Eco living: could you take out a Green Deal loan? One problem is that there are no accredited assessors or providers in large parts of the country. When I typed my east Kent postcode into the "Green Deal Orb" the nearest assessor was about 40 miles away in east London, followed by Wembley, Brighton and Cambridge. There's nothing like being able to knock furiously on someone's door if things go wrong, but unless you live in a large town or city, you won't be able to. However, Principal Plans sent Ustati to see me and she was extremely thorough and professional although much of the verbal advice she gave me such as make sure lights are switched off in empty rooms was pretty straightforward. Her final report informed me I could make £515 worth of annual bill savings at a cost of £13,685-£23,325. The debt would be attached to the house. Double-glazing, for example, would cost about £5,000 to install and would save me £44 on my gas bill each year. More attractively, floor insulation would cost about £1,000 to install but would save me £89 a year and draughtproofing would cost about £100 and save me £43 a year. The report immediately tells me that payback for draughtproofing would be under three years but for double-glazing it would be more than 20 years. The problem with the Green Deal system is that it assumes every house is more or less the same and so these quoted savings, although a useful start, could not possibly be guaranteed. As a "control" I invited an independent assessor, Ian Preston, who writes more detailed, bespoke "Masterplan" reports for retrofit firm Parity Projects. Ian stayed three hours and the report took a further three hours to prepare. He asked more questions, discovered dank, dark places of my house I barely knew existed and noticed the tiniest detail like a missing 1cm strip of seal on a double-glazed door. When the report arrived, it was a hefty 76 pages compared to the seven-page Green Deal report. Its attention to detail gave me some pretty hair-raising statistics, such as although energy costs from our appliances are lower than the national average, more than a quarter of our heating - 26 per cent - is lost straight outside through draughty doors and windows, compared to eight per cent for an average house. The report helpfully suggests improvements under "no-brainer," "for consideration" and "green halo" measures to make it easier to decide where to target finances. The "no-brainer" measures, costing £1,115 and promising annual bill savings of £386, include secondary glazing to all our nine remaining single-glazed windows. The "for consideration" measures, costing £4,830 and saving £693 a year, include topping up loft insulation and sealing external holes around boiler pipes. The bespoke service costs more - about £300 compared to a Green Deal assessment of around £150 - but the adage you get what you pay for applies. Being more sophisticated, the bespoke service showed how I could make greater savings from a far lower outlay than the Green Deal report. But both reports were helpful in suggesting how I could target money effectively. All I have to do now is find the wherewithal to plug those horrible draughty windows. SEND YOUR QUESTIONS to Sarah at Life, The Sunday Telegraph, 111 Buckingham Palace Road, London SW1W 0DT, asksarah@telegraph.co.uk