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8
More than one in ten Europeans cannot afford to heat their homes. (voxeurop.eu)
submitted 1 month ago by [email protected] to c/[email protected]
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Some 47 million people in Europe were unable to heat their homes sufficiently last winter. This figure has risen dramatically since 2021. Three factors are decisive when it comes to “energy poverty”: obsolete buildings, high energy costs, and low household incomes. Experts warn that the result may be social conflict.

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[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago (1 children)

As the article says, this problem has several layers.

We have also energy problem in my apartment in Riga. State offers us something like 70000€ to insulate our 120 year old hause. The catch is, me and my neighbors have to pull that money together, do the renovation and after the fact we are reimbursed. But dude. Who has such money laying around!?

[–] [email protected] 3 points 1 month ago (1 children)

I know people don't like to hear it but, assuming you and your neighbours collectively own the house, taking out a loan for a renovation like this isn't the worst idea. Might be a massive headache though.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 4 weeks ago

@[email protected] and @[email protected] I did look up our loan options and we were denied for two reasons:

  1. We have one chronic utilities non-payer in the hose and another one chronic late payer
  2. The house is made out of wood and thus is considered as high risk.
[–] [email protected] 2 points 1 month ago

Didn't expect to run into data from my work in the wild! I figured this came from the SILC survey when I read the title.

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago* (last edited 1 month ago)

What is sufficiently?

Last couple of summers I left the thermostat at 19°C. I prefer 21. But bills got really out of hand, so 19 it is. And not all day, for instance now in the morning I'm at 16-17, but I have a lot of blankets over and an electric blanket, so it's cozy. I usually start heating at midday.

Would this count?

Anyway, social conflict will not happen over this. The worst things on this regard happened a couple of years ago when prices spiked dramatically, and nothing happened.

[–] [email protected] 0 points 1 month ago (1 children)

The fuck? For real?

[–] [email protected] 1 points 1 month ago

Energy got incredibly expensive. I live in a very small, well insulated house (good), but it's heated with electricity as resistive heat (not good). So no heat pumps (which would be good again).

I happen to be able to see how much it costs me to heat it. It's not particularly cold at the moment and it's between 7 and 10 € every day! So calling it 1000€ for a month in winter isn't far off.

Now if you have a larger house, or bad (or even no) insulation, even if you're heating with some fuel that's cheaper per kWh, it'll still add up to at least similar if not higher numbers. Not hard to imagine that's quickly too much for many people...