly. I’m absolutely delighted with the service that I have received and would be happy to recommend them

Was given more help than expected & from start to finish & the person on the other end was fantastic Cheers Andy.

Home energy Scotland does a great job. However their referral to the Funding Portal went badly but that presumably isn’t your problem. The Funding Portal form was impossible to complete and even on the phone they couldn’t help and admitted to a problem with their system. I have given up meantime. I had a survey done and my EPC scored C so room for improvement. Would like to explore Grant for underfloor insulation.

Five star service, or, to be more accurate, ten stars!
At every stage, staff were highly professional, thorough, encouraging, and patient.........and, on occasions when staff told me what would happen next, it did indeed happen, and did so promptly.
Hey, it's VERY much in our own interest to use this service, and, while the volume of info provided is mighty, the staff make it as easy as possible to cope with.

Phoned and got through immediately to a well informed and pleasant chap who informed me of the options and arranged a site visit by his colleague

We engaged with these people beginning Nov 2023
We were given 2 options regarding improving our insulation
2nd option required a survey to assess what else we may need doing.
Chloe the advisor was full of enthusiasm however that seems to have run out of steam
No follow up
Phoned them several times for an update - permanently on hold
E mailed witn zero response
Spoke to another advisor - follow ups not well, followed up
More e mails with no response
Had a call from Chloe on 8th Jan promising ( in her words) ' to light a fire under warm home'
No follow up
Called on 31/ 01 on hold for 12 minutes
E mailed again but not expecting any follow up
If this wasn't a govt backed scheme I'd step away as it feels like a scam
As one other commenter has said it may be cheaper and quicker to D.I.Y
Very disappointing and extremely poor customer service

Absolutely useless, promoting businesses that charge way over market rates. Such as loft insulation for £4k, but ill only have to pay £1100. I got it done privately for £700!

Boilers, way over the odds, windows... absolute joke.

People on the phone also don't know what they are on about and call you for a 'review of their services' after 8pm!

Absolute farce.

Edit - Pray tell what would be the point of a 'formal complaint' there then Gen? When an organisation is as incompetent as Home Energy Scotland, there is little point. Much better to warn others not to waste their time.

Experience continues to be stressful. Bottom line is DON'T GO AHEAD IF YOU DON'T HAVE LOTS OF MONEY! The company doing the installation want the payment in 25%, 60% and 15% payments. HES/ SDS only provide 60% leaving you to fork out £ks. Few of us have £thousands just lying about. The worst bit is - they start deducting the Direct Debit BEFORE the work is complete and all the payments made. That is patently unfair.

The initial advise all sounds good but when you get down to trying to get the work done, it's a nightmare. My case has been dragging on for months now.

Excellent service everything was explained clearly to which was easy to understand, very polite and useful information on things I can do in my home. Also explained what I could get funding for ,highly recommed.

So far so good 👍 now just waiting to hear about a government grant and insulation wall cavity and any other help i need 🙏 I read some comments people saying how long they take 😀 calm down let them do there job , I have been dealing with scottish power past 3 years as they are all morons , but now I have home energy scotland to help , ok I might not get it all paid or even half but something will help , and this organisation is there helping us get something back from the government and thats no easy task 🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿🏴󠁧󠁢󠁳󠁣󠁴󠁿

How to save on enregy
I have really bad anxiety and hearing loss and when I said that to the advisor she spoke in a more slower calming way. She also made sure I was understanding the information I was given and I got the help I needed and after the call I was not harassed by marketing email or texts by them

Despite having received a reply to contact a member of the team, no-one is in a position to help or to issue me with my grant funds. I have been waiting a few months now already and still nothing. They are in breach of contract. Well beyond their stipulated payment timeframe. Do not enter in to a contract with Home Energy Scotland. They simply do not care and won’t send you your grant funds when they say they will. I’ll now await their standard copy and paste reply.

Received my loan funds within three weeks of submitting my claim.

Waiting for approval for our solar panel, battery and air source heating. Got the approval, sent back everything that was asked for. Today I received an email to go ahead with the installation but no mention of the 60% deposit money we applied for, without which we can’t start work.