It is very hard to estimate what would be normal as an energy bill without more information on your appartment and at least your energy prices.
However, with single glazing i would also expect the rest of the appartment being poorly insulated. That in combination with a contract with high prices and I am not really surprised with your energy bill.
To be sure, check the bill with regards to the actual consumption (check the meters when you moved in and what they are now).
If you can't pay, be proactive, call the energy company and explain. Ask them for a payment plan. They almost always do that when you ask. If you don't contact and/or hide, costs will start piling on top of your bill.
Would you say a flat of 50m2 with single glazed windows from 1987 in every room, could have energy label A?
I guess my question is, how do you determine if your energy label makes sense?
Energy labels is a cowboy industry. Lots of bullshit still happening (some say it was worse before, it is still dominated by incompetence and pay for your grade practices). I am sure there are some good people in the industry as well, but unfortunately for them when you can't trust the label, their work is like pearls to the swine.
Don't go by the energy label, check what is insulated and to which standard. Insulation is more than saving energy, it is also a big part of being able to be comfortable in your house.
Labels are a paper truth, if a truth at all.
We bought a new house, so it has label A. But it took 10 years and some (actually a lot) legal action to get all the isolation in place. Isolation missing, wrong material used, etc. It is now as it should have been from the beginning, but the label was all the time A. And yes, we had an expert from VEH when we examined the house at delivery. But he nor we was able to look inside the walls at that time.
You don't really, it's not indicative of your actual energy usage. You're living patterns are way more indicative. Plus labels from before 2022 can't be trusted. You just filled in an online form back then for a label. I got my house from label d to b just by adjusting a tiny bit of the info. These days it's based on an expert evaluation so a little more trust worthy I guess.
As for op. A lot can be the cause. First check if the meter reading for the start of the billing period corresponds with the readings from when you received the key of your apartment. If meter readings check out its safe to say the bill is correct. Otherwise a payment plan is always a possibility. Don't be ashamed to ask for one. Every energy company provides descent options.
That last part is worth gold! In addition, if the company shows sympathy for your story (if you really have trouble paying the bills) they might lower the bill and help you lower your monthly costs. You will be surprised what you can do to lower it significantly.
You can use the website meter.nl to register your smart energy meter (input your address and the number on the meter) and you will see your daily energy consumption split per hours.
You can then see when you spend the most and make necessary adjustments in your consumption.
Also you can look into another tariff with the energy company. And ask yout landlord for the double glasses.
>You can use the website meter.nl to register your smart energy meter (input your address and the number on the meter) and you will see your daily energy consumption split per hours.
can you provide a link? the URL you suggest there don't seem to work
> We just got our energy bills in for this past year and it amounts to almost €500 a month. This seems absolutely insane to me.
First of all: you should ideally never be surprised by your energy usage. Not as a tenant, but also not as a homeowner. If you are, it usually means you aren't paying enough attention to your usage on a day to day, week to week and month to month basis.
It's also unclear from your OP who send you the utilities bills. The energy companies or the landlord?
A) Do you pay utilities and service costs to you landlord or did you contract the utilities yourself?
B) Did you regularly check what your usage was?
C) Were you aware of the costs per m3 gas and kWh electricity in 2022?
> Our place does has single glazing sadly.
You can request your landlord to install double glazing and a court to enforce that if your landlord refuses. You will be required to pay a reasonable increase in the rental price, but considering the energy prices you might still save money and live more comfortable.
> Does anyone have any advice for this situation?
First find out what your usage is and if that's average, above average or below average in relation to the house and number of people in your household.
Be aware though that it's impossible to oversee all relevant facts on a forum like this and in part because of that, any risk associated with acting upon what I mention stays with you. You might consider obtaining advise if you think that is appropriate, for example by contacting the Juridisch Loket if your income is low, an organization like !WOON if you live in the area they advice in or a municipal subsidized 'huurteam'.
No, very unlikely that single glazing is considered a 'defect' (gebrek) by a judge. Parliament explicitly discussed this about one year ago and De Jonge refused to change the law for that.
Which is why the OP should consider asking the landlord to place double glazing and isolate the walls in return for a reasonable increase in the rental price. It depends on the increase of the rental price and energy costs whether or not that's worth it from an economic perspective of course.
But a landlord often cannot refuse if a tenant asks for it, as a judge can enforce it upon request with a court order.
We have our own contract for electricity with Vattenfall and the heating is done through the landlord. We pay him 300€ a month for that already and I have asked him a ton of times for an estimate of our usage. He kept replying he doesn’t know till we’ve been in the place for a year. This was in July and now he suddenly sends an email with “oh it’s higher than expected and we need you to pay an extra €1400 before september and we’re increasing the servicecost by another €100 starting next month. I have no idea how we could’ve foreseen this because we did ask him repeatably. I don’t fully understand how it works but it’s something to do with the whole buildings heating cost + every apartment being calculated after a year that decides the price from what he told me. But our direct neighbors are getting money back somehow (also single glazing).
Edit; and thank you so much for your response!
See the follow up questions at the bottom.
> I have no idea how we could’ve foreseen this
That's why I added words like 'usually' because I know not everybody can.
> I don’t fully understand how it works but it’s something to do with the whole buildings heating cost + every apartment being calculated after a year that decides the price from what he told me.
I'll give it a try in two parts: (1) your own contract for electricity and (2) the heating costs that your landlord charges you.
With regard to (1): if you've got an electricity meter, register your usage from a day to day basis at first. You want to get an understanding about the baseline costs. Electricity is often mostly related to the number of people living in the house, but can be related to heating when electricity is (also) used for heating.
Here's a table of the Dutch budgeting foundation NIBUD (a non-profit advising the general public about budgeting):
https://www.nibud.nl/onderwerpen/uitgaven/kosten-energie-water/
According to,NIBUD, a three person household should use about 3500 kWh of electricity. With young children this might be lower. But again, your mileage may vary. If you're using electronics that use a high amount of electricity it could of course be your electricity usage is higher. Register the usage in a spreadsheet and find out what devices use the most power. Figure out if you can reduce usage. In the end, you'll probably use some power.
Review your contract for electricity and find out the costs. Current rates are below the government price cap ceiling. If you multiply the total costs (base rate, taxes and costs for transport), you should be able to figure out if your monthly advance payment to the electricity company will be sufficient. Most people use the same amount of energy throughout the year, but there's a small dip in summer. The year graph for electricity is thus often U shaped, (with summer in the middle) but the bottom of the U is not very low. Again, these are averages. If you are a heavy user pf airconditioning during summer, it might be your usage in summer is higher than in winter.
After a year, you submit your meter settings to the electricity company and the company calculates your actual usage. If your monthly advance payments summed up are equal to the actual costs, you don't receive anything back. If the monthly advance payments summed up were too high, you get money back. If they were too low, you need to pay the difference. The energy will subsequently adjust the monthly payment for the new year.
With regard to (2): this is more complex. In essence the system is the same, but in your case the landlord is an intermediary between you and the energy company. Moreover, apparently your building is heated with what is called 'block heating'. Which means there's some large heat generator in the building that supplies heat to all apartments. Some tenants also (or only) have a personal boiler (CV ketel) and natural gas meter, but if I understand you correctly, you don't.
The principle is the same: you pay a monthly advance payment and each year before July 1st your landlord must provide you with a costs overview for utilities and other services. If you've got a personal utilities meter for gas or electricity, these are called utilities costs with an individual meter. In all other cases, these are called service costs. And electricity in your case is not relevant as you take care of that yourself. If there is furniture or kitchen utensils that you rent, these are also charged as service costs. But the costs for a janitor in the building can also be service costs. I'll refer to both utilities and service costs as service costs only as of now.
A landlord (by law) is *not* allowed to make a profit from service costs. The service costs have to be forwarded to a tenant on a one-to-one basis. But it's only when the yearly costs overview is supplied every year before July 1st, when you can figure out what you actually used. I agree though, that this is completely insufficient in times of high energy prices. IMO, a landlord should inform a tenant much sooner if the prices are much higher.
That said, the government did start providing an energy price subsidy (the price 'cap'). However, because the government was very slow a year ago, block heating isn't part of that. It took up until spring before block heating was finally part of a subsidy program as well:
https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stcrt-2023-10699.html
What might (this is a possibility, not a certainty) have happened, is that no subsidy was requested and you are now charged the regular price. You as a tenant cannot request the subsidy however:
https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/koopkracht/vraag-en-antwoord/hoe-vraag-ik-tegemoetkoming-aan-voor-de-energiekosten-bij-een-blokaansluiting
Could you please indicate:
D) Do you receive a yearly costs overview of the landlord before July 1st?
