Bloemendaal, Laren and Heemstede have the worst insulated houses

Since the sharp rise in energy prices, many homeowners have started insulating their homes. Companies specialized in roof, floor or cavity wall insulation are working overtime. Yet they drive past a number of villa villages. Names such as Laren, Heemstede and Bloemendaal are in the top five of the worst isolated municipalities. There, one in five houses have the lowest energy labels F or G. This is evident Independer research based on data from the Netherlands Enterprise Agency (RVO) and Statistics Netherlands. In the whole of our country, one in twelve homes is such an energy guzzler.

“This is of course very striking. When you think of the least insulated houses, you quickly think of the poorer neighbourhoods. Not to the wealthiest municipalities, such as Bloemendaal, Laren and Heemstede. It could be that making a somewhat older villa energy-efficient is also a substantial investment,” says Joris Kerkhof, an energy expert at Independer.

One in twelve homes is extremely poorly insulated, with large regional differences

If we look per province, Zeeland in particular is full of poorly insulated homes. In this province, 10.8% of the houses have the lowest energy labels F or G. This percentage is also high in Friesland (10.7%) and Limburg (10.6%). Flevoland is doing the best so far. Here, only 0.8% of the houses are energy-guzzling. The national average is 8.2%, which equates to more than one in twelve homes.

Poorly insulated homes can be found in these municipalities

Local outliers are larger. On Terschelling, for example, more than a quarter of the homes have energy label F or G. In no other municipality is this percentage so high. The municipalities with the highest percentage of poorly insulated houses are:

• Terschelling (Friesland): 25.5% of the homes are poorly insulated
• Westerwolde (Groningen): 21.7% of the homes are poorly insulated
• Bloemendaal (North Holland): 20.8% of the homes are poorly insulated
• Laren (North Holland): 20.2% of the homes are poorly insulated
• Heemstede (North Holland): 19.7% of the homes are poorly insulated
• Pekela (Groningen): 17.7% of the homes are poorly insulated

“Our research also shows a national trend. There are also relatively many poorly insulated homes in other prosperous municipalities. In municipalities where residents earn an average of more than 60,000 euros per year, 9.7% of the houses have an F or G energy label,” says energy expert Joris Kerkhof.

Almost half of the homes are energy efficient, Almere is the leader

There is also better news. 48.7% of Dutch homes currently have the green energy label A or B. These houses are very well insulated, have solar panels and usually use a sustainable energy source. Almere is the leader: 86.8% of the homes here already have a sustainable label. In Lansingerland (74.4%) and Pijnacker-Nootdorp (74.2%), many people also live in energy-efficient homes.

Energy expert Joris Kerkhof: “You can see that the increased energy prices have resulted in a further acceleration in sustainability. The fact that almost nine out of ten houses in Almere have a sustainable label is really a great achievement. But by 2050, the energy supply must be almost entirely sustainable. Major steps still need to be taken nationally for this.”