The cold weather has arrived, and with it, terrible gas bills. Climate change has made summers much warmer, so in summer we use air conditioning more, and in winter we cannot live without heating. This makes bills increasingly expensive. According to the Organization of Consumers and Users (OCU), on average Spaniards spend 750 euros per year per house for heating. The problem arises when houses are not well insulated and Spaniards are unable to maintain adequate temperatures in their homes.

In winter, heat “runs away” from the house, and in summer it seems that it floods every corner of the house. In Spain, 60% of homes are built without insulation, meaning that 17% of the population say they cannot keep their home at an adequate temperature. And not only this. The harmful effects of poorly maintained housing are greater than we think. lack of ventilation It increases air humidity, which can cause an increase in respiratory diseases, especially in children and asthmatics.

“People are very worried about the condition of our car. Whether it works well or needs to be tested, we worry less about our home and its insulation. Often we don’t pay attention to this because we think that restoring a home is an expense and not an investment.”, admits Cecilia Foronda, Director of Energy and Human Resources at ECODES.

Health problems

Poor building insulation has many more consequences than we think. As Foronda says, “It not only affects our wallets, but also our health.”

Lack of ventilation increases air humidity, which can cause an increase in respiratory diseases, especially in children and asthmatics.

Poor insulation means that windows are closed tightly in winter to prevent even more cold from entering. Lack of ventilation, in addition to reducing indoor air quality, leads to increased air humidity, which settles on cold walls and can cause mold. At the same time, respiratory diseases, asthma and bronchitis increase. In fact, people living in unhealthy buildings They are 40% more likely to develop asthma.

Mariano Pastor Sanz, president of the Spanish Federation of Allergy and Respiratory Associations (FENAER), warns that “the consequences are obvious and can be serious.” Moreover, as Pastor explains, poor indoor air quality or humidity not only affects people with asthma or respiratory problems, but healthy people can also suffer from asthma as a result. For this reason, he points out, “it is very important to raise awareness in society at large about the importance of indoor air quality. “We think a lot about nature, but the reality is that we spend more than 80% of our time indoors.”

Schools are poorly isolated

Schools are under the spotlight due to poor insulation and the impact it has on children. According to research by RenOnBill, 9 out of 10 teachers say the insulation of the building in which they teach could be improved.

“Children go to classes, eat, they have extracurricular activities… Some even spend 8 hours at school. And most of them do not have good thermal insulation. Inside the classrooms, 34 degrees was recorded. This affects academic performance. our boys and girls. This affects the ability to concentrate,” says the director of energy and people at ECODES.

RenOnBill research shows that Spanish children miss around 94,000 school days a year due to indoor humidity and mold.. Days when poor school conditions affect health. Children get sick, catch a cold, or get heatstroke. “In the Canary Islands this year they banned classes because of the heat and they had to close schools,” recalls Foronda, who insists that “both heat and cold cause illness,” and sometimes “you can’t even hold classes because what conditions.” “.

Reforms to improve energy efficiency could solve many of these problems: they create drier and warmer indoor environments, improve perceived health, reduce the number of days away from school or work, reduce the number of visits to the family doctor and hospitalizations for respiratory diseases. diseases. They also reduce the incidence of asthma, allergic rhinitis, sinusitis and hypertension.

In fact, according to Foronda, preventing indoor humidity and disease-causing mold can lead to accumulated economic benefits of almost 1.9 billion. euros until 2060.

Negotiations with the EU on building rehabilitation

Now all eyes are on the Energy Performance of Buildings Directive (EPBD). This is a European Union standard that sets out an action plan for the restoration of European buildings and the introduction of technologies such as heat pumps and solar panels to reduce greenhouse gas emissions from now until 2050.

After several months of negotiations on the EU Directive on the energy efficiency of buildings, This Thursday we reach the final round in which large-scale rehabilitation of public and private buildings. While many provisions have already been agreed, including relaxation of actual rehabilitation requirements, the overall level of ambition remains to be determined. Countries, including Spain, will have to set a common level energy saving which they should achieve by 2030 and 2035.

For Foronda, the negotiations were complicated by the fact that “the level of ambition is decreasing.” “It is very important these days that the Spanish state, which currently holds the European Presidency, works to raise the ambition of the directive by focusing on rehabilitating the 25% of the most inefficient buildings, which typically house more people. vulnerable or in a situation of poverty,” he adds.

In the meantime… What can we do?

Despite this, the director of Energy and People of ECODES recalls that “at present, autonomous communities already receive assistance for the rehabilitation of houses” and calls on citizens to “go to the rehabilitation offices to find out what assistance exists in their community.”

Meanwhile, to increase the efficiency of our buildings and avoid humidity, he advises Open the windows and use dehumidifiers. But not only that, we can implement low-cost measures such as using curtains and awnings, double doors and lowering blinds when night falls in winter and there is more solar radiation in summer.

Fenaer agrees that these measures “involve progress not only in the field of the environment, but also in the field of health.” “As patients with respiratory diseases, we are the first to want better air, but it is very important to raise public awareness about indoor air quality and let them know how to ventilate, especially during hours when there is less pollution,” he adds. .