When Simon Duffy receives another energy bill, his heart sinks. “It’s crazy expensive,” he says.

Mr Duffy lives in a traditional stone-walled house in Sheffield. He estimates he spends £3,100 each year on heating and electricity.

Despite being someone who cares about climate change and eager to upgrade his property to make it more efficient, there is a problem.

“The whole question of how to insulate the house better is a real mystery to me,” says Mr Duffy, director of the sustainability think tank Citizen Network. “I don’t know where the expertise is for that.” He also adds that he is not sure if he could install solar panels given that he lives in a protected area.

Millions of homeowners across the country may be facing the same dilemma.

Around 29 million British homes need upgrading by 2050, according to the UK Green Building Councilan industry body.

Upgrading can involve measures such as improving your home’s insulation, upgrading your heating system or installing energy-generating devices such as solar panels, or even a private wind turbine.

These adjustments can cost thousands of pounds up front, but if executed properly, could improve comfort and reduce people’s bills in the long run.

In addition, increased energy efficiency should reduce carbon emissions from homes, especially if property owners switch from gas or oil boilers, for example.

About a fifth of the UK’s total emissions comes from residential buildings.

Amy Peace and her husband live in North West England near Warrington. The pair both work in the sustainability field, advising companies on them the path to net zero.

They were eager to improve the quality of their home and apply to their lives the principles they promote at work – but they too faced challenges when deciding how to go about it.

“Even though we have that experience and we’re also engineers, what we weren’t completely clear on was where the money was best spent,” says Ms Peace.

The couple spoke to several consultants, but Ms Peace found the advice they received was often geared towards meeting Passivhaus standards – an ultra-energy-efficient building type.

“There weren’t many in that pragmatic middle ground where you literally say, ‘We’ve got so much money, where would we best put it?'” Ms Peace adds.

However, persistence over the past three years has paid off and the couple’s detached 1930s home now has improved insulation, a heat pump and a charging point for electric cars. Solar panels and battery will follow soon if all goes according to plan.

Aware of the confusion surrounding retrofitting approaches, some organizations are moving to improve the advice available to homeowners. Among them is Ecofurb.

“We can model all the different options that are available, suitable for your home and your budget, and identify a package of measures,” says Liz Lainé of Parity Projects, a housing data analytics company, which runs Ecofurb.

The firm offers this initial consultation free, but full plans, with personalized input from a modernization coordinator, start from £470. Ecofurb can also oversee any work as it is carried out by contractors to avoid “horror stories”, says Ms Lainé.

There are many other organizations that offer to help homeowners plan an upgrade.

The work often involves carrying out a heat loss study to identify cold areas that require insulation and to better understand a property’s heating demand. Experts could also advise you on the suitability of solar panels for your home, for example.

There it is Get a heat pump websitelaunched by charities Nesta and The MCS Foundation, which explains what heat pumps are and how they could fit into a home renovation plan.

RICS, the Royal Institution of Chartered Surveyors, has just launched a new modernization standard for its members – essentially encouraging suitably trained surveyors to offer their services to homeowners who are planning or in the process of modernizing.

The RICS website will soon include a range of retrofitting tips and a tool to help homeowners find a suitable surveyor in their local area, says Steve Lees, from RICS’s retrofitting project team.

Improving the energy efficiency of homes is “essential” to decarbonisation, says Gerald Charles, head of home retrofits at the Center for Sustainable Energy, but adds that the current lack of good advice remains a real problem.

“The industry as a whole doesn’t appreciate the importance of good retrofitting advice,” he says.

One entrepreneur who has noticed a lack of knowledge in the market is James Major, founder and chief executive of HubbPro, which helps architects plan energy-efficient buildings. Architects don’t always have the latest information on how to incorporate energy-saving technologies into their designs, Mr. Major notes.

“Clean technology is not part of what they do or what they should know—that’s an engineering function,” he says. And yet, architect clients are increasingly asking about such technology when planning a new home or extension.

Through an initiative called MyHubb, Mr Major now provides architects with detailed reports estimating the carbon reduction potential and payback period of retrofit measures – such as heat pump heating systems or solar panels, for example.

He says these reports cost around £1,000, although he adds that this price is not yet finalised.

Mr Duffy says he will continue to look for solutions to his own modernization conundrum. But he makes another point. Much of the technology and advice available today is tailored to individual owners.

He suggests that neighborhood-scale schemes, for example to provide solar power for an entire street, might make more sense and include more people at once.

“That’s what I would think is the logical way to think about it,” he says.

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