There was much talk last year about the Green Deal, though what it was all about was not all that clear.

It’s apparently an arrangement that allows us to use the money that we would save on our fuel bills if our houses were properly insulated to pay for that insulation over a decade or more with the help of the energy providing companies.

This means that we will still be probably paying the same amount for heating and lighting our houses, but they will certainly be warmer, and less draughty, but because we will be using less gas and electricity there will be less carbon dioxide produced, so I do hope that the scheme is a resounding success.

We were told we could sign up for the benefits of the Green Deal in the autumn, but a month or so later no-one seemed to have made the effort. However, now that we are into the new year the actual building work can begin, so maybe there has been a great rush by people hoping to improve the energy efficiency of their houses, all at no immediate cost.

Mind you, as it all seems to be a carefully guarded secret, not much will have happened and it certainly needs some vigorous advertisement.

The lack of enthusiasm is probably because it doesn’t involve a direct handout to householders, but is dependent on the energy companies paying for the improvement, then getting their money back over the years by charging you for the balance of energy that you no longer use.

Technically speaking, it could provide central heating, new boilers, double glazing, triple glazing, loft, cavity and underfloor insulation, solid wall treatment, ground source heating and solar panels, though not many of these would happen to one building for two reasons. Firstly, the government expects there to be a limit of £10,000 per property, and there is also the golden rule that whatever work is carried out must not cost more than the savings in fuel costs that will arise from having the work done.

The scheme will be controlled by local assessors, who will decide what can be done, and then approved providers will carry out the work, and, theoretically, this could lead to thousands of jobs.

However, it will need to be regulated carefully as a similar scheme in Australia has just been scrapped following faulty and inadequate work in 150,000 properties.

My own house is 101 years old and, like so many in Bradford and Keighley, has solid walls without cavities. I doubt whether the Green Deal will be able to do much about heat escaping through my ancient Carboniferous Coal Measure sandstone walls.