‘Sometimes you can see through the outdoors under the windowsill’

Don’t expect a convoy of city buses and men in work suits when you call the Fixbrigade in Amsterdam to insulate your home. No, then 52-year-old Francis Langedijk comes bumping up on his cargo bike full of draft profiles, radiator foil and a staple gun. The former electrician receives help from two status holders from Eritrea, whom he is now learning Dutch. ‘Neat, neat’, says Langedijk, while his helpers together staple a rubber strip along the front door of a social rental home in East Amsterdam. ‘Rather well than quickly!’

What started as a sympathetic volunteer project to help local residents insulate their homes better, grew into a city-wide aid project thanks to European and municipal subsidies. From May, an army of fixers will be deployed to close holes and cracks, replace lamps and adjust central heating boilers more intelligently. Once intended to slow down global warming, it is now popular to combat growing energy poverty. The Fixbrigade is also a learning-work project for young people and status holders.

Thousand euros red

‘At the end of the month we are always in the red by a thousand euros,’ says resident Eriny Mekhil in her four-storey home along a railway embankment. She points to her teenage children who are sitting on the couch with a blanket over their legs. ‘We set the thermostat to 16.5 degrees Celsius, we no longer use the dryer.’

Their social housing has been renovated, including double windows, but the house is still drafting and leaking. “We put sheets on the windowsills and mold is growing in the bedrooms.” She complained to her housing corporation, which she said explained that leaks are part of living on a top floor. Mekhil is very happy that the Fixbrigade is coming.

‘Look, there is paint on the rubbers along the doors,’ says head fixer Langedijk. “Then it’s no use to you anymore.” According to him, not many people know that you have to keep draft profiles flexible every year with beeswax spray and that such a strip lasts no more than five years. In the overcrowded upstairs apartment, the men saw new custom profiles, stapled them firmly into the window frames and carefully screw LED lamps into their sockets on the left and right. ‘I see halogen spots everywhere, but those are the worst. They will be 380 degrees!’ His advice: get rid of it.

Infrared camera

Two blocks away, in the building of the Jungle – center for culture and social engagement – ​​creator Jannekee Jansen op de Haar explains why giving advice is not enough. ‘We started in 2018 with a demonstration room with ways of insulation. Later we visited local residents with an infrared camera so that they could see for themselves where the draft was.’ According to her, the accompanying advice disappeared in a drawer at the housing corporation. Doing it yourself is not an option for many residents in practice. ‘If you live in poverty for a long time, you become paralyzed. Then you lose the confidence to tackle things.’ Moreover, the material costs easily exceed one hundred euros.

Jansen op de Haar is not surprised that the renovated house of the Mekhil family is drafting and leaking. According to her, housing associations often do sadly bad work. ‘Take Betondorp, where 26 percent of the residents live in energy poverty, new windows do not fit into their frames and you can see the outside air under the windowsill.’ Nor is she pleased with the installers of central heating boilers, who usually adjust their installation without taking energy consumption into account.

That is why the 60-year-old Jungle boss himself set up a team with volunteers from the neighborhood and students from the ROC, language schools or reintegration projects. According to her, they visited 250 addresses in the past two years. Thanks to more than nine tons of European and four tons of municipal subsidies, three new brigades will start in May and will visit another thousand addresses. Residents with an income of up to 140 percent of the social assistance level are eligible. Six head fixers and 120 students will now be paid for their work. The municipality estimates the average savings per household at six hundred euros per year.

Municipalities and institutions from all over the Netherlands are now reporting to the Jungle with questions about the brigades. The advice they receive from Jansen op de Haar: seek a connection with existing neighborhood projects ‘People with a small grant are very suspicious of the government.’ District administrator Rick Vermin confirms this. ‘It seems like low-hanging fruit, the insulation of social housing. But it is difficult for us to get behind the doors of residents. The Jungle can do that.’ Vermin hopes that during the coalition talks that are now taking place all over the Netherlands, a municipal budget will be made available for Fixbrigades.

On the balcony in Amsterdam-East, the fixers take a break in the spring sun. The Mekhil family serves white sandwiches with mortadella and arugula from Lidl. The 29-year-old Okubit Yowhanes and the 34-year-old Abraham Gebregergis Dror talk about their fearful journey from Eritrea to the Netherlands. They proudly pull an official pass from their pocket that says: asylum specific time. The men go to school for three days and for one day they do voluntary work for 10 euros. Gebregergis Dror: ‘I want to learn Dutch and then become a plumber.’ Yowhanes: ‘I want to keep doing this work.’