After five months of open, positive and hopeful discussions in the Wholegrain Climate Cafe, we needed help. A few of our number were beginning to realise that while the websites we work on are energy efficient, the houses we live in are not! A session on how to make our houses more energy efficient and lower carbon was required.
While I’ve renovated our house in France, I wouldn’t claim to be an expert in sustainable refits! Giving incorrect advice about decarbonising a property can result in lengthy and costly repairs to put things right. We needed some experts.
Enter SuSy House.
When I put the call out for someone to come and speak at the climate cafe, Stuart from SuSy House kindly came to our aid. He and co-founder and CEO Bryan came to tell us about SuSy and pass on some retrofitting wisdom to us all.
About SuSy
SuSy represents the sustainability Ikigai for Bryan and this co-founder Mauro. De-carbonising housing in the UK represents a challenge for private homeowners. Put simply, decarbonising existing domestic properties is hard.
Using their experience in building, renovation and data analysis they created SuSy to help meet this challenge. They aim to use data to make more sustainable homes achievable for all. They built an app that creates a digital copy of your home with information you provide and other publicly available relevant data. This allows users to take informed decisions in any eco improvements they undertake.
The aim is to remove the friction home owners can experience. As Bryan puts it he wants people to be able to take “Climate Action without leaving the couch”.
Practical advice, freely given
Bryan and Stuart proved to be the right folk to talk to. We asked about solving issues like combatting damp, draft proofing, internal air quality and the best ROI you can get on bigger projects.
- Draft proofing is something most homeowners can cheaply and effectively tackle themselves. Arm yourself with some caulk, an applicator gun and smoothing tool and away you go.
- Damp issues can be harder to tackle but installing trickle vents, high up in a room is often an accessible place to start. Spider plants can apparently help in this too (while also entertaining your cats).
- Purging or upgrading poorly performing radiators (especially if you have an efficient gas boiler) can improve heating efficiency.
- Heatpumps are incredibly efficient but the costs are still high, making for long payback times in many cases.
- Often the best ROI and least invasive improvements you can make is to install a solar array and battery combo.
Perhaps the best advice Bryan and Stuart gave is to be tactical and targeted in the work you undertake. Wholesale improvements to any property tend to be expensive and time consuming. Using the SuSy House app or advice from trusted contractors allows you to identify smaller but powerful actions to take.
Taking small steps towards a bigger goal is a great way of achieving improvements.
Huge thanks to Bryan and Stuart for sharing their time and wisdom with our climate cafe crew. You can find out more about SuSy and the work they do with homeowners, landlords, local authorities and housing associations on their website. Their blog is a great place to find out more about retrofitting in the UK and worth checking out too.
If you’d like to find out more in person the SuSy team will be at the FutureBuild exhibition from the 4th to 6th March at the ExCel London. Tickets are free and they told us that they will be very visible and easy to find!
