New Government subsidies for insulation & heating.

The Government announced its budget last Thursday and one of the few funding increases (the National Government is not Keynesian) is a scheme that subsidises retrofitting of insulation and clean heating to older houses, most of which have little or no insulation. The details that are emerging are looking very good indeed (http://www.eeca.govt.nz/node/3107).
Anyone can get the basic subsidies of 33% of insulation and $500 for approved clean heating systems (heat pumps, pellet fires, high efficiency woodfires, high efficiency flued gas fires - 'clean' here refers to low or no local air pollution, not necessarily low CO2 emissions).
We have a 'Community Services Card' which is for low income earners based on how many children you have (I have 3 with another on the way) and your income levels (moderate). This makes us eligible for the higher level of subsidies which are 60% of insulation costs and $1200 for clean heating. The deatiled rules have not been announced yet and leaves questions like is the heating funding a straight dollar subsidy or a 'up-to' percentage funding (eg 33% up to $1200). What is known/most likely to continue is that the insulation & heating must be installed and provided by "Energywise Partners" so I can't save any money by installing it myself nor can I choose exactly what mixture of insulation I most prefer - I can only get what the Energywise partners, that are here locally, provide. I believe both ceiling and underfloor insulation must be done together. There will be some shopping around to find the most suitable company. I've already made contact with someone who sells fibreglass insulation for the cheapest price on Trademe at as low as $3 per R-value per square metre, so R2.2 fibreglass was $6.50 per m2. 2 layers of that would give R4.4 which is quite respectable at $13/m2 (not installed). That person from East Coast Suspended Ceilings (http://www.ceilings.co.nz/) is trying to become an Energywide Partner so that would be a good match for us I think.
I am estimating a cost of $3500 for a heatpump installed and about the same for insulation installed (maybe a bit more so let's say $4500). So that's $8000 at full price. If we get the maximum subsidy that would cost us $3500-$1200=$2300 for the heatpump and $4500*0.4=$1800 installed for a grand total of $4100. That fits within our approx $5000 budget and is about half price! We might be able to get another $500 on top of that through an asthma study being carried out that my wife will be a part of.

The only downside is that the subsidies will start from the first of July so we have at least another month to wait till we get warm efficiently.

I would like to thank the previous Labour Government for preparing this policy (I had some involvement in that as chair of the Labour Party Policy Committee that deals with Energy issues) and campaigning strongly on it, the Green party for pushing and supporting this policy in both the previous and the current government and the National Party for going through with it (I never thought they would).

Benjamin