Why are houses in Spain better insulated than in the Netherlands or Belgium?

Traveling to Germany in winter is a bad idea because of the weather, but besides the Christmas markets and mulled wine, there’s another possible attraction: it’s not cold indoors.

When you close a door or window in a house in Germany, you can almost hear the sound of suction produced by the acoustic and thermal insulation effect. This is not surprising, because this country has several Europe’s most energy-efficient houses.

company Smart thermostats everything conducted a study comparing the thermal insulation of houses in different European countries with a sample of 80,000 houses.

The test involved measuring the temperature loss in the house five hours after the heating was turned off, at 20ºC inside and 0ºC outside. Germany lost an average of 1ºC after 5 hours, but Norway won, where homes only lost 0.9ºC. Other well-insulated countries include Austria, Sweden and Denmark, with a loss of 1.2ºC and slightly more in Italy, 1.5ºC.

The surprise is Houses in Spain are not worse. In the study, homes in the sample lost an average of 2.2ºC, which is twice as much as the winners, but less than homes in the Netherlands (2.4ºC), France (2.5ºC), Belgium (2.9ºC) and the United Kingdom, which was at the bottom with a temperature loss of 3ºC.

Insulation and home value

The insulation and energy efficiency of the house is not great factor for home buyers in Spain, but with current energy prices, it should be. The Energy label of the house Assigns an energy classification with a letter, from A (most efficient) to G (least efficient).

According to A Research by IDAE Institute According to the Ministry of Public Works, 45% of houses in Spain are classified E and 28% are classified G. Only 4.3% of houses are classified A, B and C. Newer homes built since the regulation came into force in 2007 are generally classified as D.

The real estate boom in the first decade of the century meant a significant renewal of the housing stock in Spain. However, in countries such as Belgium or the United Kingdom, there are large numbers of old houses.

Exactly in this last country A Last report The Office for National Statistics revealed that the annual energy cost of an older home was £885 (€1,028), compared to just £399 (€463) for a new home.

Latest report European Union Building Park Observatory It shows that more than half of the houses in Spain were built after 1980 (energy regulations in Europe began to be introduced in the 1970s), while in the United Kingdom 75% were built before that date.

Spain is among them Three countries with the youngest construction stocksalong with Greece and Cyprus. The same observatory reveals that Energy consumption per square meter In Spanish homes, it is well below the European average (105 kWh compared to the EU average of 178, as of 2014).

The European Commission presented this plan last year REPowerEU Energy conservation, clean energy production and diversification of energy supplies, partly in response to the war in Ukraine and the subsequent energy crisis.

The plan places particular emphasis on the importance of building insulation, as “the most immediate savings can be achieved with better insulated heating systems”. Compared to other measures, these improvements have a much shorter amortization period.

A plan for the recovery, transformation and sustainability of the economy in Spain is being discussed Assistance for rehabilitation of houses which can cover up to 100% of the rehabilitation cost and with a total budget of 5800 million. In the matter of house insulation. Although we are not as bad as other countries, we are interested in improving further. The alternative can be very expensive.

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Source: El Diario

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