The Cheese project has not been the only effort to encourage householders to make energy-efficient changes. But many government-led schemes have failed to live up to expectations.

In 2013, the UK government launched the Green Deal, which offered loans for energy efficiency changes which could be repaid through energy bills, and the Green Deal Communities fund for local authorities to offer further incentives. Both were scrapped two years later amid low take-up and widespread criticism. Bristol City Council, for example, had to step in to help people who signed up for energy efficiency work on their homes after the company contracted to deliver the work closed down.

So far, the volunteer-run Cheese pilot has carried out around 110 surveys over two winters. The group has had initial discussions with groups in other cities interested in running similar projects, such as the city of Vancouver.

“Within five years I hope we’ll have 10 to 20 cities carrying out internal thermal surveys,” says Harper. “Within a decade, if we do this right, we could be having a major impact on energy efficiency.”

It certainly has an effect on me. As well as the missing floorboard, the survey of my house revealed ill-fitting sash windows, a draughty ventilation fan, inefficient lightbulbs, gaps around piping and cabling, and holes in roof insulation. A few weeks later, I receive a call from a Cheese co-ordinator, asking whether I’ve done anything to reduce my energy consumption.

I confess that many of the jobs are still on the to-do list – but we have filled some gaps in floorboards and decided to lay imitation plastic tiling in the hall rather than have bare floorboards. The electricity meter Harper left behind showing the real-time cost of electricity use has made me turn off unneeded lights. And I’ve replaced the environmentally-criminal missing floorboard.

“Lecturing to people from above about what they have to do to save the planet isn’t going to work,” says Harper. “You have to educate people at a community level about reducing their costs and improve their comfort, so that thinking about energy becomes second nature. As a result you end up with enlightened people with significantly reduced carbon footprints.”

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