Every time Brigitte visited her friends at the Mariaplaats in Zoetermeer, she daydreamed about one day living on the cozy square. A quiet neighborhood yet close to the city, who wouldn’t want that? When she and her partner Kees were given the opportunity to buy their friends’ house, they didn’t have to think long. But when they started living there, they noticed that it was a bit haunted.
Cold spots in the house, ice-cold floors and a musty smell: although Kees and Brigitte’s house was absolutely their dream home, it sometimes seemed like a haunted house. They never regretted the purchase. But this ‘haunted house’ did need some maintenance.
There’s work to be done
The house previously belonged to a friendly couple. “We have been here before and I always thought: what a wonderful place this must be to live.” When the lady of the house died and her husband went to live in a nursing home, Brigitte and Kees were given the opportunity to buy the house. “They have always taken care of the property as best they could, but some things are left behind when you get older.”
Get rid of the ‘ghosts’
So Brigitte and Kees started renovating and making it more sustainable, to get rid of that haunted house feeling. What turned out? The cold draft was due to poor insulation. “In some places in the house you could just look outside. It was especially bad in the attic, there was a lot of space between the wall plate and the roof,” says Brigitte. The solution? Strip everything, renovate it and properly insulate the walls from the inside. And the uncomfortable draft in the house was gone.
A homely feeling through sustainability
The same went for the stale air and icy floors. The window frames were in urgent need of replacing; in some places they were rotten. There was also no double glazing in the windows. There turned out to be another tiled floor under the cold tiled floor and there was no floor insulation. “We had to demolish a lot. The wooden frames have been replaced by plastic and the windows are now double glazing. The tiled floor has been replaced by a concrete floor with underfloor heating. It immediately felt warm and homely when we did those things,” says Brigitte.
Only radiator foil left
The couple has a good taste for sustainability. They have reused as many materials from the house as possible and there are solar panels on the roof. “Most of it is ready now,” says Brigitte. “Little jobs still need to be done here and there. For example, I keep coming back from the hardware store without radiator foil! So as soon as we don’t forget that, we also apply it behind the heating.”
Also more sustainable?
Brigitte and Kees have already done a lot and will soon be installing radiator foil. Would you also like to get started with sustainability? See below which jobs you can (easily) do yourself or go to praxis.nl.
Give your opinion in this study into making homes more sustainable and have a chance to win a Bol voucher worth 100 euros!
