Leave the boiler on: the £100 from the 28 October Budget is a January payment

Thursday 29 October is the day after that announcement, which is when a headline gets mistaken for a job in the airing cupboard. This page is the house check. It is a reading of three government pages published on 28 October, plus the price-cap figures Ofgem already set for this quarter. It does not decide whether you qualify, it does not compare tariffs, and it does not price a new boiler. If the boiler will not light, use the boiler-will-not-fire page. If you are choosing a plug-in heater against the gas boiler, use the plug-in heater page. The meter reading that drew a line under 1 October is already the meter page. Wednesday’s Budget does not reopen that job.

What the 28 October notes actually change

The DESNZ page What the Autumn Budget 2026 means for your energy bills, published 28 October 2026, names the Household Energy Payment as £100. It says up to 20 million households will be eligible, including an estimated 83% of fuel stressed households in England and 88% of households in the bottom three income deciles. Payments will be made from January 2027. A household in England is in the group the page describes if it is liable for council tax on, and lives in, a property in bands A to D as its main home. The page says this will include most households that are exempt from council tax, and that the full eligibility criteria will be published in due course. Second homes, empty properties, and households where the householder is not responsible for paying council tax are stated as not eligible. Scotland, Wales and Northern Ireland receive additional funding, and their governments decide how to use it. An England band list is not a Glasgow, Cardiff or Belfast payment. This page will not invent those amounts.

The same DESNZ page says ministers have asked Ofgem to remove standing charges on household gas bills as early as 2027. The Treasury and No. 10 release Chancellor abolishes standing charges on gas bills, also 28 October 2026, says the Chancellor will ask Ofgem to deliver that removal in 2027 or as soon as possible after. The release describes the charges as £108 a year for the typical household on average, and says the fixed costs would be paid on the unit rate instead. It says that move could save 60% of account-holding households around an average of £45 a year. A methodology note on the same release calculates the illustration on a static basis and uses the phrase “by the end of next year” for the unit-rate move. Read the title, the 2027 timetable and the methodology line as three different sentences. A headline that sounds finished is not a credit on an account.

High gas use is treated separately. DESNZ says a typical household on median gas consumption will benefit once the change is introduced, and that a low user who heats with gas is likely to pay less when it arrives. It also says some vulnerable households use a lot of gas they cannot avoid, and that targeted mitigation will be set out in due course. The £45 illustration is not a promise that every gas bill falls by £45, and the £108 is the charge being moved, not cash posted to you this week. The release’s standfirst talks about standing charges coming off household gas bills for around 23 million homes. That is a different count from the 20 million England households named for the £100.

HM Treasury’s Budget 2026 news page, published the same day, adds the electricity VAT date. The temporary VAT cut on electricity bills will be extended until 1 July 2027, and the Treasury says that extension takes around £50 off the Ofgem annual price cap in April 2027. DESNZ, in its own sentences, says removing VAT from household electricity on 1 October is saving households an average of £45 a year, and that the cut is being extended until July 2027. Keep the £45 and the £50 attached to the pages that printed them. Earlier pages on this site still quote 31 March 2027, the end date taken from the HMRC brief before this Budget. The Treasury page of 28 October says the cut will be extended until 1 July 2027. Treat that as the date the Budget has announced. Gas VAT is not changed in either note. The Treasury also says a planned tax on gas bills, intended by a previous government to fund hydrogen, will be scrapped. A tax that is still described as planned is not a line you can cross off a statement that never showed it.

What is still on this week’s bill

Ofgem’s press release of 26 August 2026 still covers 1 October to 31 December 2026 for default gas and electricity tariffs in Great Britain. For a typical household paying by Direct Debit for both fuels, the published annualised figure is £1,723, up from £1,663, if that level lasted a full year and if the household uses the amount Ofgem calls typical. Ofgem says most of that rise is gas, about 8% on gas bills, and that an electricity-only household sees a much smaller move, under 1%. Around 35% of households, about 11 million, are on a fixed tariff and are not moved by the rise. Your statement is still the units you use, plus standing charges. The £100 does not replace either line. DESNZ places the payment in January 2027. Where council tax is paid by direct debit, that page says the rebate is paid into your bank account. It is not a discount printed on this week’s gas bill.

The gas standing charge is still a daily fee whether the heating is on or off. The Treasury uses that fact to explain why it wants the charge changed: a household could use no gas at all and still pay it. That sentence describes the bill in force now. Turning the heating off on 29 October does not release £108, and it does not release £45. Both numbers belong to the later unit-rate description. Electricity standing charges are outside the request. The notes name gas.

