During the Green Week in Brussels at the end of May, members of the Environmental Working Group met in the CD house to catch up, but also to have a closer look at the house itself from a green perspective. In the past, CD members complained about the high energy costs, so we teamed up to turn the CD house upside down and find all possible energy leakages or inefficient arrangements.
Most of the problems we found were simply related to the age of the house and the lack of continuity of the inhabitants of the house. They range from easy-to-fix small problems to quite expensive ones that call for action from the landlady. Here is an overview of the most common issues:
Examples found in the house
- Inefficient lights
- Leaks from holes in the wall
- Badly insulated of windows
- Furniture positioned in a way that blocks the heating
- Chargers and electronic devices that are not in use left plugged in
- Toilets missing one-touch flush
- Leaking taps
Fortunately there are also many efforts already to save energy, e.g. the existing energy efficient lights in many rooms, the newly placed double-glazed windows, the efforts the CD members are doing to separate their waste and the fact that they started composting their biodegradable waste.
Also some of the above mentioned problems we found are easy to fix and can have a great impact in the energy consumption of the house, e.g. replacing the lights with light-saving bulbs to reduce the electricity bill. Finally, moving the furniture around in order to avoid blockage of the heating only needs some free time and can be combined with identifying all electronic devices unnecessarily running or still plugged chargers.
With these easy steps it should already be possible to save some of the energy costs, and some more problems might be fixed with the help of motivated AEGEEans. If you’re interested in a more detailed analysis or want to offer help or tips on how to save energy, you can contact us at enwg.aegee@gmail.org.
Written by Hans-Peter Bretz, AEGEE-Aachen, Konstantinos Tsoleridis, AEGEE-Aachen, Mathieu Soete, AEGEE-Leuven, Wieke van der Kroef, AEGEE-Amsterdam