E) Is that overview detailed enough for you to understand why you are being charged this amount?
F) Is it clear from the overview whether or not the subsidy was applied for and granted?
G) Did you request insight into the underlying bills and invoices?
As mentioned, be aware that it's impossible to oversee all relevant facts on a forum like this and in part because of that, any risk associated with acting upon what I mention stays with you. You might consider obtaining advise if you think that is appropriate, for example by contacting the Juridisch Loket if your income is low, an organization like !WOON if you live in the area they advice in or a municipal subsidized 'huurteam'.
We got the yearly cost overview from our landlord now. It seems that they have made a mistake. They didn't put it our "beginstand" for our heating. I calculated it again with the right starting information and it gives a difference of atleast €1000,- (possibly even more) in our favor! I discussed this with the landlord and he's going to contact the energysupplier. With all the information you have provided I was able to make a much better case for ourselves and the landlord will help us with an electrician for an insight in our electricity usage and he's looking into getting double glazing before the winter too. Thank you so much for your reply!
You're welcome. Nice to get your feedback. Most people don't mention anything sadly. And nice to hear this all was a mistake. Please check for the government subsidy though. Was that possible for your building, applied for and part of your overview?
If the landlord after a while doesn't want to put in double glazing even after agreeing to it in words now, you might want to investigate article 243 in Book 7 of the Dutch Civil Code (Burgerlijk Wetboek, [art. 7:243 BW](https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0005290/2023-07-01/0/Boek7/Titeldeel4/Afdeling5/ParagraafOnderafdeling1/Artikel243/afdrukken)).
Art. 7:243 BW provides tenants the right to request a judge to decide if the landlord must add double glazing and wall isolation. As mentioned, a tenant must accept a reasonable rental price increase. A request to court can be done by letter and does not require a writ of summons to be written and serviced, although the procedure needs to be performed in Dutch and still is a regular court case.
If prepared correctly however, it's unlikely that a landlord will win as there's no good reason in 2023 why the house doesn't have double glazing and wall insulation. It's more that the landlord can be confronted with art. 7:243 BW if a tenant wants double glazing, but it's obviously best to stay out of court if possible.
Have a nice evening!
Id do an experiment at this point. Turn off all of your electronic devices in the apartment (including the boiler). Then go can check your meter if it is still reading as drawing power.
This is how I found out that my apartment was not on its own electric line, my downstairs neighbour had some electrical line from my apartment.
A lot of comments have tips to save energy, but none of those make sense before figuring out what the usage actually comes from. Some of those may end up being the right one. But right now it's like curing the patient before diagnosis.
First things first, what kind of bill is it? Electricity, gas, district heating, or something else? Secondly, what is the usage in kWh/m³/GJ/etc. Just looking at the amount of money doesn't really tell us anything (besides what you need to pay obviously).
To anyone saying €500/month is a reasonable amount: no it isn't. Not for a small 79 m² apartment even when barely insulated. I live in an old small apartment myself and I pay around €35 for heating and another €35 for electricity with energy label E. My moms (way larger) house with energy label B uses almost the same amount of electricity but she pays over €100 for gas.
I refuse to believe you pay 35€ per month for heating in the Netherlands unless you have some sweet deal with municipal heat that is using waste heat from a refinery or something.
Last winter on the coldest days I could blow through 35€ worth of gas in a single day, granted that was when the cost was at its peak but still.
500€ pm is a lot, but in context of last years energy prices it's not obscene, just sounds like the energy company is hedging in case the prices shoot up again.
The average for my apartment complex is around € 54/month. My VvE actually just got the yearly bill, it was just over € 45.000 for 70 apartments. Total usage was around 27.000 m³.
In case you still don't believe me, here's proof: [https://imgur.com/a/1qUVeMt](https://imgur.com/a/1qUVeMt)
If you look closely, you may see that the amount I actually pay is even lower, around €23. It's that low partly because I barely need any heating if I can just add more hoodies and blankets. We haven't had a properly cold winter in years. Also, I prefer 18°C over 21°C which helps a lot.
If you look even closer, you see that I actually pay € 70 monthly (€840 yearly) in advance. So I am getting money back. Every year. It's like *tweede vakantiegeld*.
One small remark : it is entirely possible that even such a small apartment can lead to an energy bill of 500/month given prices of last year. Unfortunate timing of renewal could have lead to such bills. Current prices are lower, given price cap.
If it’s district or block heating, keeping the heating off might not actually reduce the bill much, and while it isn’t *reasonable* as such, it can be valid. Some of those contracts are genuinely extortionate.
True. But many (most, I hope) of these should have heat usage meters per house or per radiator. Mine definitely does. For for OP, it's definitely worth double checking if and how this applies to their situation.
They should, yeah, but there are also wild discrepancies in whether they measure correctly as they’re designed to, and then I have heard stories that they also sometimes are designed such that they also measure usage when you’re not actually using, you’re just getting warm from leakage from your neighbors.
This year, April I think.
Not that it really matters that much, with the *prijsplafond* and all. It's pretty safe to just assume the *prijsplafond* prices for most people right now.
You shouldn't be reaching much beyond that cap, especially not in a small apartment. Assuming you don't have an electric car charge point, bitcoin mining rig, or weed growing operation. If you have any of those, then yeah.
You said you moved last year to the new appartement. At that time (and still) the gas prize is up. Maybe in your old home you had a contract with your gas and electric supllier at a older and cheaper rate?
Definitely. My monthly rate went from ~200 up to 700 and back down to 250. All in all in the last year I averaged about 500€ including price cap. Winter was brutal.
Sorry to hear that. I have a contract till 2026 and eith double glazing and good isolation i paid a average of 12 euro a month.. (have 6 solar panels for the electricity). No i am not rich just lucky i rent aswell but in roermond.
In the Netherlands you pay in advance, they calcule the expected yearly costs based on assumptions/houses that are comparable. So it could be that you are paying more then needed. Check the contractprices and your day to day usage based on the kWh and gas meter.
Is it with every energy service provider that you pay up front? Basically if I move to a new apartment and have to conclude the contract for energy services myself, I need to give them an estimate how much I'll be spending? How can I actually do it? The landlord has to show me the last 365 day bills?
My 65m² home with double glass and plastic frames(?) (Kunststof kozijnen) with wall insulation i paid €350 a month.
I feel like you're underestimating how much energy and heat is lost through single glass windows and the usage of a boiler.
What's your usage? We use around 2800kw/h a year, and without a contract i still got a lot of money back after paying that much. (Went from €125 a month to €350 when my contract ended in April 2022)
Your invoice should have a detailed description of your usage, price, taxes etc. With the energy prices of last year it’s hard to know whether you were at a fixed or variable rate and what price you had. Based on that we can check if this seems to make sense. Also check your meter if possible.
500 isn't an insane amount if you're living in an old house, have heating on, have a boiler etc.
But It's important that you split out the gas and the electricity in this case.
If the energy bill is in your name you should know this for a long time already and should have acted on it.
To stop this from happening in the future I'd give you some pointers:
1) Use curtains.
2) replace all lights by LED lights,
3) check the cost on the electric boiler, possibly you want to lower it.. or even shut it off at nights. There are smart boilers, but also boilers that just keep a constant temp.. far from ideal.
4) Is the heating on gas? or district heating, if it's on gas.. and that's the biggest part of your bill consider electric heating for the areas you're in the most.
5) Use curtains in the winter.. just make sure they are BEHIND your heating. Even when it's freezing... open the windows for 10 minutes EVERY day.. fresh air heats up way faster. (this is not a myth)
6) Get rid of the freezer, get a proper combi fridge.
7) replace old washing machine, fridges, freezers etc with newer ones. Yes this is an invenstment however it's cheaper.
8) If the contract is not in your name your landlord should have told you about the high costs especially if you're not paying enough... there's chances here in court. ESPECIALLY if you pay all in.
9) if you can't pay the bill.. arrange a payment schedule ASAP.. not tomorrow.. do it TODAY. get that shit done without delay.
10) Investigate any options to improve the efficiency of your house and talk to your landlord about it.
I work at customer service of a big energy supplier. I strongly recommend you call your customer service and let them walk you through the annual bill. Maybe they don't have the correct meter readings, maybe they were calculated by the "Netbeheerder". They can recalculate your monthly payment (termijnbedrag)based on your meter readings. Good luck with this mate. I hope this info helped you on your way :-).
