Developed by: Institute of Energy and Sustainable Development (IESD), De Montfort University, Leicester. Funded by the Engineering and Physical Sciences Research Council (EPSRC)

The Community Resilience to Extreme Weather (CREW) tool is an interactive advice tool that is aimed at designers, decision makers and householders that gives them several options for retrofitting homes based on property type and characteristics such as level of occupancy and property orientation, such as whether a home faces north or south.

Although primarily aimed at reducing overheating and therefore reducing increased exposure to heatwaves, the tool also provides advice on the amount and cost of winter energy use which is relevant to developing an understanding of potential fuel poverty. Building adaptation options are ranked higher if they can fulfil the aims of reducing overheating in summer and minimising energy use in winter. For example, simply fitting external shutters to windows was calculated to reduce overheating by up to 50 per cent. The advice tool allows users to not only select a range of applicable solutions, but also those with the least total cost for a target performance.

The tool requires very little prior knowledge and provides a simple interface to allow users to model the different factors that expose a dwelling to overheating: performance, cost, building type, daytime occupancy and orientation.

The tool can be accessed here.