Battling Fuel Bills – What Help Is There?
With ever increasing fuel bills, it’s good to know that there are a number of ways by which you can get some help.
Most benefits come through eligibility to one, or more of the state benefits, such as Income Support, Disability Living Allowance, Housing Benefit, or Jobseeker’s Allowance. And various fuel grants and schemes are available from the government backed initiatives which come under the umbrella title of the Home Energy Efficiency Scheme and include such names as Warm Front, Warm Deal and Warm Homes.
And help can also come from your energy company, like British Gas, which has devised a number of products and schemes to reduce the pain of rising fuel bills.
Brought together under their Essentials Advance package, British Gas works with its qualifying customers to not only help with bill payments, but also to pro-actively help them save energy.
The Essentials Advance package includes advice on energy efficiency, free insulation (which could help you save well over £250 off future bills) and a discount of £50 off your next bill, after your free insulation has been provided.
To be considered for Essentials Advance, you need to be an existing British Gas customer and receive any following:
- Disability living allowance
- Pension credit
- Attendance allowance
- Council tax benefit
- Housing benefit
- Income support
- Income based job seeker allowance
- War disablement pension (which includes either mobility supplement or constant attendance allowance)
- Disablement pension ( which includes constant attendance allowance)
- Child Tax credit (where relevant income is £15,592 or less)
- Working Tax credit (where relevant income is £15, 592 or less).
If you think you are eligible, British Gas have a network of energy experts who will come around and visit you, talking you through the various schemes and plans that exist to help.
They can be reached via the telephone on 0800 072 7100.
They also provide help with debt support, recommend charities that also help and suggest other home energy plans.
But if you are having a problem with your British Gas bill, do call them on 0800 048 0404 and talk it through with specialist advisers.
British Gas also has established an independent charity, the British Gas Energy Trust, which offers existing customers help via grants and Further Assistance Payments.
For further information, visit: www.britishgasenergytrust.org.uk.
British Gas also has links with six other charities and regularly liaise on how to help people with their fuel bills. They also offer a ‘here to HELP’ programme which offers free, or subsidised insulation, and other key advice, via four of their charity partners, namely Help the Aged, Scope, RNIB and Money Advice Trust. More information can be obtained by telephoning 0845 605 2535.
Furthermore, the British Gas Home Energy Care Team provides help and advice for over half a million of its most vulnerable customers, including providing bills in alternative formats, gas safety checks and appliance controls that are specially adapted for older, ill, or disabled customers. Call 0845 955 5404 for more information.
And if English is not your native language, then British Gas can discuss your bill in a number of other languages, including Polish, Somali, Urdu, Turkish, Bengali and Punjabi.
All this is one very good reason to make sure British Gas is your energy provider.
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