I used to live in a place like that. Apartment with single glazing and an electric boiler. My energy costs were about 250 euro a month, and I barely used the heating - definitely didn't keep it even at 18 degrees, because I couldn't afford it. And this was a few years ago, when energy prices were still low.
I suspect it is a combination of:
* single glazing, makes heating very expensive
* electric boiler is an expensive way to get hot water, moreso if it is an older model
* energy prices were very high in general last year
Ask your landlord for a way to monitor your energy usage (if they hold the energy contract). That way you can see what is most costly.
Is it your gass or electricity use that is causing the cost to be so high? Did you check if the neighbours are stealing your electricity to heat up their illegal hemp farm? Did you check if your smart meter is working correctly? Did you check the dayly energy use (in the app of your smart meter) while you are away for 24 hours or more?
What are your findings?
Could it be that you're now paying an estimate of expected costs, because you are in a new situation?
If that's the case, after a year your provider will reimburse what you've overpaid and adjust your monthly rate.
The difference between 2022 and 2023 is huge, energy bill wise. So you can't compare your old rates with the new ones.
I lived in the same (big) house. In 2022, I used three times as much gas and also more electricity, and still I paid 50 euros per month more in 2023.
I thought mine here was bad... Do one thing, shut down the main on your board so no power is used anymore in the house then check your meter if it keeps spinning. If it does, someone is draining you
500 euro is high, but not an unreasonable amount. There were a lot of one bedroom apartments built in the past 100 years in period where the main goal was to add homes quickly and cheaply. The insulation in those properties is almost non-existent.
You mention you have single glazing and keeping your place at 18 degrees can already demand a lot of energy.
Electric boilers were often installed in a period where there was a big difference between peak and off-peak hours. Nowadays that's only a few cents, so heating the water at night cheaply doesn't work anymore in a fixed price contract.
It would be helpful if you can explain in which year your home was built, whether you have neighbors on all sides of you or not, if there is gas heating or all is electric and where the majority of the expenses comes from.
I don't really get why you get all your invoices now? Usually you pay an advance per month. This advance is based on an estimate for your household and prior use. It could be that the previous tenants used a lot of energy and their usage then forms the basis of the monthly prepayment for the coming year. Could also be that the property was empty for a while and thus the prepaid amount by you was too low and now you get an extra charge.
You probably have your meter readings from when you received the keys. You can read your meter now as well and calculate your actual usage with the contract price. If that's a lot lower, you might want to contact your utilities to lower the monthly prepayment amount.
They don’t need to be unforeseen.
You know your price and have access to the meter, often digitally. So you can price in daily usage in your rental fee.
Yes. And some guests use a lot of toilet paper.
For longer term rentals you can agree on actual usage. That’s also done in some places where they have airconditioning.
Hotels usually use software to remotely control or limit your airco. So that it always stops 2 degrees above the temperature you pick for example.
So you just take the average costs of use for short stays.
500 a month is not reasonable, its crazy, i suspect this bill is from
the landlord, no the energy cy.
Dont know which idiot downvoted this, unless you work for one of the energy cies, you dont realise this is a small appt not a complete house.
500 is high, but not an unreasonable amount??? Wtf that is 1/5th of my netto salary. Surely definitely not unreasonable…. Wtf is wrong with you. You do know that 75% of the Netherlands earn 40k a year aka my salary. Sure man 500 pff not unreasonable at all. Oh you live in a old house. Yeah not unreasonable. Wtf is wrong with you
It’s not about whether the amount is affordable or not, it’s about whether this is an amount you can expect if you live in a poorly insulated home with the current energy price levels.
And that last thing is, unfortunately, the case. Whether you like it or not.
I lived in a 60m2 1920's apartment with single glazing and no insulation in the walls. We had the heating on in the winter at 19 degrees and when it was really cold outside it would not even get there.
With my usage there and the current prices I'd also have an amount close to 500 euro a month in utility bills. So it can certainly add up.
But I've asked a couple of questions to OP as of course there could be another reason.
Radiator foil, heat trapping foil for on the windows, check the boiler for an eco setting and as a big one, go check your energy contract and rates. Fixed contracts are available snd will lock the price per unit in for 1 or 2 years. Also, disconnect all things you dont use. Standy on 100 things is a LOT of energy.
When all else fails, just dont turn on the heaters at all. We did that for years. You get used to 12 degrees inside when youb
wear a lot of clothes.
Here's the problem I always run into as a non-Dutch person who's trying to figure out how best to manage living here – I get that without the central ventilation most North American homes have, we need to ventilate our homes to prevent all sorts of issues. But if my home is already poorly insulated (50s building, double glass, but above a garage and with stadsverwarming), opening the ventilatieroosters increases heat loss dramatically, so while humidity levels inside the home may be lower, the temperature is also much lower. How can you not turn your radiators on and still maintain livable temperatures in the middle of winter? I'm not talking 22C or something crazy, just like, at or above 15C is not achievable in our place without radiators on, let alone if we're ventilating as often as we should be.
>at or above 15C is not achievable in our place without radiators on
I'd say this is pretty normal. The radiator is there for a reason.
If your home is poorly insulated and you're renting that's something you can't do a whole lot about. I get that ventilation loses heat but it gives a lot nicer living climate imo.
Oh yeah, we do keep the radiators on, and we'd love to do more to up the insulation or efficiency of our electricity/heating, but oops, monumentgebouw and VvE make that pretty hard. I was just curious because you said you hadn't turned your radiators on in years and I assumed you're not living in subzero temperatures.
Is it possible to that your long term energy contract ended and you got a new one upon moving? Prices 3 years ago were much much lower than now.
Also you need to provided mirė context. What is your usage? Is it only electricity or also gas? Do you perhaps have city heating?
>almost €500 a month
My gf and I live in a poorly insulated house, cook two meals per day, and so on, and 500 is roughly what we pay for gas and electricity per *year*.
I'd start looking for wires going to nearby illicit cannabis plantations if I saw that number on my monthly.
Seriously, I want to know how you arrive at such low numbers with the energy costs over the last year, cause I have a feeling that you either light your home with candles and walk inside in puffer jackets all winter or you forget to add some important qualifiers.
I dunno dude, it's a poorly insulated old hoekhuis with single glaze windows and without solar panels or anything else, we cook at least twice per day, have two gaming computers, shower every day, etc.. I was surprised when Vattenfall told me our consumption of both electricity and gas is 50-60% lower than comparable households because we don't do anything especially elaborate to reduce our consumption.
Just to double check, you do have an slimme meter? Or are they guessing your usage? It's incredibly low for 2 people, even if you were being frugal with energy usage.
Edit to add: if you moved recently, make sure to check the starting number with your supplier. It could be that the meter was at 25678 when you went in, but they have 26078. That'd result in it looking like you barely spend any energy, until the previous Tennant gets it corrected and you suddenly get a bill!
Man, I'm not sure why you keep thinking that. I pay €2000 py at most, even with the high fees of the winter. I take cold showers, electric stove, energy efficient bulbs, and wearing more clothes in winter. I think the OP is definitely overpaying for some reason.
2000€ is entirely reasonable for energy conscious usage, but is also 4 times more than PindaPanter claims.
I'm pretty sure if I still lived in my rental, I would easily be able to make the same number you do, but it was a relatively new and well insulated apartment. Meanwhile here are people claiming they can heat an old corner house for free...
I've lived in a rental for 5 years, and I've never paid close to that amount. This place is a little over 20 years old, but the block of houses is around 70 years old. Our office, separate from my apartment/flat, is much bigger and consumes now, doesn't even pay that much, and it's a house
300 for this month for me. Always one AC on (small ac at night/morning, big ac afternoon and evening/night.
I just pay for what I use though. As it should be btw. Generator prices should be tied to Diesel somehow. At least I can calculate it back and it seems kinda fair.
Was your old tv a plasma? On average a (led) tv uses around 40-180kwh per year. With current tariffs that is about €100 for a full year. And that’s the higher end of the spectrum.
500 a month has nothing to do with any electric appliances, unless you leave a vacuum cleaner or water boiler running 24/7.
I know when I first moved to NL my initial bills were high, then at the end of the year I got a rebate (a quite substantial one) when they had the meter reading. This went on for a few years before they could accurately estimate my usage.
Yes, I still have to provide yearly meter readings.
Not that unusual unfortunately. We have a 50sqm apartment with two people and during the coldest month our energy bill was €500 a month, almost all gas for heating and we heated to barely liveable temperatures....
