Small steps to make our old house more energy efficient

With an older house comes a lot of chores to make your house more energy efficient. Especially when you know that nothing has been done in this house in terms of maintenance for years. In itself, our house was ready to move in, but there were a number of small things that we wanted to adjust to ensure that we saved energy. Sometimes a small investment to save more on a larger scale.

1. Replacing old and broken appliances

Many old appliances had to be replaced in the kitchen. The dishwasher stopped working, the fridge was old and too small for our family and the oven was completely broken. So it seemed very logical to us to replace them with energy-efficient appliances. To be honest, I have no idea about the standards, but luckily I have a husband who likes to explain everything tooth and nail.

You can see how economical a device is by the score on the energy label. Before 1 March 2021 you could look for a device with an A+, A++ or A+++ score, but this is no longer possible. Appliances will only receive an A score if the appliance is more energy efficient than the appliances that are already on the market today. With this new regulation, a B or C score is already very good. And with this new information in mind, we went shopping for new devices.

We bought a new fridge, freezer, dishwasher and oven. And in the long term, the boiler and the fire will also have to be replaced.

2. Led lighting

Perhaps the biggest savings! The house apparently still had light bulbs everywhere and we replaced them all with LED lamps. Because did you know that an LED lamp is 90% more efficient than an incandescent lamp? Which was certainly a good move during the winter and constant working at home. And as you can see in the picture, that was a lot of lamps.

We hung out in the living room too LED lamps that are dimmablebut for this we first had to find new fixtures, because they were also in need of fading.
And in the bathroom we have also replaced the old fluorescent lamps with LED lamps.

3. Smart thermostat

We bought our smart thermostat five or six years ago, but of course it still had to be installed. We have Google’s Nest. Nest learns when you’re home and how hot or cold it should be at that time. Now that we work at home all day, it must be 21 degrees between 7.30 am and 10 pm. Nest itself controls when the heating should turn on and also calculates how long it would take for your house to reach this temperature. In this way you burn efficiently and not a minute longer than necessary.

If you don’t work from home, you can set a schedule when you’re home and Nest will make sure your house is at the right temperature when you’re home. Of course you can also adjust the temperature via the app. Suppose you leave on holiday and you forgot to turn off the heating, you can also do this via the app.

And on top of that, you will receive a monthly report of your energy consumption.

Probably forgot a few more things, but these were definitely the most important points that we immediately addressed.

Jess