UK home energy, costed honestly
Spend less on energy. Waste less on the wrong upgrades.
Compare solar, batteries, heat pumps and EV charging for your home. See what they could cost, what they might save, and what to check before you ask for quotes.
- Upgrades compared
- 4
- Calculator inputs
- 8
- Hidden assumptions
- 0
No accounts. No quote forms pretending to contact installers. Just the arithmetic and the questions worth asking.
Which upgrade are you weighing up?
Pick the decision you are actually facing. Each page explains what changes the answer, and where a calculator exists you can go straight to your own numbers.
01
Solar panels
Cut what you buy from the grid
Best when your roof faces roughly south to west and you use a decent share of what you generate.
02
Battery storage
Use more of your own power
Shifts cheap or self-generated electricity into the hours you actually use it.
03
Heat pumps
Replace fossil-fuel heating
Performance depends on heat loss, radiators and flow temperature, not brand names.
04
EV chargers
Charge at home for less
Off-street parking and your incoming supply decide most of this before price does.
Start with your house, not the technology
Most disappointing home-energy projects start with a product and work backwards. The sensible order is the other way round. What your house is like, how you live in it and what you pay for energy decide whether a given upgrade is clever or expensive.
A bigger system is not automatically a better system if most of the extra electricity leaves your roof for pennies.
- Roof
- Direction, pitch, usable area, shading, condition
- Usage
- How much electricity you use and when you use it
- Heating
- Current fuel, radiator sizes, insulation, hot water
- Tariff
- Flat rate or time of use, and export terms
- Parking
- Off-street parking and cable routing for an EV charger
- Budget
- What you can spend, and whether borrowing changes the maths
Solar savings calculator
Do the sums before anyone does them for you
Put in your own electricity use, your own prices and your own quoted cost. The calculator shows self-consumption, export income, annual benefit and simple payback, with every assumption editable.
Open the calculatorIllustrative interface: enter your own figures
Annual use
Import price
System size
Annual generation
Used at home
Export price
Outputs
Annual benefit, export income, simple payback and a ten-year gross figure, all shown with the assumptions that produced them.
What Housebright checks
Upfront cost
What the installed price actually includes, and what is quietly excluded.
Running savings
How much you avoid buying, not the headline number on the brochure.
Payback
Simple payback in years, with the assumptions shown rather than hidden.
Grants and incentives
What exists where you live, and when the scheme is due to change.
Practical suitability
Roof, loft, meter position, parking, radiators, space for a cylinder.
Installer questions
The specific things to ask before you sign anything.
Research snapshot: August 2026
Where things stand in the UK right now
Solar installations
UK domestic solar installation activity has been running at record levels through 2026. We do not publish a precise running total here, because the figure moves constantly and a stale number is worse than none. Where we do quote counts, they carry a dated research snapshot label so you can judge how fresh they are.
Heat pump grants
The Boiler Upgrade Scheme applies in England and Wales. It offers £7,500 towards eligible air-to-water and ground-source heat pump installations, and £9,000 for certain eligible off-gas-grid properties, with the scheme running until 31 March 2027. Scotland and Northern Ireland run separate support, so check your own nation's scheme.
Checked September 2026. Sources: GOV.UK Boiler Upgrade Scheme guidance, Ofgem scheme pages.
Current UK guidance
The rules and funding people are checking now
Start with the decision that could change what you buy, what support you can use, or whether an installation is practical at all.
Solar rules
Plug-in solar panels in the UK
What the 2026 legal change means, who small plug-in systems suit, and what to check before buying.
Read the guide →Funding
Solar panel grants and support
Check the current schemes, eligibility routes and the difference between grants and sales offers.
Check support →EV charging
Charging without a driveway
Cross-pavement rules, cable channels and the practical checks to make before paying for equipment.
See the rules →Before you ask for quotes
Know what a good quote should contain
The useful comparison is rarely the headline price. These guides show what should be itemised, which assumptions to challenge and how to compare installers on the same basis.
Solar
Compare solar quotes properly
System size, generation, self-consumption, scaffolding, inverter, warranties and paperwork.
Read the guide →Heat pumps
Compare heat-pump quotes line by line
Check the heat-loss calculation, flow temperature, radiators, cylinder, electrics, grant treatment and warranties before choosing an installer.
Read the guide →Batteries
Compare battery installation costs
Usable capacity, inverter, electrical work, backup hardware and the warranty behind it.
Read the guide →EV charging
Compare the whole charger installation
Cable route, consumer-unit work, load management, parking and tariff compatibility.
Read the guide →Work out what fits your home
Start with the solar calculator. It takes a couple of minutes, it uses your numbers, and it will tell you quickly whether the rest of the conversation is worth having.