A traditional meter does not need a fresh photograph because the Budget was on Wednesday. The reading that mattered was the one around the 1 October cap change, so September units were not guessed onto October rates. Sending the same digits again does not apply a January payment. Ofgem has not published a cap for 1 January 2027 on the pages this note uses, so a newspaper figure for that quarter stays a forecast. This page will not repeat one, and it will not ask you to change a direct debit to get ahead of a number that is not set.

Northern Ireland sits outside that Great Britain cap. A house in Belfast does not inherit £1,723 from the August Ofgem release, and it does not inherit the England £100. DESNZ says the payment scheme applies in England. Heating oil is outside the cap as well. A tanker price is the supplier’s quote, not a council-tax rebate. If the boiler burns oil, the tank check is the oil-tank page. The £100, where it applies, is still a payment to the household, not a discount per litre.

Check the council tax band, and leave the heating alone

The band is a property record. It is not a menu on the boiler. DESNZ points households to Check your Council Tax band. Use that service, or the band already printed on a council tax bill you hold. Write down the band and whether this address is your main home. There is nothing for a plumber, a website or a caller to “confirm” for a fee. If the property is a second home or empty, the DESNZ page says it is not eligible. If you are not the person responsible for the council tax, the same page says the household is not eligible. If you are exempt, the page says most exempt households will be included and that the full criteria are still to be published. Wait for those criteria. A form that arrived overnight is not a substitute for them.

Where you pay the council tax by direct debit and you live in bands A to D, DESNZ says you do not need to do anything. The rebate will be paid into your bank account. Where you do not pay by direct debit, the council will invite you to apply. There is no application on this website, and neither route asks anyone to open the boiler, drain a radiator or change a programmer. People outside bands A to D are covered in a different paragraph: an additional £100 million for local authorities to give discretionary support, with each council setting its own rules and publishing them once local arrangements exist. Until that page is on your council’s own site, there is no form to complete. Find the council through Find your local council, then use the contact route published there. A leaflet on the mat is not that website.

The Warm Home Discount is a separate £150. DESNZ says people who receive means-tested benefits may be eligible, and it points to the Warm Home Discount Scheme overview. That scheme is not the £100, and it is not awarded because a heating engineer visited. Read the overview yourself. This site cannot see your benefits, and it will not tell you that you qualify.

Ignore a text that offers to release the £100

Wednesday’s announcement is the moment copycat messages appear. A text, an email or a caller that wants the card you use for the energy direct debit, a one-time passcode, or a photo of a driving licence is not the process DESNZ describes. The direct-debit route is automatic. The other route is an invitation from the council, which you can check by phoning a number from the council’s own site. A link in the message is a poor way to find that number. Close it and look the council up again.

Leave the energy direct debit where it is. Do not cancel it, and do not open a new bank account, to “qualify”. The payment DESNZ describes follows council tax liability and the band. It does not follow a new energy tariff. Choosing a fixed energy deal is a separate conversation with your supplier. This page does not rank those deals and does not name one to buy. Moving the direct debit because a stranger said the £100 lands only on a new account is how the payment gets harder to trace, not how it arrives sooner.

Energy debt needs the same pause. DESNZ describes targeted, one-off debt relief for vulnerable households who re-engage with their supplier through a Debt Relief Scheme. It says the billpayer would need to be on means-tested benefits, disability benefits, or a pensioner, with debt built up since the energy crisis of 2022–24, and would need to take steps to re-engage with paying. It then says Ofgem will shortly consult on the final design. That is a scheme still being designed, not a write-off you can finish here, and it is a poor reason to stop paying a bill you can pay. If you are in debt, the step the page names is to talk to the supplier again. This directory does not contact that supplier, and it does not hold your account.

There is no Budget setting on the boiler

A Gas Safe engineer cannot dial a standing charge off the front of a domestic boiler. The charge is a line on the supplier’s bill. A call-out to “prepare the boiler for 2027” spends the visit on a control that does not exist yet. If a seller uses Wednesday’s announcement as the reason to replace the boiler this week, ask which scheme they are selling, and ask for it in writing before anyone drains the system. How to read that paperwork is the quote page. Signing in the hallway because a payment was on the news is the rush that page is there to slow down.

The Treasury’s Budget note mentions a new Warm Homes loans scheme to spread the upfront cost of solar panels, batteries and heat pumps, and says those together could cut bills by up to £550 a year. “Could” is the Treasury’s word. The note does not publish an application route, a lender, or a household that has to take the loan. It is also a different product from the heat-pump grant. In England and Wales that grant remains the Boiler Upgrade Scheme described on the grants page: the installer is MCS-certified, claims the grant, and shows it as a discount on the quote. Gas Safe on a profile is the register for gas work. It is not MCS, and it is not a decision that your house should come off gas this week. If you were already weighing a heat pump, the house, the radiators and the quote are the readiness check. Isolating the gas on Thursday does not reserve a loan that has no form yet.