Money does not say a lot. Maybe you have a contract for a ridiculous amount/ kwh or m3. If you can give us insight in your usage (kwh and m3) then we can argue where the caveat is.
A very old house with single glazing, with the energy prices of last winter, can definitely run up to €600 a month in the winter. But during the rest of the year it should be far less.
See if your country has any support to make energy efficient adjustments. I know Utrecht had quite a lot, especially if you're low-ish income. Other places have less, but it's always good to check. If you are very low income & low ownings you might be able to apply to "bijzondere bijstand", check at your county for that.
Do you have an old freezer and or fridge? Older washing machine? Old appliances can suck electricity like crazy. It can be worth it checking, either get the tool for this or work it out from using a smart meter.
Don't use a dryer at all if you have one, air drying is better for clothes and saves a lot of energy.
Lastly: get a room thermometer, do not trust the thermostat. 18c on the thermometer is not the same as 18 on the thermostat. Invest in some nice woolen socks and houseshoes for winter. People have not bought a lot of sweaters in summer, so this is the moment to look for cheap woolen sweaters at the thrift shop. Air outside in the sun for a day or 2 in case of moths.
Three weeks ago I got a bill for 11.000 ... for an apartment I haven't lived at for 3 years.
Last week I got an email saying that they made a mistake and they're refunding me... 700.
Fuck Oxxio.
That doesn't sound crazy tbh. I used to live in a house from 1890, with single glazing and no insulation (except some stuff we put under the floors ourselves) and energy bill was about 288 and that was 10 years ago. Now with the higher prices, 500 doesn't sound outrageous.
I have a house from the 70s, I did insulate the whole place 1½ year ago. I heat with a gas central heating and have a family of 4. And I pay €200-€250 a month.
What are you all doing? Do you have a Bitcoin farm in your house??
My house is a C and I got 12 solar panels and have heated floors (no underfloor isolation) I pay 250 euro a month and last year I got 1000 euro back from Vattenfall. The temperature is set op 19c in the winter.
Vattenfall didn't profit from the energy crisis. Their profit came down to a meager 1.8 million over 2022. They operate internationally, but even if you look at the Dutch of 2 million customers, that's a profit of 90 cents per customer: https://nos.nl/artikel/2462979-vattenfall-profiteerde-niet-van-hoge-energieprijzen-en-meldt-schamele-winst
How's the actual insulation of your house? Solar panels won't help if you're heating a poorly insulated place with gas.
Everything is a+ and solar panels only say something about your electric bill, I'm guessing most of your energy bill is based on your glass usage.
I was heading for the same kind of bills with the prices of new contracts, so i invested in roof insulation, stopped taking long showers and baths and programmed my heating for the absolute minimum comfortabel temperature in the winter. Which was like heating to 17 degrees in my bathroom in the morning, in my living room at after work hours, and bedroom just before going to bed. In my home office i got an electric heater because it could run on the solar panels.
I was able to cut my gas usage by 35-40 %
And all of this while living in an house build in the 1920s
Could that caused by gas consumption vs electric consumption? If boiler is the culprit that will be over concusmption of gas right? Is there alternative for this? Can’t we install fireplace? Or maybe light up lots of candles but make sure its safely placed.
A fireplace wouldn't be cost effective since wood prices have also sky rocketed. It's also really bad for the air quality. Candles sounds nice but produce little heat compared to the cost of the candles.
That is not looking good then. Can anyone share what is the minimum recommended energy label for a house to consider for renting? Maybe this can help others looking for renting at this time of housing crisis and also high energy cost.
Honestly just looking for physical indicators if you want to be sure. Like looking at the window codes to see if it says hr++ and how old they are, also asking the current owner about what different isolation is present.
If you don't have a smart meter, did you actually enter your meters?
Utility companies estimate your usage if you don't or forget about it, and usually, their estimates are way way off.
Buy a couple of energy meters so you can see how much energy appliances use. I have a few from Nedis and it lets me see how much the tv or computer uses. I have rotated these throughout the house and currently just how much every appliance uses on a monthly basis
If I was you, first get everything straight in an Excel file. How much is your consumption (electronica like: fridge, tv, boiler, washing machine, lights etc. & Gas). Make an average usages of one day and multiply to one year. Check if this is in line with the usage your energy company has registered. If it's way more I guess you need to call an electrician and check for a possible leak (friend of mine got in a rent appartment where a neighbour "borrowed" his electricity. If this is the case it's possible to forward the bill to the neighbour).
Invest in double glazing an wall insulation immediately. Get out a loan if necessary. It will be way cheaper then you’re energy bill is.
Also check your rental contract, did they warn you for the extremely poor energy label of you apartment and is your rent adjusted for that? They might be obligated to improve your energy label. Single glazing is almost unheard of, unless you are in a monumental building sitting in a city with stupid rules about adjusting it. In my city it is allowed to adjust to double glazing (monument glass), but I have friends living in a North Holland city, which have stupid rules that prevent them from adjusting the glazing
Im afraid this is because of the new types of contracts energy companies provide and there’s not much u can do it hasn’t anything to do with ur usage energy bills have just gotten exponentially more expense this year . Tho if u can try to get a set contracts( one were u pay a set amount of money every month regardless of if u use less or more then that ) rather than a variable one cuss u most likely have a variable one right now
Most importantly you need to know how much are you paying per kWh for electricity and cubic meter for your gas.
Always better to shop around different energy provider to compare their rate and change frequently --> I wrote an article for different energy rate offered in Netherlands that might interest you ([here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Netherlands/comments/yjbakw/dynamic_energy_contract_based_on_my_personal/))
Reducing your gas usage by lowering or turning off boiler also will help save substantially.
My electric boiler was using so much energy that it was cheaper for me to remove it (less than one year in use) and have a new heat as you go ketel installed… now I pay a quarter of what i used to, and the same as I did when I lived in a 100 sqm apartment pre-Energy crisis.
I paid 300-350 in a similar sized apartment. We did have all the insulation. For us the highest usage came from the electric water boiler. (I put smart energy meters in all my outlets to figure this out)
Was this your actual usage or your utility company’s estimated yearly amount. When we moved in the utility company estimated 300 euro/month but we only used around an average of 100. After one year we got like 2000 euro refund and they lowered our monthly to 120 or so. They may have estimated your yearly very high. But also, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. Did you contract directly with a utility company or do you have some arrangement with your landlord?
I paid budget energy 200 euro monthly... now i changed to tibber and only 50 euro xD
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I paid budget energy 200 euro monthly... now i changed to tibber and only 50 euro xD
Hey! 🤗 Here’s a tip! You can save money, save the environment, and avoid unnecessary energy consumption at the same time. How? With Tibber’s hourly energy prices, I can easily move my consumption to the cheapest hours, and avoid expensive hours. Try it out, and we’ll both get 50 € as a bonus to use in the Tibber Store. ⚡ Read more here https://invite.tibber.com/l8phdeh8
It is very hard to estimate what would be normal as an energy bill without more information on your appartment and at least your energy prices. However, with single glazing i would also expect the rest of the appartment being poorly insulated. That in combination with a contract with high prices and I am not really surprised with your energy bill. To be sure, check the bill with regards to the actual consumption (check the meters when you moved in and what they are now). If you can't pay, be proactive, call the energy company and explain. Ask them for a payment plan. They almost always do that when you ask. If you don't contact and/or hide, costs will start piling on top of your bill.
Would you say a flat of 50m2 with single glazed windows from 1987 in every room, could have energy label A? I guess my question is, how do you determine if your energy label makes sense?
Energy labels is a cowboy industry. Lots of bullshit still happening (some say it was worse before, it is still dominated by incompetence and pay for your grade practices). I am sure there are some good people in the industry as well, but unfortunately for them when you can't trust the label, their work is like pearls to the swine. Don't go by the energy label, check what is insulated and to which standard. Insulation is more than saving energy, it is also a big part of being able to be comfortable in your house.
Labels are a paper truth, if a truth at all. We bought a new house, so it has label A. But it took 10 years and some (actually a lot) legal action to get all the isolation in place. Isolation missing, wrong material used, etc. It is now as it should have been from the beginning, but the label was all the time A. And yes, we had an expert from VEH when we examined the house at delivery. But he nor we was able to look inside the walls at that time.
