British Gas ramps up Green Deal promotion as few households sign up British Gas's figures painted a different - and slightly more optimistic - picture. It has trained 300 assessors to undertake home inspections, the biggest of the teams operated by utilities firms, and said that by August 16 they had visited 13,000 properties. British Gas said that although its team had been conducting assessments since January, the finance element of the arrangement was available only since May 17. And since that date 450 households had signed up - outweighing the DECC's figure, although remaining small. A British Gas spokesman said: "The scheme is new and we always thought it would take time to build, but we are now going back to contact many of the people who had assessments before the financing arrangements were in place." Currently a sweetener is place for those signing up in the form of "cashback" of up to £1,000, but this available fund - about £100m has been pledged in total - will be exhausted as applicants increase in number. The DECC said 7,461 cashback vouchers had been issued. Most were for boiler replacements, it said. Critics say the entire Green Deal is flawed as already debt-laden home owners are put off the idea of further borrowing. Because a charge is placed against the property there are also anxieties about whether the future saleability of the home could be affected. The loans are operated by householders' energy suppliers, and the rate at which the loan is repaid is supposed to reflect the savings achieved by the installation - which could be cavity wall insulation, lagging, solar panels and so on. In other words, in theory at least, the bills paid by households shouldn't increase over the term - up to 25 years - of the arrangement. But once the term is over and the loan repaid, the benefits should be felt in much reduced consumption. The figures in this article have been updated following its original publication. For money advice and tips on household bills: sign up to our weekly newsletter