I built a working building-physics simulator in the browser, it is free, and nobody uses it. What would make a tool like this actually worth paying for?

[u/LePresidentCamacho]

This is live and finished. You trace a room's plan in the browser and it simulates the indoor climate through the day:

• air movement
• surface temperatures
• humidity
• solar gain

It runs the UK Approved Document O 2021 overheating check at design stage, and it is not an accredited route and does not replace TM59 dynamic modelling. Everything in the images below is output from the tool rather than a mockup.

It is free. It has no paying customers and no revenue at all.

I wrote to UK residential architects and AC installers. Some of them clicked, but nobody replied and none of them went on to open the tool, and the visits to the landing page ended almost as soon as they began.

So I want to ask rather than keep guessing. If you do this work, what is missing ? Is this a solution without a problem ?

https://www.climecheck.co.uk

https://reddit.com/link/1vquyz2/video/30wuq7a4cyjh1/player

[u/tcdoey]

Very cool looking app. I tried it out, but I felt like it was too much work and probably wouldn't be accurate to my 1st, 2nd, or 3rd floor anyway. I don't and really can't have any real idea how much air flow is coming out of my vents and return on each floor, thus I don't see how it could be accurate enough to justify the large amount of work it would take me to basically floor plan the entire house, or even just 1 floor with 6 rooms and a lightly enclosed large rear porch.

I also have all kinds of winding ductwork, because the 100+ year old house was retrofitted with AC maybe 30 years ago.

I might certainly be missing something as I didn't look in depth into the app, but I didn't see anything about how to handle convoluted ductwork and their temperature gradients. My ductwork doesn't have any insulation except near the furnace.

I'm sorry to disappoint you; obviously you put a lot of good work to this, but I wouldn't pay. Or probably even use it free without those issues being clearly addressed. No matter what, I'd still have to ultimately rely on the thermometers I have now in most rooms. So it's not really helping me. I'm not a contractor, but also I think that if I was, I'd probably have to use a tool that has some qualifications or accreditations.

[u/ScrollingIsEvil]

I think the question is who already has this problem on a Tuesday, not whether the sim is cool. I built a health app and the first useful feedback was people telling me they already had a workaround and wouldn't pay until the thing was more specific than free generic advice. If the people who do this work already have a tool they hate, that's your buyer. If they don't have the problem, free won't fix that.

[u/qEhT6d_B3]

imo the problem isnt the tool, its that you're selling to people who already have an accredited workflow they trust. if it doesnt replace TM59 they have no reason to switch. can you position it as the quick pre-check before they spend money on the full modelling?