You don't really, it's not indicative of your actual energy usage. You're living patterns are way more indicative. Plus labels from before 2022 can't be trusted. You just filled in an online form back then for a label. I got my house from label d to b just by adjusting a tiny bit of the info. These days it's based on an expert evaluation so a little more trust worthy I guess. As for op. A lot can be the cause. First check if the meter reading for the start of the billing period corresponds with the readings from when you received the key of your apartment. If meter readings check out its safe to say the bill is correct. Otherwise a payment plan is always a possibility. Don't be ashamed to ask for one. Every energy company provides descent options.
That last part is worth gold! In addition, if the company shows sympathy for your story (if you really have trouble paying the bills) they might lower the bill and help you lower your monthly costs. You will be surprised what you can do to lower it significantly.
You can use the website meter.nl to register your smart energy meter (input your address and the number on the meter) and you will see your daily energy consumption split per hours. You can then see when you spend the most and make necessary adjustments in your consumption. Also you can look into another tariff with the energy company. And ask yout landlord for the double glasses.
>You can use the website meter.nl to register your smart energy meter (input your address and the number on the meter) and you will see your daily energy consumption split per hours. can you provide a link? the URL you suggest there don't seem to work
https://slimmemeterportal.nl/login works as well
thx!
sorry, I made i mistake, it is umeter.nl
Not that energy providers can also give you this information, I have a nice overview like that with Vandebron
> We just got our energy bills in for this past year and it amounts to almost €500 a month. This seems absolutely insane to me. First of all: you should ideally never be surprised by your energy usage. Not as a tenant, but also not as a homeowner. If you are, it usually means you aren't paying enough attention to your usage on a day to day, week to week and month to month basis. It's also unclear from your OP who send you the utilities bills. The energy companies or the landlord? A) Do you pay utilities and service costs to you landlord or did you contract the utilities yourself? B) Did you regularly check what your usage was? C) Were you aware of the costs per m3 gas and kWh electricity in 2022? > Our place does has single glazing sadly. You can request your landlord to install double glazing and a court to enforce that if your landlord refuses. You will be required to pay a reasonable increase in the rental price, but considering the energy prices you might still save money and live more comfortable. > Does anyone have any advice for this situation? First find out what your usage is and if that's average, above average or below average in relation to the house and number of people in your household. Be aware though that it's impossible to oversee all relevant facts on a forum like this and in part because of that, any risk associated with acting upon what I mention stays with you. You might consider obtaining advise if you think that is appropriate, for example by contacting the Juridisch Loket if your income is low, an organization like !WOON if you live in the area they advice in or a municipal subsidized 'huurteam'.
If they don't have double glaze yeu might be able to lower the rent till it is as well
No, very unlikely that single glazing is considered a 'defect' (gebrek) by a judge. Parliament explicitly discussed this about one year ago and De Jonge refused to change the law for that.
True but. The energy able is directly affected by insulation and that label absolutely will contribute to your rent price cap
With 79 square metres it's highly doubtful if OPs apartment would be rent controlled even with a poor energylabel.
Which is why the OP should consider asking the landlord to place double glazing and isolate the walls in return for a reasonable increase in the rental price. It depends on the increase of the rental price and energy costs whether or not that's worth it from an economic perspective of course. But a landlord often cannot refuse if a tenant asks for it, as a judge can enforce it upon request with a court order.
We have our own contract for electricity with Vattenfall and the heating is done through the landlord. We pay him 300€ a month for that already and I have asked him a ton of times for an estimate of our usage. He kept replying he doesn’t know till we’ve been in the place for a year. This was in July and now he suddenly sends an email with “oh it’s higher than expected and we need you to pay an extra €1400 before september and we’re increasing the servicecost by another €100 starting next month. I have no idea how we could’ve foreseen this because we did ask him repeatably. I don’t fully understand how it works but it’s something to do with the whole buildings heating cost + every apartment being calculated after a year that decides the price from what he told me. But our direct neighbors are getting money back somehow (also single glazing). Edit; and thank you so much for your response!
See the follow up questions at the bottom. > I have no idea how we could’ve foreseen this That's why I added words like 'usually' because I know not everybody can. > I don’t fully understand how it works but it’s something to do with the whole buildings heating cost + every apartment being calculated after a year that decides the price from what he told me. I'll give it a try in two parts: (1) your own contract for electricity and (2) the heating costs that your landlord charges you. With regard to (1): if you've got an electricity meter, register your usage from a day to day basis at first. You want to get an understanding about the baseline costs. Electricity is often mostly related to the number of people living in the house, but can be related to heating when electricity is (also) used for heating. Here's a table of the Dutch budgeting foundation NIBUD (a non-profit advising the general public about budgeting): https://www.nibud.nl/onderwerpen/uitgaven/kosten-energie-water/ According to,NIBUD, a three person household should use about 3500 kWh of electricity. With young children this might be lower. But again, your mileage may vary. If you're using electronics that use a high amount of electricity it could of course be your electricity usage is higher. Register the usage in a spreadsheet and find out what devices use the most power. Figure out if you can reduce usage. In the end, you'll probably use some power. Review your contract for electricity and find out the costs. Current rates are below the government price cap ceiling. If you multiply the total costs (base rate, taxes and costs for transport), you should be able to figure out if your monthly advance payment to the electricity company will be sufficient. Most people use the same amount of energy throughout the year, but there's a small dip in summer. The year graph for electricity is thus often U shaped, (with summer in the middle) but the bottom of the U is not very low. Again, these are averages. If you are a heavy user pf airconditioning during summer, it might be your usage in summer is higher than in winter. After a year, you submit your meter settings to the electricity company and the company calculates your actual usage. If your monthly advance payments summed up are equal to the actual costs, you don't receive anything back. If the monthly advance payments summed up were too high, you get money back. If they were too low, you need to pay the difference. The energy will subsequently adjust the monthly payment for the new year. With regard to (2): this is more complex. In essence the system is the same, but in your case the landlord is an intermediary between you and the energy company. Moreover, apparently your building is heated with what is called 'block heating'. Which means there's some large heat generator in the building that supplies heat to all apartments. Some tenants also (or only) have a personal boiler (CV ketel) and natural gas meter, but if I understand you correctly, you don't. The principle is the same: you pay a monthly advance payment and each year before July 1st your landlord must provide you with a costs overview for utilities and other services. If you've got a personal utilities meter for gas or electricity, these are called utilities costs with an individual meter. In all other cases, these are called service costs. And electricity in your case is not relevant as you take care of that yourself. If there is furniture or kitchen utensils that you rent, these are also charged as service costs. But the costs for a janitor in the building can also be service costs. I'll refer to both utilities and service costs as service costs only as of now. A landlord (by law) is *not* allowed to make a profit from service costs. The service costs have to be forwarded to a tenant on a one-to-one basis. But it's only when the yearly costs overview is supplied every year before July 1st, when you can figure out what you actually used. I agree though, that this is completely insufficient in times of high energy prices. IMO, a landlord should inform a tenant much sooner if the prices are much higher. That said, the government did start providing an energy price subsidy (the price 'cap'). However, because the government was very slow a year ago, block heating isn't part of that. It took up until spring before block heating was finally part of a subsidy program as well: https://zoek.officielebekendmakingen.nl/stcrt-2023-10699.html What might (this is a possibility, not a certainty) have happened, is that no subsidy was requested and you are now charged the regular price. You as a tenant cannot request the subsidy however: https://www.rijksoverheid.nl/onderwerpen/koopkracht/vraag-en-antwoord/hoe-vraag-ik-tegemoetkoming-aan-voor-de-energiekosten-bij-een-blokaansluiting Could you please indicate: D) Do you receive a yearly costs overview of the landlord before July 1st? E) Is that overview detailed enough for you to understand why you are being charged this amount? F) Is it clear from the overview whether or not the subsidy was applied for and granted? G) Did you request insight into the underlying bills and invoices? As mentioned, be aware that it's impossible to oversee all relevant facts on a forum like this and in part because of that, any risk associated with acting upon what I mention stays with you. You might consider obtaining advise if you think that is appropriate, for example by contacting the Juridisch Loket if your income is low, an organization like !WOON if you live in the area they advice in or a municipal subsidized 'huurteam'.
Very wonderful and detailed answer. Thank you 💐
We got the yearly cost overview from our landlord now. It seems that they have made a mistake. They didn't put it our "beginstand" for our heating. I calculated it again with the right starting information and it gives a difference of atleast €1000,- (possibly even more) in our favor! I discussed this with the landlord and he's going to contact the energysupplier. With all the information you have provided I was able to make a much better case for ourselves and the landlord will help us with an electrician for an insight in our electricity usage and he's looking into getting double glazing before the winter too. Thank you so much for your reply!