What you can still change, when the heating is simply in seasonal use, is already written on other pages. A lower flow temperature on a condensing combi is a dial on the case, described on the flow-temperature page. Which rooms to heat is a thermostat question. One cold radiator, with the rest of the system hot, is the bleeding page. None of those jobs collects the £100. All of them can wait if you are only in the cupboard because of a headline. Stop if you smell gas, the pressure will not hold, or you cannot tell the heating control from a stored-water cylinder.

A plug-in electric heater does not become the cheap option because gas standing charges are in the news. Electricity units are still billed. The VAT cut on qualifying domestic electricity in Great Britain is already in place, and the Treasury now dates an extension to 1 July 2027, but a unit rate with the VAT removed is still a unit rate. The electricity standing charge was not in Wednesday’s gas request. Running three heaters off one socket, because the gas charge is “going”, is how a budget story becomes a hot plug. If the boiler is the house heating, leave it as the house heating. If one room needs a short top-up, the plug-in page is the comparison, using this quarter’s unit rates, not using a standing charge that has not moved.

When the phone call is a fault

Phone a heating engineer when the boiler will not fire, the pressure will not stay up, or water is coming from the white condensate pipe. Say what the display shows, whether you have heat or hot water or neither, and ask for a Gas Safe registered engineer for gas work. A profile that shows Gas Safe is showing a qualification field that is present on that profile. It is not a badge this site sells, and it is not evidence the firm can claim a grant. You place the call from plumbing and heating, using the number on the card. Nobody on this site forwards it, and nobody here can see the council tax band or the energy account.

There is no trade visit for removing a standing charge, registering the £100, or “switching the house onto the Budget tariff”. Those phrases are not jobs. The £100 follows the council process above. The standing charge follows Ofgem, on the timetable the Treasury printed. A person at the door who says the council sent them to inspect the boiler because of the payment should stay outside. DESNZ describes a bank payment or a council invitation, not a boiler inspection. An insulation or heat-pump visit that starts from a flyer is a sales visit. Read the quote, then read the grants notes, before the grant sentence becomes the price of the job.

1. Open the DESNZ energy-bills page and the Treasury standing-charge release, both dated 28 October 2026. Use the dates and the amounts printed there, not a cropped headline.
2. Check the council tax band on GOV.UK, or read it from a bill you already have. Note whether the address is your main home, a second home, or empty.
3. If you pay that council tax by direct debit and you live in bands A to D in England, stop. DESNZ says the rebate is paid to you and that you do not apply.
4. If you do not pay by direct debit, wait for the council’s own invitation. Look the council up on GOV.UK if you want to ask them, and use the number you found that way.
5. Open the latest gas bill and find the standing-charge line. Leave it. There is no form this week that deletes it, and a plumber cannot delete it from the boiler.
6. Leave the boiler, the programmer and the gas isolation as they are, unless you already have a fault from the list above. A lower flow dial, if you were going to try one anyway, is the flow-temperature page, not a Budget setting.
7. If any message asks you to claim, to move bank details, or to let someone in to “update” the heating for the payment, stop. Check with the council. Do not use the number printed in the message.

If you smell gas, leave the house, avoid switches, and use the gas emergency line from outside. In England, Scotland and Wales that number is 0800 111 999. In Northern Ireland, nidirect gives the gas emergency line as 0800 002 001. A carbon monoxide alarm that is already sounding is a reason to leave, not a reason to read a budget note. The alarm page is the test for an ordinary day, when the alarm is quiet and you want to know the batteries still work. It is not the response once the alarm has started.

Questions that change what you do today

Is the £100 taken off this week’s gas bill?

No. The Department for Energy Security and Net Zero page of 28 October 2026 says Household Energy Payment money will be paid from January 2027. For someone who pays council tax by direct debit and lives in an eligible England band, that page says you do not need to do anything and the rebate is paid into your bank account. It does not delete the gas units or the standing charge on this week’s statement. This site does not decide whether your household qualifies.

Have gas standing charges already been removed?

No. The Treasury release of 28 October 2026 asks Ofgem to remove household gas standing charges in 2027 or as soon as possible after, and to move those costs onto the unit rate. It describes the charge as £108 a year for the typical household, and illustrates a possible average £45 saving for 60% of account-holding households. Those are figures for that later change. Electricity standing charges are not part of that request.

Should I turn the boiler off so I use no gas?

No. The Treasury says a household can use no gas and still pay the standing charge. Using none this week does not bring the unit-rate change forward and does not pay you £108. Keep the heating available if the house needs it. If the boiler will not fire, or you smell gas, that is a fault or an emergency, not a way to collect the payment.