Eco living: turning a barn into a green home Dr John Prendiville and his partner, Polly Falk, are great walkers. Whether in the rolling Yorkshire Dales, the gritty Pennines or the wild Northumberland moors, they are never happier than when they are striding out into England's breathtaking natural scenery. So, with retirement approaching, it seemed natural that they would leave traffic-choked Camden, north London, where they had lived to be close to work, and start a new life in the country. On the windswept moors of the north Pennines, midway between Newcastle and Carlisle, they found a pair of historic hay barns, dating from 1760 and 1820. "The barns were in a pretty ramshackle state, barely worthy to house the rats that lived in them," says John, a retired engineer. But never ones to balk at a challenge, the couple bought the barns for considerably less than the value of their London house, and were thus able to finance a radical renovation project. However, as with all building work, it turned out to be more complicated, and far more expensive, than they had ever envisaged. "Major structural work needed doing before we could even begin the renovations," says John. It soon became clear that they would need to take out a £100,000 loan to finish their home. The way they funded their eco-improvements gives a fascinating slant to the Government's flagship Green Deal home improvement scheme, which came under fire from the Energy and Climate Change Select Committee last week for lacking ambitious targets to improve the country's leaky housing stock. What is clear is that the scheme, launched in January, has revealed enormous public interest in reducing energy bills with Green Deal assessments rising from fewer than 2,000 in February to over 9,500 in April. However, the actual numbers of households taking out loans to fund improvements, such as double glazing and solid wall insulation, is expected to be disappointingly low when the first figures are released later this month. One reason could be that Green Deal debt is attached to the property, rather than the resident, which could affect resale potential. Another could be the relative high interest rates on Green Deal loans of around seven per cent. There are other, cheaper schemes to finance green home improvements, however. John and Polly applied for a mortgage from the Ecology Building Society, which offers stepped interest rate discounts to home owners who make eco-improvements. On a 25-year £195,000 mortgage, for example, improvements that raise a home's Energy Performance Certificate rating from a D to a B would attract a 0.5 per cent discount meaning, on current rates of 4.9 per cent, reduced to 4.4 per cent, savings of £55 a month and £16,000 over the life of the mortgage. These savings would be in addition to the hundreds of pounds a year saved on energy bills. John and Polly introduced a range of energy-saving measures such as massive wall and floor insulation and under-floor heating, and were able to shave a whole one per cent off their mortgage interest rate, saving hundreds of pounds a year both in bills and mortgage. Sensing a bit of a Government own-goal on the high Green Deal interest rates, other mortgage providers, like Nationwide, have also started to offer remortgage deals to fund green home improvements at rates well below the Green Deal seven per cent. Since completing their project in 2007, John and Polly have lived through some of the bitterest Northumberland winters in decades. We put in insulation at levels way above current building regulations. Every day we are thankful for what we did," says John. We've saved two historic barns and have built a home we can afford to live in. More information: Green Deal Oversight and Registration Body Ecology Building Society Nationwide mortgages