Having a sustainability survey done on my house

In January, I attended a sustainability event, during which there was a presentation by an initiative on making houses more sustainable. You could get a state-sponsored survey on your house, which would result in a detailed report on how you could improve sustainability and how much that would cost. That sounded good! So not long after the event I emailed the organisation to officially declare my interest. I got a message to thank me for my message and that they would get back to me. That took a while though!

When they did get back to me we quickly sorted out an appointment. And two men showed up: Raman, who I had met at the sustainability events before, and an additional man, Dewi. And we first sat down to talk through some things. Raman filled out an extensive form. I had also sent him energy and water bills beforehand.

When we were done with that, Raman started measuring up the entire house. Measured sizes, noted windows, measured moisture content of the walls, took notes of heating, measured airflow of fans, and whatnot. He looked both inside and outside of the house, and even had a look in the loft. It took a fair while!

Raman’s door gap meter

In the meantime I had asked Dewi if he spoke Welsh, and he did, so I basically took the opportunity to have a bit of a chat in that language. That was nice! But in the meantime I was starting to get a bit nervous. At some point I had to go to work, and this was looking like it would take longer than planned. But in the end, Raman declared his information-gathering finished. And the next stage was that he would go to his office and prepare a report. So we said our goodbyes. 

After they had left I sent him a floor plan of the house which might help him; he had taken his own measurements, but it can be nice to cross-check that with an original source. And later I got an additional request for some information on my solar panels and some other last loose ends.

Now I have to wait several weeks for the report to arrive. I am curious to see what it will say! I assume that they will recommend more insulation in the loft, and I should indeed to make that happen. Additionally, I think they would recommend that I put more insulation between the old(er) part of the house and the extensions. Between the bedroom and the conservatory there is an old thin door and some single glass, and the same holds for between the kitchen and the kitchen extension. That probably leaks quite a lot of heat in winter. Not sure what else they will say! Which is good; if they would only suggest things I could've thought of myself it wouldn't be a good use of time and money.

I will report back when the report is in. I hope a lot of it is implementable without too much hassle!