How energy efficient is your house? How could you cut down on waste or recycle old materials?

There's been an experiment taking place on Willow Lane where these questions have been considered time and time again.

This self-financed project in 'eco-renovation' set out to explore the complexities of being eco-friendly in the real world of bricks and mortar.

And the green volunteers say it's been a rewarding and revealing if sometimes tricky business.

"If you find an environmentally sound product is it eco-friendly if you drive 100 miles to collect it?" explains one of the volunteers, Paul Speight.

"It was something we had to keep coming back to.

There's no escaping compromises but every time we did something we considered the wider environmental implications.

For example we tried to use re-cycled lining paper and wood and glue to fix up a poor internal wall.

Despite our best efforts it would have been cheaper and more environmentally effective to have re-plastered.

On the other hand there were many examples where we could make good use of recycled materials.

For the self-build porch we used bricks from a 70s fire surround, a discarded front door, a recycled downspout, reclaimed slates and off-cuts for the skirting board."

Up on the roof was a solar water heating system, perhaps the only feature which made this property look slightly different form the rest.

But many of the interesting aspects were in the small but important details.

The swarm flooring in the kitchen and bathroom was made from recycled rubber tyres, which were surprisingly attractive and incredibly durable.

There was a laundry dryer in the stair well which took advantage of the rising hot air and treated recycled newspaper lining the loft.

A pelmet in the bedroom above the window helped trap air and improved insulation, paints made from soya and citrus oil avoided the use of conventional petrol-chemical paint and a specially treated sheep's wool product was used to dry line areas that had condensation problems.

"It lasts longer than glass fibre, is breathable when required and helps Cumbrian farmers diversify," said Paul, happy to have used a product with so many environmentally friendly credentials.

Being 'eco-friendly' is a lucrative, growth market and the team did have more than a few reservations about some of the claims made by manufacturers, which were almost impossible to verify.

But with the renovation complete they were delighted to have a flood of prospective purchasers, which has given them some ' seed' money to move onto their next project.

"It's been a great learning experience," added Paul, "there's a perception that environmental protection - or sustainability - is expensive, which is justified to some extent because of things like small scale production.

But we've found that an eco-renovation can be both effective and inexpensive."