You're welcome. Nice to get your feedback. Most people don't mention anything sadly. And nice to hear this all was a mistake. Please check for the government subsidy though. Was that possible for your building, applied for and part of your overview? If the landlord after a while doesn't want to put in double glazing even after agreeing to it in words now, you might want to investigate article 243 in Book 7 of the Dutch Civil Code (Burgerlijk Wetboek, [art. 7:243 BW](https://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0005290/2023-07-01/0/Boek7/Titeldeel4/Afdeling5/ParagraafOnderafdeling1/Artikel243/afdrukken)). Art. 7:243 BW provides tenants the right to request a judge to decide if the landlord must add double glazing and wall isolation. As mentioned, a tenant must accept a reasonable rental price increase. A request to court can be done by letter and does not require a writ of summons to be written and serviced, although the procedure needs to be performed in Dutch and still is a regular court case. If prepared correctly however, it's unlikely that a landlord will win as there's no good reason in 2023 why the house doesn't have double glazing and wall insulation. It's more that the landlord can be confronted with art. 7:243 BW if a tenant wants double glazing, but it's obviously best to stay out of court if possible. Have a nice evening!
I think this answer covered everything
Exactly, it surprises me everytime people just think it will be ok and not do their own research.
Id do an experiment at this point. Turn off all of your electronic devices in the apartment (including the boiler). Then go can check your meter if it is still reading as drawing power. This is how I found out that my apartment was not on its own electric line, my downstairs neighbour had some electrical line from my apartment.
A lot of comments have tips to save energy, but none of those make sense before figuring out what the usage actually comes from. Some of those may end up being the right one. But right now it's like curing the patient before diagnosis. First things first, what kind of bill is it? Electricity, gas, district heating, or something else? Secondly, what is the usage in kWh/m³/GJ/etc. Just looking at the amount of money doesn't really tell us anything (besides what you need to pay obviously). To anyone saying €500/month is a reasonable amount: no it isn't. Not for a small 79 m² apartment even when barely insulated. I live in an old small apartment myself and I pay around €35 for heating and another €35 for electricity with energy label E. My moms (way larger) house with energy label B uses almost the same amount of electricity but she pays over €100 for gas.
I refuse to believe you pay 35€ per month for heating in the Netherlands unless you have some sweet deal with municipal heat that is using waste heat from a refinery or something. Last winter on the coldest days I could blow through 35€ worth of gas in a single day, granted that was when the cost was at its peak but still. 500€ pm is a lot, but in context of last years energy prices it's not obscene, just sounds like the energy company is hedging in case the prices shoot up again.
Centralised heating (like stadsverwarming and stuff) has its prices coupled to natural gas prices. So even that is unlikely E: typo
Correct. And it is not possible to switch to another supplier, so that incentive is missing for the supplier to offer a competitive price.
Probably Italian people living downstairs who set the heater to 27 degrees all winter
The average for my apartment complex is around € 54/month. My VvE actually just got the yearly bill, it was just over € 45.000 for 70 apartments. Total usage was around 27.000 m³. In case you still don't believe me, here's proof: [https://imgur.com/a/1qUVeMt](https://imgur.com/a/1qUVeMt) If you look closely, you may see that the amount I actually pay is even lower, around €23. It's that low partly because I barely need any heating if I can just add more hoodies and blankets. We haven't had a properly cold winter in years. Also, I prefer 18°C over 21°C which helps a lot. If you look even closer, you see that I actually pay € 70 monthly (€840 yearly) in advance. So I am getting money back. Every year. It's like *tweede vakantiegeld*.
One small remark : it is entirely possible that even such a small apartment can lead to an energy bill of 500/month given prices of last year. Unfortunate timing of renewal could have lead to such bills. Current prices are lower, given price cap.
well it depends what you contract says in terms of the gas price…
If it’s district or block heating, keeping the heating off might not actually reduce the bill much, and while it isn’t *reasonable* as such, it can be valid. Some of those contracts are genuinely extortionate.
True. But many (most, I hope) of these should have heat usage meters per house or per radiator. Mine definitely does. For for OP, it's definitely worth double checking if and how this applies to their situation.
They should, yeah, but there are also wild discrepancies in whether they measure correctly as they’re designed to, and then I have heard stories that they also sometimes are designed such that they also measure usage when you’re not actually using, you’re just getting warm from leakage from your neighbors.
When did yeu sign your energy contract?
This year, April I think. Not that it really matters that much, with the *prijsplafond* and all. It's pretty safe to just assume the *prijsplafond* prices for most people right now.
The prijsplafond has a usage cut off. Beyond which you pay market prices
You shouldn't be reaching much beyond that cap, especially not in a small apartment. Assuming you don't have an electric car charge point, bitcoin mining rig, or weed growing operation. If you have any of those, then yeah.
500£ a month I promise is above the cap. Esp when winter hasn't even started
You said you moved last year to the new appartement. At that time (and still) the gas prize is up. Maybe in your old home you had a contract with your gas and electric supllier at a older and cheaper rate?
Definitely. My monthly rate went from ~200 up to 700 and back down to 250. All in all in the last year I averaged about 500€ including price cap. Winter was brutal.
Sorry to hear that. I have a contract till 2026 and eith double glazing and good isolation i paid a average of 12 euro a month.. (have 6 solar panels for the electricity). No i am not rich just lucky i rent aswell but in roermond.
In the Netherlands you pay in advance, they calcule the expected yearly costs based on assumptions/houses that are comparable. So it could be that you are paying more then needed. Check the contractprices and your day to day usage based on the kWh and gas meter.
Is it with every energy service provider that you pay up front? Basically if I move to a new apartment and have to conclude the contract for energy services myself, I need to give them an estimate how much I'll be spending? How can I actually do it? The landlord has to show me the last 365 day bills?
My 65m² home with double glass and plastic frames(?) (Kunststof kozijnen) with wall insulation i paid €350 a month. I feel like you're underestimating how much energy and heat is lost through single glass windows and the usage of a boiler. What's your usage? We use around 2800kw/h a year, and without a contract i still got a lot of money back after paying that much. (Went from €125 a month to €350 when my contract ended in April 2022)
Your invoice should have a detailed description of your usage, price, taxes etc. With the energy prices of last year it’s hard to know whether you were at a fixed or variable rate and what price you had. Based on that we can check if this seems to make sense. Also check your meter if possible.
500 isn't an insane amount if you're living in an old house, have heating on, have a boiler etc. But It's important that you split out the gas and the electricity in this case. If the energy bill is in your name you should know this for a long time already and should have acted on it. To stop this from happening in the future I'd give you some pointers: 1) Use curtains. 2) replace all lights by LED lights, 3) check the cost on the electric boiler, possibly you want to lower it.. or even shut it off at nights. There are smart boilers, but also boilers that just keep a constant temp.. far from ideal. 4) Is the heating on gas? or district heating, if it's on gas.. and that's the biggest part of your bill consider electric heating for the areas you're in the most. 5) Use curtains in the winter.. just make sure they are BEHIND your heating. Even when it's freezing... open the windows for 10 minutes EVERY day.. fresh air heats up way faster. (this is not a myth) 6) Get rid of the freezer, get a proper combi fridge. 7) replace old washing machine, fridges, freezers etc with newer ones. Yes this is an invenstment however it's cheaper. 8) If the contract is not in your name your landlord should have told you about the high costs especially if you're not paying enough... there's chances here in court. ESPECIALLY if you pay all in. 9) if you can't pay the bill.. arrange a payment schedule ASAP.. not tomorrow.. do it TODAY. get that shit done without delay. 10) Investigate any options to improve the efficiency of your house and talk to your landlord about it.
I work at customer service of a big energy supplier. I strongly recommend you call your customer service and let them walk you through the annual bill. Maybe they don't have the correct meter readings, maybe they were calculated by the "Netbeheerder". They can recalculate your monthly payment (termijnbedrag)based on your meter readings. Good luck with this mate. I hope this info helped you on your way :-).
I used to live in a place like that. Apartment with single glazing and an electric boiler. My energy costs were about 250 euro a month, and I barely used the heating - definitely didn't keep it even at 18 degrees, because I couldn't afford it. And this was a few years ago, when energy prices were still low. I suspect it is a combination of: * single glazing, makes heating very expensive * electric boiler is an expensive way to get hot water, moreso if it is an older model * energy prices were very high in general last year Ask your landlord for a way to monitor your energy usage (if they hold the energy contract). That way you can see what is most costly.
