Researchers Claudio Nägeli and Abolfazl “Amir” Farahani have developed a desktop tool that makes it easy for house owners to make financially feasible and long-term maintenance and renovation plans.

Called Sinom, the tool’s unique optimisation algorithm enables the user to:

1. Create perennial plans for maintenance and renovation.
2. Forecast the energy demand and greenhouse gas emissions.
3. To keep track of building components and service life.

Sweden’s reality
The Swedish building stock is relatively old and in need of extensive renovation measures in order to meet today´s building standards and targets for energy performance improvements. Having limited resources, house owners face a difficult situation in planning for maintenance and renovation, which often leads to measures being postponed. This then results in an even worse situation when improvements aren’t executed in time.

“In due time”
This is where Claudio Nägeli’s and Abolfazl Farahani’s tool comes in. The name Sinom is a wink to the Swedish phrase “I sinom tid” (in due time), which captures both short-term needs and the proactive and long-term approach that the researchers want the tool to contribute its users with, by the distinct visualisation and incorporation of future needs and objectives presented in the tool.

Their research, titled “From knowledge to sustainable emergency readiness”, was welcomed by house owners. Its unique concept has also granted its researchers a spot on the IVA (Royal Swedish Academy of Engineering Sciences) 100 list of 2021.

Value for home owners
“What we strive for as researchers, is for our results to be utilised and create value, for people in their everyday life and for the environment. So an acknowledgement like this from the IVA feels very positive,” says Nägeli.

“For house owners, the use of the Sinom tool will help them to work proactively and to prioritise measures in line with budgetary preconditions. And residents may experience that these improvements are actually being executed in time, without a very big increase in rent,” concludes Nägeli.

To read more about this ground-breaking work, visit https://research.chalmers.se/publication/513593

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