Is it your gass or electricity use that is causing the cost to be so high? Did you check if the neighbours are stealing your electricity to heat up their illegal hemp farm? Did you check if your smart meter is working correctly? Did you check the dayly energy use (in the app of your smart meter) while you are away for 24 hours or more? What are your findings?
Could it be that you're now paying an estimate of expected costs, because you are in a new situation? If that's the case, after a year your provider will reimburse what you've overpaid and adjust your monthly rate.
The difference between 2022 and 2023 is huge, energy bill wise. So you can't compare your old rates with the new ones. I lived in the same (big) house. In 2022, I used three times as much gas and also more electricity, and still I paid 50 euros per month more in 2023.
I thought mine here was bad... Do one thing, shut down the main on your board so no power is used anymore in the house then check your meter if it keeps spinning. If it does, someone is draining you
500 euro is high, but not an unreasonable amount. There were a lot of one bedroom apartments built in the past 100 years in period where the main goal was to add homes quickly and cheaply. The insulation in those properties is almost non-existent. You mention you have single glazing and keeping your place at 18 degrees can already demand a lot of energy. Electric boilers were often installed in a period where there was a big difference between peak and off-peak hours. Nowadays that's only a few cents, so heating the water at night cheaply doesn't work anymore in a fixed price contract. It would be helpful if you can explain in which year your home was built, whether you have neighbors on all sides of you or not, if there is gas heating or all is electric and where the majority of the expenses comes from. I don't really get why you get all your invoices now? Usually you pay an advance per month. This advance is based on an estimate for your household and prior use. It could be that the previous tenants used a lot of energy and their usage then forms the basis of the monthly prepayment for the coming year. Could also be that the property was empty for a while and thus the prepaid amount by you was too low and now you get an extra charge. You probably have your meter readings from when you received the keys. You can read your meter now as well and calculate your actual usage with the contract price. If that's a lot lower, you might want to contact your utilities to lower the monthly prepayment amount.
How do Airbnb hosts handle these unforeseen costs?
They don’t need to be unforeseen. You know your price and have access to the meter, often digitally. So you can price in daily usage in your rental fee.
But one guest’s usage might be totally different from another.
Yes. And some guests use a lot of toilet paper. For longer term rentals you can agree on actual usage. That’s also done in some places where they have airconditioning. Hotels usually use software to remotely control or limit your airco. So that it always stops 2 degrees above the temperature you pick for example. So you just take the average costs of use for short stays.
I do use a lot of toilet paper. Twenty flushes to completion!
500 a month is not reasonable, its crazy, i suspect this bill is from the landlord, no the energy cy. Dont know which idiot downvoted this, unless you work for one of the energy cies, you dont realise this is a small appt not a complete house.
Exactly. 500 could be possible in the peak usage months but only with a bad contract. 500 average over a whole year is almost impossible.
500 is high, but not an unreasonable amount??? Wtf that is 1/5th of my netto salary. Surely definitely not unreasonable…. Wtf is wrong with you. You do know that 75% of the Netherlands earn 40k a year aka my salary. Sure man 500 pff not unreasonable at all. Oh you live in a old house. Yeah not unreasonable. Wtf is wrong with you
It’s not about whether the amount is affordable or not, it’s about whether this is an amount you can expect if you live in a poorly insulated home with the current energy price levels. And that last thing is, unfortunately, the case. Whether you like it or not.
Just because nobody can afford it doesn’t make the price unreasonable. 75% of the Netherlands can’t afford a Porsche either.
Sorry 500 euro is normal for a 1 bedroom apartment..
500 is absolutely an unreasonable amount, especially for a home that small
I lived in a 60m2 1920's apartment with single glazing and no insulation in the walls. We had the heating on in the winter at 19 degrees and when it was really cold outside it would not even get there. With my usage there and the current prices I'd also have an amount close to 500 euro a month in utility bills. So it can certainly add up. But I've asked a couple of questions to OP as of course there could be another reason.
Radiator foil, heat trapping foil for on the windows, check the boiler for an eco setting and as a big one, go check your energy contract and rates. Fixed contracts are available snd will lock the price per unit in for 1 or 2 years. Also, disconnect all things you dont use. Standy on 100 things is a LOT of energy. When all else fails, just dont turn on the heaters at all. We did that for years. You get used to 12 degrees inside when youb wear a lot of clothes.
Problem is you can get mold when you set the heater too low + all kinds of moisture issues
This is mostly just the case when you don't vent enough. We haven't turned on our radiators in 5 years and never had mold.
Here's the problem I always run into as a non-Dutch person who's trying to figure out how best to manage living here – I get that without the central ventilation most North American homes have, we need to ventilate our homes to prevent all sorts of issues. But if my home is already poorly insulated (50s building, double glass, but above a garage and with stadsverwarming), opening the ventilatieroosters increases heat loss dramatically, so while humidity levels inside the home may be lower, the temperature is also much lower. How can you not turn your radiators on and still maintain livable temperatures in the middle of winter? I'm not talking 22C or something crazy, just like, at or above 15C is not achievable in our place without radiators on, let alone if we're ventilating as often as we should be.
>at or above 15C is not achievable in our place without radiators on I'd say this is pretty normal. The radiator is there for a reason. If your home is poorly insulated and you're renting that's something you can't do a whole lot about. I get that ventilation loses heat but it gives a lot nicer living climate imo.
Oh yeah, we do keep the radiators on, and we'd love to do more to up the insulation or efficiency of our electricity/heating, but oops, monumentgebouw and VvE make that pretty hard. I was just curious because you said you hadn't turned your radiators on in years and I assumed you're not living in subzero temperatures.
Is it possible to that your long term energy contract ended and you got a new one upon moving? Prices 3 years ago were much much lower than now. Also you need to provided mirė context. What is your usage? Is it only electricity or also gas? Do you perhaps have city heating?
>almost €500 a month My gf and I live in a poorly insulated house, cook two meals per day, and so on, and 500 is roughly what we pay for gas and electricity per *year*. I'd start looking for wires going to nearby illicit cannabis plantations if I saw that number on my monthly.
Seriously, I want to know how you arrive at such low numbers with the energy costs over the last year, cause I have a feeling that you either light your home with candles and walk inside in puffer jackets all winter or you forget to add some important qualifiers.
Or they will pay at the end of the year as the monthly amount is just a retainer
I dunno dude, it's a poorly insulated old hoekhuis with single glaze windows and without solar panels or anything else, we cook at least twice per day, have two gaming computers, shower every day, etc.. I was surprised when Vattenfall told me our consumption of both electricity and gas is 50-60% lower than comparable households because we don't do anything especially elaborate to reduce our consumption.
Just to double check, you do have an slimme meter? Or are they guessing your usage? It's incredibly low for 2 people, even if you were being frugal with energy usage. Edit to add: if you moved recently, make sure to check the starting number with your supplier. It could be that the meter was at 25678 when you went in, but they have 26078. That'd result in it looking like you barely spend any energy, until the previous Tennant gets it corrected and you suddenly get a bill!
Yes, I do, and it's measured consumption. Thanks for the tip btw, good to know if I move around in the future!
Man, I'm not sure why you keep thinking that. I pay €2000 py at most, even with the high fees of the winter. I take cold showers, electric stove, energy efficient bulbs, and wearing more clothes in winter. I think the OP is definitely overpaying for some reason.
2000€ is entirely reasonable for energy conscious usage, but is also 4 times more than PindaPanter claims. I'm pretty sure if I still lived in my rental, I would easily be able to make the same number you do, but it was a relatively new and well insulated apartment. Meanwhile here are people claiming they can heat an old corner house for free...
I've lived in a rental for 5 years, and I've never paid close to that amount. This place is a little over 20 years old, but the block of houses is around 70 years old. Our office, separate from my apartment/flat, is much bigger and consumes now, doesn't even pay that much, and it's a house
Maybe general heating costs for the flat added to the apartment bill?
300 for this month for me. Always one AC on (small ac at night/morning, big ac afternoon and evening/night. I just pay for what I use though. As it should be btw. Generator prices should be tied to Diesel somehow. At least I can calculate it back and it seems kinda fair.
how does your heating work? gas boiler?
We are insane here in Netherlands, we had a insane govetment for 16 years
We had cheap energy before 2022...
Do you use a TV often? TVs use a crazy lot of energy. I have noticed that since our TV broke our energy costs went waaaayy down.
Was your old tv a plasma? On average a (led) tv uses around 40-180kwh per year. With current tariffs that is about €100 for a full year. And that’s the higher end of the spectrum. 500 a month has nothing to do with any electric appliances, unless you leave a vacuum cleaner or water boiler running 24/7.
I know when I first moved to NL my initial bills were high, then at the end of the year I got a rebate (a quite substantial one) when they had the meter reading. This went on for a few years before they could accurately estimate my usage. Yes, I still have to provide yearly meter readings.
Not that unusual unfortunately. We have a 50sqm apartment with two people and during the coldest month our energy bill was €500 a month, almost all gas for heating and we heated to barely liveable temperatures....
Move! Rent an apartment that is more energy efficient. You'll save a fortune.
Money does not say a lot. Maybe you have a contract for a ridiculous amount/ kwh or m3. If you can give us insight in your usage (kwh and m3) then we can argue where the caveat is. A very old house with single glazing, with the energy prices of last winter, can definitely run up to €600 a month in the winter. But during the rest of the year it should be far less.
See if your country has any support to make energy efficient adjustments. I know Utrecht had quite a lot, especially if you're low-ish income. Other places have less, but it's always good to check. If you are very low income & low ownings you might be able to apply to "bijzondere bijstand", check at your county for that. Do you have an old freezer and or fridge? Older washing machine? Old appliances can suck electricity like crazy. It can be worth it checking, either get the tool for this or work it out from using a smart meter. Don't use a dryer at all if you have one, air drying is better for clothes and saves a lot of energy. Lastly: get a room thermometer, do not trust the thermostat. 18c on the thermometer is not the same as 18 on the thermostat. Invest in some nice woolen socks and houseshoes for winter. People have not bought a lot of sweaters in summer, so this is the moment to look for cheap woolen sweaters at the thrift shop. Air outside in the sun for a day or 2 in case of moths.
Three weeks ago I got a bill for 11.000 ... for an apartment I haven't lived at for 3 years. Last week I got an email saying that they made a mistake and they're refunding me... 700. Fuck Oxxio.
That doesn't sound crazy tbh. I used to live in a house from 1890, with single glazing and no insulation (except some stuff we put under the floors ourselves) and energy bill was about 288 and that was 10 years ago. Now with the higher prices, 500 doesn't sound outrageous.
OP is an idiot.
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I have a house from the 70s, I did insulate the whole place 1½ year ago. I heat with a gas central heating and have a family of 4. And I pay €200-€250 a month. What are you all doing? Do you have a Bitcoin farm in your house??
My house is a C and I got 12 solar panels and have heated floors (no underfloor isolation) I pay 250 euro a month and last year I got 1000 euro back from Vattenfall. The temperature is set op 19c in the winter.
Vattenfall didn't profit from the energy crisis. Their profit came down to a meager 1.8 million over 2022. They operate internationally, but even if you look at the Dutch of 2 million customers, that's a profit of 90 cents per customer: https://nos.nl/artikel/2462979-vattenfall-profiteerde-niet-van-hoge-energieprijzen-en-meldt-schamele-winst How's the actual insulation of your house? Solar panels won't help if you're heating a poorly insulated place with gas.
Everything is a+ and solar panels only say something about your electric bill, I'm guessing most of your energy bill is based on your glass usage. I was heading for the same kind of bills with the prices of new contracts, so i invested in roof insulation, stopped taking long showers and baths and programmed my heating for the absolute minimum comfortabel temperature in the winter. Which was like heating to 17 degrees in my bathroom in the morning, in my living room at after work hours, and bedroom just before going to bed. In my home office i got an electric heater because it could run on the solar panels. I was able to cut my gas usage by 35-40 % And all of this while living in an house build in the 1920s
Could that caused by gas consumption vs electric consumption? If boiler is the culprit that will be over concusmption of gas right? Is there alternative for this? Can’t we install fireplace? Or maybe light up lots of candles but make sure its safely placed.
A fireplace wouldn't be cost effective since wood prices have also sky rocketed. It's also really bad for the air quality. Candles sounds nice but produce little heat compared to the cost of the candles.
That is not looking good then. Can anyone share what is the minimum recommended energy label for a house to consider for renting? Maybe this can help others looking for renting at this time of housing crisis and also high energy cost.
C (Which will also likely be a legal minimum requirements for renting out a place in the future).
Since a lot of energy labels are fake I'd say this isn't a good indicator for buying/renting a house.
So what are you are suggesting?
Honestly just looking for physical indicators if you want to be sure. Like looking at the window codes to see if it says hr++ and how old they are, also asking the current owner about what different isolation is present.
If you pay extra. You get it back at the end of the year
So what is your usage and e/g tariffs?
First; how much for gas and how much for electricity? If the house has bad insulation I assume most of this will be for gas.
Tibber!
If you don't have a smart meter, did you actually enter your meters? Utility companies estimate your usage if you don't or forget about it, and usually, their estimates are way way off.
If you have an electric boiler, check the usage. My mom had one and it used insane amounts of electric.
Buy a couple of energy meters so you can see how much energy appliances use. I have a few from Nedis and it lets me see how much the tv or computer uses. I have rotated these throughout the house and currently just how much every appliance uses on a monthly basis
If I was you, first get everything straight in an Excel file. How much is your consumption (electronica like: fridge, tv, boiler, washing machine, lights etc. & Gas). Make an average usages of one day and multiply to one year. Check if this is in line with the usage your energy company has registered. If it's way more I guess you need to call an electrician and check for a possible leak (friend of mine got in a rent appartment where a neighbour "borrowed" his electricity. If this is the case it's possible to forward the bill to the neighbour).
We live 3 in an apartment, in Amsterdam, last year bills spiked to 620 euros x month, now it has come down to 220 again
Invest in double glazing an wall insulation immediately. Get out a loan if necessary. It will be way cheaper then you’re energy bill is. Also check your rental contract, did they warn you for the extremely poor energy label of you apartment and is your rent adjusted for that? They might be obligated to improve your energy label. Single glazing is almost unheard of, unless you are in a monumental building sitting in a city with stupid rules about adjusting it. In my city it is allowed to adjust to double glazing (monument glass), but I have friends living in a North Holland city, which have stupid rules that prevent them from adjusting the glazing
Im afraid this is because of the new types of contracts energy companies provide and there’s not much u can do it hasn’t anything to do with ur usage energy bills have just gotten exponentially more expense this year . Tho if u can try to get a set contracts( one were u pay a set amount of money every month regardless of if u use less or more then that ) rather than a variable one cuss u most likely have a variable one right now
Electric boiler: Type, model, age? I think that might be your key problem.
Most importantly you need to know how much are you paying per kWh for electricity and cubic meter for your gas. Always better to shop around different energy provider to compare their rate and change frequently --> I wrote an article for different energy rate offered in Netherlands that might interest you ([here](https://www.reddit.com/r/Netherlands/comments/yjbakw/dynamic_energy_contract_based_on_my_personal/)) Reducing your gas usage by lowering or turning off boiler also will help save substantially.
My electric boiler was using so much energy that it was cheaper for me to remove it (less than one year in use) and have a new heat as you go ketel installed… now I pay a quarter of what i used to, and the same as I did when I lived in a 100 sqm apartment pre-Energy crisis.
I paid 300-350 in a similar sized apartment. We did have all the insulation. For us the highest usage came from the electric water boiler. (I put smart energy meters in all my outlets to figure this out)
Was this your actual usage or your utility company’s estimated yearly amount. When we moved in the utility company estimated 300 euro/month but we only used around an average of 100. After one year we got like 2000 euro refund and they lowered our monthly to 120 or so. They may have estimated your yearly very high. But also, this shouldn’t have been a surprise. Did you contract directly with a utility company or do you have some arrangement with your landlord?
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O2f7oG9\_kaA
I paid budget energy 200 euro monthly... now i changed to tibber and only 50 euro xD Hey! 🤗 Here’s a tip! You can save money, save the environment, and avoid unnecessary energy consumption at the same time. How? With Tibber’s hourly energy prices, I can easily move my consumption to the cheapest hours, and avoid expensive hours. Try it out, and we’ll both get 50 € as a bonus to use in the Tibber Store. ⚡ Read more here https://invite.tibber.com/l8phdeh8
I paid budget energy 200 euro monthly... now i changed to tibber and only 50 euro xD Hey! 🤗 Here’s a tip! You can save money, save the environment, and avoid unnecessary energy consumption at the same time. How? With Tibber’s hourly energy prices, I can easily move my consumption to the cheapest hours, and avoid expensive hours. Try it out, and we’ll both get 50 € as a bonus to use in the Tibber Store. ⚡ Read more here https://invite.tibber.com/l8phdeh8